Date: Mon, 11 May 2009 15:13:48 -0700 (PDT)
From: tim keim
Subject: Forgetting Earth
Published in the Chapel Hill Herald Sun May 9, 2009
FORGETTING EARTH
by Tim Keim
MAY 5, 2009
I’m not quite sure how I came to juxtapose species extinction with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. Species extinction and AD share a common root. Researchers have identified environmental factors as one of the chief causes of AD. The environmental factors in AD and species extinction are, in general, the human created disturbance and pollution of the delicately balanced composition of our air, water and soil; the building blocks from which we and our host (Earth) are made.
During the Post War Period, literally thousands of chemicals were formulated and loosed upon the environment. Their uses are myriad, and the study of their power to mutate human genes is now an established field of science. Because of the dollar signs in the eyes of corporate capitalists, neither thought nor care was given to the life threatening toxicity of these novel preparations. Government abdicated its responsibility to protect us (and still does) in favor of the industrial dominance that Americans enjoyed as victors in WWII. “To the victors go the spoils†now carries an ironically sinister and opposite meaning.
For some time I’ve been wondering why we don’t seem to understand the gravity of the slow motion health and environmental crises in which we now find ourselves. I’ve puzzled, bemused, to witness swelling calamity on so many fronts, and still our preoccupation with stuff and material pursuits captivates us to the exclusion of the tsunami that gathers.
According to current estimates, the incidence of AD will quadruple in the next 50 years.
AD strikes a new victim every 70 seconds.
A United Nations study in 2002 predicted that 25% of the Earth’s animals will disappear in the next 30 years. (http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html )
The results of both species extinction and AD are frighteningly parallel: Holes in the ecosystem of our gray matter and holes in the web of life that keeps us alive. What we are losing is the memory of the miraculous mystery of Eden with which we have been bequeathed.
Some everyday examples: The fact that we commonly consume supermarket produce laced with toxic chemicals and health wasting fast foods is clear evidence that we’ve forgotten the delicious, life-giving foods that fortified our ancestors. The fact that people no longer remember when the rivers in Chatham County, (and all over the country), ran clear is another case of planetary Alzheimer’s. As we forget what nurtured us and no longer value it, the planet is forgetting how to produce the ecosystems that nurture us. Still another: Not only have we forgotten, but we’ve aggressively forsaken the sacrosanct life cycles that keep our soil healthy. Again, we’ve traded them for synthetic chemicals that are killing our rivers and smothering our coastal oceans with dead zones. Stop me please! Burning coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, warms the globe, slowly choking all living things. Don’t be fooled, “clean coal†is a transparent ruse. With Rome ablaze,
we, the collective Nero, fiddle with no sense of urgency about our future.
All components of our life-support systems are under attack: From us! Pogo, the newspaper comic character was right, “I have seen the enemy, and it is us†.
The slow degradation of the specialized gases, liquids and solids that are custom-made to support human life raises so little response from us. Is it the siren of greed and the tubercular consumption it breeds that anesthetizes us to a predicament so perilous? Have current pollution levels already numbed our instinct to survive?
We are currently in the grip of the greatest extinction since the dinosaurs.. In Chatham County alone there are 17 species quietly fading from our memories (http://www.fws.gov/nc-es/es/countyfr.html ). These beings represent unique, and perhaps indispensable expressions of the Divine Will that keep the web of life intact. Tattered, incomplete ecosystems are gravely dangerous places.
Will the erosion of our brain power lead us to accept a less than a livable Chatham County? How near are we to the final environmental compromise that will endanger our ability to survive?
Leaving our plant and animal cousins defenseless now will also leave us without defense hereafter.