Why Blessed?

Blessed, if one is religious, can be something sacred. It can also be something wonderful that one has been granted. To me our planet Earth is a blessing, a joy, a thing of beauty and full of wonder. Most people, whether they are religious or not, will agree that the planet is special and deserving of our care and respect.

And yet – as Jane Goodall has said: “Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have?”

She was right. We are highly intelligent as a species. We have advanced from the time we split off from the great apes, millions of years ago. We learned to use tools and fire and how to live in communities. As our brains grew in size, we acquired the ability to survive in different environments and to use what Nature provided to build towns and cities, and to travel and trade. We learned to fight and to believe that some of us were superior to others and thus deserved more. We discovered farming, our population grew, and our destruction of the Earth began.

Over the millennia our knowledge and abilities increased, and our needs expanded.

Till now

There are so many of us that we are destroying Nature to feed, clothe and entertain us. We can do brilliant things: send men to the moon or to the deepest part of the ocean, save lives with wonderful inventions and live longer than our ancestors. And yet, we have lost our humanity in doing those things. We search for “stuff” that will make us happier and broadcast our success to the world. We rape our planet for materials to provide that “stuff”. But we have forgotten how to love and be grateful. In the global north we have forgotten that not everybody is blessed. We have forgotten that many people live with poverty, war, ugliness, lack of education, ill-health, and no hope for the future of their children. We have forgotten that they are poor because our countries colonised theirs and stole their birthright.

So here we are, with one part of our population helping to destroy our planet because they have to survive. They must cut down the trees, burn coal, pollute the water and build chaotic towns for their growing populations. And “we” do not help them because we need our money to make wars, buy private jets and large houses, and send men to the moon.

Food from around the world

The other part of the global population is destroying the planet because we believe that owning things will make us happy. Our supermarkets are full of food from around the world, flown in to give us variety. We cut down trees to allow cattle to graze to provide steak for our meals and we spray our lawns (killing the pollinators as we do so) because we like neat gardens. We vote for right wing governments because we believe they will keep us safe, forgetting that the refugees that they want to send home are human beings who need our help.

Are We Safe?

The Guardian today published an article on the first devastating climate tipping point that humanity has reached: coral reefs are facing a catastrophic dieback.

It says that “ the earth has reached its first catastrophic tipping point linked to greenhouse gas emissions.” They are quoting a report that also says, “warm water coral reefs are now in long term decline and risking the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people…. the world is also ‘on the brink’ of reaching other tipping points including the dieback of the Amazon Rain Forest, the collapse of major ocean currents and the loss of ice sheets.”

What are tipping points?

For those that are not familiar with the term, tipping points of Climate Change are critical thresholds that if exceeded could lead to irreversible consequences. For example, if the Gulf Stream Ocean Current collapsed it would have grave impacts on our weather. This would be not just in Europe but globally. It could lead to a temperature drop of 10-15 degrees Centigrade, reduced rainfall, and weather patterns that would affect agricultural production globally. For further information please see this article.

So, we are not safe. Far from it. And yet, there is still hope that we can avoid the very worst of the calamity we are trying to pull down on our heads and on the heads of future generations.

Amanda Gorman puts it so nicely in her poem “The Hill We Climb” which she wrote for Joe Biden’s Inauguration:

“For there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

I wondered if we spoke of the things we love in this life would it encourage people to take action? Would it make us think of how blessed many of us are on this earth? Would it remind us of the privileges we have been freely given?

This is what I love

The Red Fox

I love animals in the wild.

This fox is a beautiful, intelligent and resilient animal that can be quite thrilling to watch. I love the little deer that spring across the road in front of me as I walk the dog, bouncing over fences in family groups and speeding across the empty fields of winter. The tiger is my favourite, a symbol of beauty and strength. I have never seen one in the wild.

Even in the garden, I find it thrilling to watch the little lizards as they scamper up vertical walls. We are lucky to have two robins in our garden that sing belligerently at each other. “This is my garden! No, it’s mine! please go away!” These animals bring me joy and reinforce my dedication to saving the natural world.

Other Loves

For other people it may be the clear, sparkling water of mountain streams, or diving on coral reefs and enjoying the millions of multi-coloured fish. For some it may be the autumn colours on the trees or the gentle weather of spring or swimming in uncontaminated waters.

There are so many wonderful gifts offered to us by Nature.

The time has come to fight for them. Each decision we make has consequences. To quote Jane Goodall again –

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

We are blessed. We just need to remember that, and to fight to keep those blessings.

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Pictures by Doreen Hosking, and by Ken Mages and Andre Ouellet on Unsplash