We Live The Same Earth

In too many books, newspaper and magazine articles, nature-oriented blog entries and boob-tube shows, Earth, our planet is often referred to as our dear mother, our very source of life and the gracious supporter of our existence. Yet, it is very interesting and somewhat disturbing that the human race has a rather odd way of expressing love for its beloved mother.

Ever since man learned his science, every little piece on Earth has been formed, structured, designed, styled and recreated to suit man's needs, wants and caprices. There really is nothing wrong with surviving. The manner of doing so, however, needs evaluation and hopefully, change.

160 000 years ago, man perhaps has no concept of property nor of superiority. Population then was of course nil and resources was like a thousand-folds higher than what it is today. And so, the law of natural growth dictates the exponential increase of man. When their number have begun to double, triple and soon became almost countless, perspectives changed and competition arose. Something seems to remain permanent though. The idea that nature will for eternity deliver man's needs because it is an unbounded pool of resources and it is just too vast to be affected by the extent of man's actions. At this juncture however, we are way beyond ecological balance. Sadly, our resources are falling down but we continue to saturate the world that we thrive in. As of the writing of this blog, a helpful website which "fairly accurately clocks the current population and reflects its growth using a second-order approximation of the exponential" estimated the human population to be 6, 844, 709, 120 and higher if you read this post seconds away from September 20, 2010 16:33:44. This increase is not for long though and soon will have to take a dive as our resources continuously decline. This, of course will not happen now. But, each one of us can certainly never deny that what we have done in the past is already taking a toll upon us.


All these discussions about environmental pollution, global warming and climate change is not new to us. Man has always been witnessed to the fall of too many great civilizations. All of which are products of man's disrespect to our very own mother - Earth. On the downside, we didn't seem to learn the lessons that nature has been conveying to us. Our stubborn attitude persists beyond any calamities, man-induced or otherwise, that have already struck us. Still, looking at the up side of things, most if not all of this man-made environmental catastrophes, are results to what we call "environmental mismanagement". So, it is in fact obvious that we have done something wrong and it is never too late to change what we have already inflicted to our very own environment. It may be redundant but always true to say that our chosen actions today will certainly determine the future of our next generations. This will bring us to the type of policies our individual governments have instituted and truly implemented.

Just looking at the larger picture, gratefully, our existing international agreements have almost covered every environmental issue, from the atmosphere to freshwater, marine and nature conservation and terrestrial living resources to hazardous substances and of course nuclear safety. This may sound good enough but the real issue however is not about how many laws we have effectively made, it is about how nations will actually support each other inorder to thrive with mutual respect and not to compete. Over and over again we have faced similar problems and when our leaders convene, we keep rehashing the same old arguments and push our own interests. The counterproductive effect, the line between rich and poor nations is all the more widening overtime. Whilst too few enjoy the comforts of life, most people in the world are dying of famine, war and conflict. This is not about saying that it is the fault of the few good rich people in the world. The point is, we have all the capabilities to help. If for one moment in time, we will just consider one thing, not the color of our skin, the flag we represent, the beliefs that we have stood for, our pride and arrogance, but the fact that we all live in the same Earth and that no matter what we do affects others, then maybe we will live in this world a little better. Hopefully, when we leave this temporary place where we are now, we can think of what lies ahead and see the future generations contented and happy because we have done our piece, no matter how insignificant it may be.