We call the planet we live on “Mother Earth” for a reason: everything that nurtures life as we know it depends on Mother Earth for existence. The idea has been with us a long time, back in the Middle Ages, a woman of extraordinary spiritual insight, Hildegard of Bingen, said:
The earth is at the same time mother,
She is mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is human.
She is the mother of all, for contained in her are the seeds of all.
The earth of humankind contains all moistness,
all verdancy, all germinating power.
It is in so many ways fruitful.
All creation comes from it. Yet it forms not only the basic raw material
for humankind, but also the substance of the incarnation of
God’s son.
Another famous quotation, usually attributed to Chief Seattle, says:
Teach your children what we have taught our children: that the earth is our true mother. Whatever happens to the earth, happens to the children of the earth. If people spit on the ground, they spit on themselves. We know: the earth does not belong to people, but people belong to the earth. We know: everything is joined together in some way, like the blood that runs through a family. Whatever happens to the earth, happens to the children of the earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are just a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
One of the reasons such quotations have persisted is that they resonate with what most of us know to be true: the earth does not belong to the people, but people belong to the earth. At one time, humans were relatively in tune with the earth and the animals and plants that share it with us. Our “fall from Grace,” if we can call it that, came when humans decided that they were superior to and were to “have dominion” over the rest of Nature.
Nature is so vast that it has taken a very long time for our “chickens to come home to roost.” Even now, many people are unwilling or unable to see that Nature has been pushed to the breaking point. Mother Earth has, of course, had periods of increasing and decreasing temperature for eons. The planet we call “home” heats up and cools down, with major changes in temperature influencing what kind of life flourishes. For this reason, many of the climate deniers protest legislative efforts to slow or stop global warming. My sense is that it doesn’t make a difference whether humans are the principal cause of global warming now. Whether we are the cause or not, we are the only beings on the planet that can do anything to slow or stop it.
Earth has, of course, had major extinctions in the past. Most people are aware, for example, that Fred Flintstone notwithstanding, the dinosaurs no longer walk among us. If we can’t stop—and perhaps reverse—global warming soon, we are like to be unwilling participants in the Sixth Extinction. The changing climate is already having a major impact on a number of island countries and quite a few cities are heading underwater as well.
The big objection to making changes that would improve the chances that mammals (including humans) have of surviving the next hundred years or so is that changes will be expensive and cut into the profits of major corporations, especially fossil fuel companies, agri-businesses, and those who supply them. Politicians would also be affected as the corporations that will need to change the most are major donors to political parties and to politicians. In Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World, Bill Nye says, “To confront climate change, we all have to embrace two ideas. They are simple and familiar ideas, but that does not make them any less true. First: We are all in this together. Second: The longest journey begins with a simple step.” We are all in this together, and we all need to start taking simple steps. We need to use less and to recycle more. We need to move increasingly in the direction of a plant-based diet.
I am not finding reducing the meat I eat easy. I was brought up in a “meat and potatoes” family, so I have had a long-life of conditioning for thinking that a “real meal” contains meat. I am not ready to give up eating meat completely, but I’m certainly ready to reduce my consumption to do my share to help ensure that human life will have a chance of avoiding being part of the sixth extinction. I do what I can to recycle things that can be recycled, and I do what I can to find and take simple steps. I would be glad to hear that you are doing the same.