by Luke Bamforth

Created on: August 19, 2010

For any fan of sci-fi the notion of an alien race that comes to our beautiful planet with the intent of deposing us as its rulers and then proceeding to rape it of all its resources before moving onto the next planet is a familiar one. The truth of the matter is that we are those aliens. I don’t actually mean that we are aliens; I only wish to make the point that up until this very moment in time we have been intent on stripping our world of all that sustains us for the sake of petty advancements in the name of profit.

This way of life has to an extent served us well and was quite acceptable while we were ignorant of the damage we were causing to what is probably the only planet that can sustain our form of life in the whole of the universe. However, now that we are aware of the potential effects of our current course it is imperative that we do all that is possible to save our home.

There are many ways that our current way of life has affected the planet. The pumping of Carbon Dioxide into our atmosphere has become the cause of the Green House effect, which serves to trap the heat of the sun within the atmosphere more effectively and theoretically is causing the average temperature of the Earth to rise (Global Warming), affecting weather systems and melting the polar ice caps. As it stands at the moment this mostly affects wildlife, but sooner rather than later the consequences it has for us will become more and more apparent. In fact some scientists attribute current droughts and floods in populated areas of the planet directly to the effects of Global Warming.

Equally our disregard for nature is apparent in our lack of respect for other residents of the world. Our deforestation, be it for the timber used in nearly every walk of life or to create space for rearing cattle, is serving to destroy the animal and plant life that resides within these once green havens. According to Dr D. Levin a professor of Botany at the University of Austin, Texas ‘a distinct species of animal or plant becomes extinct every 20 minutes.’ He also claimed that at this rate it was possible that in 200 to 300 years half of the planets bird and mammal species would be extinct.

We all have a responsibility to our planet and it is not too late for us to act to save our home. We must all cut the amount of CO2 that we emit, from companies reducing emissions through cleaner practices and alternative sources of power to us as individuals driving less, only boiling the water we need in the kettle and recycling. If we can all pull together then perhaps it’s not too late, for us or life as a whole.

It is easy in this age of human rights to persuade ourselves that we have a right to drive our cars anytime we like, the right to make a profit any way we can or even the right to leave our TV on stand by, but just remember that every time we exercise these so called human rights in an frivolous manner we do so at the detriment of that most fundamental human right, the right to life, our own lives and the lives of the generations to come.

(Extract of article quoted is from ‘Science Daily’ online.)

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