Alone

It's breaking my heart to see stories like this. And the book I'm currently reading continues on this theme. It's the drastic loss of biodiversity around the world. Species are going extinct at a rate unseen for hundreds of thousands of years. And all because we want computers, ipods, cell phones, tuna sandwiches, cars, ethanol, new furniture and tiger penises--things that we think will make us happy but never do so we vainly search for the next cure all.

What kind of world do we want? Where we're heading is a world occupied by billions upon billions of humans (despite the fact that without plentiful oil, this growth is impossible). At the same time, we'll maintain several beneficial and tasty species like cows, pigs and chickens. Apart from these inhabitants, we think, we need no other species to have meaningful lives. We're building a miserable monoculture.

The way we act demonstrates that none of us care a lick for all the species that vanish from the earth as the clock ticks on the final seconds of civilization. I don't care beyond my breaking heart; you don't care do you? Not enough to do anything at least. So the silent genocide continues. It's like breathing smog, it doesn't kill you right away so you ignore that the air is poisoned. I do this everyday. I don't even notice anymore.

I only hope civilization expires before we are truly alone and our systems of destruction fall apart, never to be reborn. Because alone we are truly finished. We need these brothers, sisters and cousins to live in the uncivilized world to come. Humans are part of a system. We've only forgotten it and are blindly tearing it to shreds, condemning our children and grandchildren for the price of fleeting attachment.