The earth is not ours to ruin

 –Aounushka 

We need to stop before the point of no return.

This is not something that is new, and neither is it recent. Every second the Doomsday Clock is getting closer to midnight is a sign of the Earth threatening to get consumed by its own people. Given the publicity of it all, environmental issues are no longer just getting ignored, but they are something that we keep choosing to ignore. Safe to say, that by this time, the effect that all industries have on Earth is well known. But how many are actively trying to protect it? How many can assure us that they are trying, to the best of their abilities, to protect what should be protected?

Rivers are more than “just polluted.” They are being used as dumping grounds for all kinds of waste. Industrial, biological, chemical and whatnot. Emphasis is to be put on the word “used,” because we, the humans, knowingly throw our plastic bottles in ponds once we are done with drinking from them.

Does the irony not strike anyone? Water, the source of our lives, the reason for our existence, the boon that created life in the first place, is something we are dirtying just because we feel like it?

Every newspaper says, “We are losing our forests.” However, I find it of utmost importance to make it clear that we are not losing them. 

We are cutting them down. We seem to forget that forests are home to all sorts of enigma that nature can provide. Poets wrote about the green of the leaves, how each tree was so different, yet stood tall and united in a way that humans can never replicate, how it became a home for all of nature’s children, and how it provides the breaths we take. Forests are the crux of all things fascinating and beautiful about nature, yet we can be heartless enough to destroy it all simply because we need more space.

Have we, the people, ever looked at ourselves? We are minuscule mortals, creatures created for the amusement of it all. But we forget. The Earth loves us; she weeps when we do, kisses our pain away. She gives life, but if pushed far enough, she will never hesitate to take it. She can raise her bodies of water, make them swell and billow, and wash away the homes we have created. She can tremble in anger and reduce us to dust. She can spit out fire and burn us to ashes, and we, the people, have the sheer audacity to look at these in the face and proclaim ourselves as God?

The Earth is not our property to own. It is our mother. We are her children, and every time we choose to ignore her pain is every second closer to our destruction. We extract without limit and justify it as development. It only seems we have mistaken dominance for intelligence.

It seems hell lies empty, for all monsters are here instead. Worst part is, industries know that damage, and the government has the data. Yet, exploitation continues, as we keep ripping the Earth of all she offers, even if it is not ours to take.

Because short-term profit is better than survival, to them. Isn’t it?

We have come to expect polluted air. We are buying humidifiers to clean the air inside our homes instead of doing something to fix the problem that should not have been there in the first place. Water bodies filled with plastic are the norm everywhere, and extreme weather is simply another Gen-Z social media trend.

We are adapting to destruction instead of trying to prevent it.

While we do not realize it, destruction of nature is something agonizingly slow. It happens gradually, and at this rate will probably be ignored until it’s too late.

And that brings me to something terrifying. If we keep being ignorant of everything that is happening around us, the situation will be something akin to a snake swallowing its own tail. Except it does it by mistake, but we do not.

It is important to understand that we are bringing closer our own destruction, and lives are all it will affect. For the Earth will survive, as it always has. The question lies in whether we will.

We still have the time to try and fix things before humanity, as predicted, is wiped off the face of the Earth, and our consciousness and race go back to that void of non-existence.