I guess it’s just human nature to attribute human qualities to nature. We like to think that our pets have the same sensitivities and emotions that we have, that they understand us, and even that they may evaluate and judge things as we do. The more we observe our animals and the more things they learn to do, the more our beliefs in those characteristics are reinforced. After all, even animals in the wild show fear, grief, affection and hatred without having learned those traits from us as we often assume our pets do.
We even begin to wonder about plants. Come on, now, what about the benefits of talking to our house plants? Some people say the truth of that belief arises from the fact that people who talk to their plants are paying better attention to them, thus they get watered and tended consistently. Others think that maybe the carbon dioxide we expel when we talk to them up close gives them a healthy boost. Could be, but I wonder if it’s just sentimentality. Most of us have very human reasons to become attached to specific plants. You may be especially fond of the flowering plant you received on Mother’s Day three years ago, take special care of the rose bush your mother tended for so many years, or feel bad when Grandpa’s old pear tree is destroyed in a summer storm. We feel that, in some mysterious way, those plants feel pain or loss too.
We tend to attribute human characteristics and emotions to both plants and animals; do we maybe feel we are somehow like gods to those plants and we want them to be in “our own image”?
For most of human history, it was the other way around. We respected and even made sacrifices to the natural world. Mankind has long called that world Mother Nature. Many cultures have worshiped nature and specific plants or animals that are a part of it. That is, up until now. Now we seem to be recklessly neglecting Mother Nature, even actively doing her great harm by our self-serving ways and denial of our role in her problems. And she seems to be beginning to retaliate, to make us pay for our neglect.
As things stand now, we appear to be careening down a path of self-destruction, a struggle that neither we nor Mother Nature is likely to survive. We are nearing the point of no return, where we will have done so much damage that we, not only can’t reverse it; we will be powerless even to stop it. Yes, we discovered the cause of damage to the ozone layer and, luckily, stopped using fluorocarbons. Don’t be too smug, though. That damage still hasn’t been completely repaired and we can’t be sure it ever will be. And we’re still paying with skin cancer.
Our once indestructible and thoroughly dependable Mother appears to be suffering from a debilitating disease that, like Alzheimer’s, so far has no cure. Look at the symptoms and realize the tragic effects they are having on our world. And try to be honest and acknowledge how much you personally have contributed to their causes.
This disease currently goes by the name Global Warming — its apparent cause is known as Climate Change and the only known treatment at present seems to be to stop the emissions of carbon dioxide we add to the atmosphere and to find a way to remove the excess that is already there. So far, we’ve seen little progress on either front. One of the symptoms of this terminal disease (and they are many more) is the warming of our oceans. This, in turn, causes polar ice to melt, raising the level of the seas and eliminating habitat for many species that thrive in those frozen climates year-round, and interfering with habitats of migratory birds, fish, insects and mammals that depend on that climate for survival. They cannot adapt to change as rapidly as it is occurring.
While most of the symptoms are deceptively slow to become evident to most of us, we are beginning to pay attention in the face of heatwaves, wildfires that destroy thousands of acres of timber, homes, animals and human lives. We witness unusually violent storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and, perversely, droughts. If there is to be any hope of curing Mother Nature of this awful disease we must listen to the scientists, and take them seriously. Global warming is real.