(aka motomynd)
Listening to a BBC radio newscast about Tonga this morning, it occurred to me that maybe there is something to the Gaia Hypothesis after all, and its forces might be in play.
While the rest of the world has been plagued by the pandemic for more than two years, Tonga has so far had only one Covid case. Isolation obviously has its advantages. Tonga’s luck ran out on another front, however. A massive volcanic eruption [“2022 Hunga Tonga eruption and tsunami”], described as a blast larger than an atomic bomb, spawned a tsunami that created great destruction. The extent of the damage is not yet fully known because of a damaged undersea cable, but relief efforts were launched.
Now, as a relief ship approaches Tonga, there has been a Covid outbreak onboard. Which means Tonga may have to choose between accepting aid and risking importing Covid, or reject the aid and do what it can for itself.
When thinking of all the problems now posing a risk to Earth’s ecosystem– global warming, pollution, risk of nuclear weapons disaster, water shortages created by excessive demand, to name a few – they all stem from one species: humans. Is it possible that Earth does have the power to rid itself of its greatest risks, and is Covid – along with natural disasters – part of Earth’s weaponry? Our instinct is to dismiss the Tonga situation as nothing more than mathematical chance, but is it possible that Earth is showing how precise it can be in its actions, and is it a small-scale example of what it can do on a much larger scale if it so chooses?
| Copyright © 2022 by Paul Clark |
The only problem I'm having here, Paul, is out of all the people on the earth that is doing great harm to it; the Tonga people are way down on that list. Are maybe this was a warning shot for the rest of us. "If I am willing to take out these peaceful people what do you think I'll do to you?"
ReplyDeleteEd, the idea of Earth turning vigilante to protect itself is so novel, I hadn't thought it through as you have. Now that you've raised your question, I have to wonder if Earth could be saying, "I've been using Covid to show countries overpopulated with marginally healthy people what I can do to them, but I don't want everyone else to forget I can still throw in the power of Nature when needed."
DeletePaul, a book review in the New Yorker states something strikingly supportive of both our views [“’Bambi’ Is Even Bleaker Than You Thought,” by Kathryn Schulz, January, 17, 2022(*); “The original book is far more grisly than the beloved Disney classic—and has an unsettling message about humanity.”]:
ReplyDeleteThat vision [of wildlife] is of an Eden marred only by the incursion of humankind. There is no native danger in Bambi’s forest; with the exception of his brief clash with another male deer in mating season, and maybe that hardscrabble winter, the wilderness he inhabits is all natural beauty and interspecies amity. The truly grave threats he faces are always from hunters, who cause both the forest fire and the death of his mother, yet the movie seems less anti-hunting than simply anti-human. The implicit moral is not so much that killing animals is wicked as that people are wicked and wild animals are innocent. Some years ago, when the American Film Institute compiled a list of the fifty greatest movie villains of all time, it chose for slot No. 20—between Captain Bligh, of “Mutiny on the Bounty,” and Mrs. John Iselin, of “The Manchurian Candidate”—the antagonist of “Bambi”: “Man.”
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* Published in the print edition of the January 24, 2022, issue, with the headline “Eat Prey Love.”
Moristotle, that is an interesting consideration about wild animals being innocent, and people being wicked. As a biology major who specialized in fisheries and wildlife, I can say that all wild things face great risk on an almost daily -- if not hourly -- basis, even if people aren't part of the equation. But most of that risk is from forces of Nature, or from predators who have to kill to survive. As far as I know, humans are the only creatures who kill unnecessarily -- which they often describe as "for the fun of it" -- so yes, maybe that trait does qualify humans as wicked, and other species as merely acting out of necessity. If people pointlessly stalk and kill other people for what they see as the fun of it, they are generally regarded as wicked -- or as psychopaths -- and our penal system deals with them. From that perspective, maybe it isn't unreasonable to attach the same terms to people who stalk animals for the same reason.
ReplyDelete