We Do Not Deserve World Domination
I was standing on the balcony looking out at the scenery the other day. I looked at the ocean. The sky. The noisy cars. And I then looked at a palm tree. It was standing in front of the building beside us. Had that palm tree always been there? No. Someone put it there. And what about those other 20 palm trees all lined up in a row? Someone else put them there. Everything as far as the eye can see is man-made. Those cars. The grass. The road. The sidewalk. The buildings. The clothes people are wearing. I bet the beach didn’t even look like this until we got our hands on it and filled it with sand to defend us against rising oceans. We have pretty much populated every inch of land that Earth has to offer, altering it in some way. That begins to put into a clear perspective how much of a parasitic leech the human race is, doesn’t it?! We’ve taken over everything. We’ve taken trees for our chairs and houses. Animals have become our handbags and shoes. Skies have become gas chambers and our oceans have unimaginable amounts of plastic floating in them. In sum, we’ve turned everything the world has given us into our personal trash can or toxic chemical dump.
Human life is born with the purpose, like any other animal, to reproduce and prosper. But, our extraordinary innate cognitive ability, our comprehension, and our curiosity have given us another purpose: to evolve and create new things that will, in theory, help humanity and make our daily lives better. We’re at the top of the food chain, we think we’re the superior species, but when will all our creating stop being beneficial and become counterproductive instead? We’re about to cross the rubicon into unexplored climate damage given how terrible we are as rulers of this earth.
Ninety percent of the world is inhabited by humans, says an article by Curious Meerkat. There are 8.7 million species on Earth, and one of them inhabits almost all of it. And what have we done with all that power? We’ve caused pollution, environmental degradation, destruction of ecosystems, habitat destruction, mass extinctions, the decline in biodiversity, deforestation through forest fires, bleaching of coral reefs, climate change, global warming — should I go on!? We’ve taken this gift of being able to create for the comfort of mankind, and irresponsibly used it to destroy our only home instead.
Out of all the issues mentioned above, global warming, for example, has caused forest fires that lead to global warming and global warming causes more forest fires, such as the ones in California that are getting worse every year. Ecosystems are destroyed, which leads to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, more warming, higher water levels, stronger storms in a continuous vicious cycle.
Furthermore, on the global warming topic, I had a school project a few years ago where I had to focus on the outcome of one of our many destructive decisions. I decided to analyze the issue of climate change. I was beyond shocked when I found out some people believed climate change didn’t exist! YOU CAN’T JUST DECIDE SOMETHING DOESN’T EXIST?! THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS! Facts, scientists, and hundreds of statistics show climate change is a reality. So why do some of us decide to turn a blind eye to it? It’s because climate change is more of an economic inconvenience than anything. If climate change were to exist, then they would have to change their business models to become more environmentally friendly or carbon-neutral. It’s apparent that we just don’t care for the environment as long as it doesn’t hit our wallets. As long as we’re not burdened economically, why should we care about someone else’s perceived reality of climate change? That’s the reason why we shouldn’t have as much power as we do. We don’t care enough about this planet and our future generations. We are generally selfish as a human race and don’t want to help the world and the things that live in it as we should. Some of us do, but not enough of us. What should we do then? Destroy the human race — KIDDING….I’m kidding. We should give our power to cows, but cows are apparently also a big contributor to global warming.
Even though I would like to see what cows would do with our cognitive powers but without opposable thumbs, I don’t think it would be the wisest decision. Instead, we can learn from our mistakes. We can change our lives little by little to try to become more environmentally friendly, every effort counts. You can wash your clothes in cold water, buy reusable water bottles, containers, plastic bags, get a recycling bin or compost bin, use rags instead of paper towels, line dry whenever possible, buy an electric car instead of a gasoline-powered one, use renewable energy and reduce water and food waste. Yes, one person’s decision to use an electrical car isn’t going to make much of a difference, but if a lot of us do, we just might do something unbelievable as a race to save the planet.
