Do you get the impression, lately, that Mom Earth, a.k.a. Mother Nature, is trying to be rid of homo sapiens?
Not, I admit, without good reason – from her perspective. We seem to be going from one natural disaster to another.
In the beginning, Mom had this plan, a long-term initiative that would take eons. (Her terminology, not mine: an indefinite and very long period of time; an emanation or phase of the supreme deity, or Mom.) I am guessing that we are in the third or fourth eon but I could be off by several eons. The first eon was when it all started. A previous scribe broke that down into seven stages – days=eons - but he or she was only guessing and writing/telling an entertaining story. That story has been plagiarized and copied many times by others.
Anyway, Mom’s idea germinated, and things started growing.
But right away some things got out of hand. Take those dinosaurs. They were eating all the greens, and then each other, and who knows where it would have ended. So, Mom threw a large stone into the pond, and that cooled things down so much that the dinos expired. The trouble was, there was collateral damage.
Mom needed a more subtle control system.
Rabbits are a prime example of the problem Mom faced. As you may have heard, rabbits multiply very quickly. Although not with an appetite as large as a dinosaur, they do eat voraciously. The obvious solution was to create a longing for rabbits in the foxes, abetted by a growing fondness for rabbit stew in the homo erectus once they found out how to make a stew pot. When the foxes, bellies full, began having too many more kits, Mom created a little virus called rabies to control their numbers so they would not eat all the rabbits, just decimate the hoppers.
In the case of lemmings, the owls just could not keep up, so Mom had them go mad every three or four years and jump off a high cliff or ledge. This, of course, is not a death wish or suicide by the lemmings but due to overcrowding and a mass search for food (sound familiar?), they rush off madly in all directions and fall off cliffs or try to swim further than they can. Coincidentally this happens about as often as we homo sapiens hold elections but let us not go rushing off in all directions in pursuit of democracy.
Even the creepy crawly things can get out of hand, so Mom kept adjusting the predator/prey equilibrium. Tent caterpillars are a good example of the pendulum swinging. Mom had things working quite well for about an eon when it all began going off the rails again. Homo erectus. For a while, the big pussycats and woofers kept their numbers down but erectus was getting smarter and smarter, learning to cope with the predators and taking multiplication lessons from the rabbits. All this wisdom, some say, was caused by eating McIntosh apples, changing homo erectus to homo sapiens.
Sapiens, using their ever-increasing knowledge, soon learned to dodge Mom’s little population control tricks. A plague of flies or locusts: a little DDT took care of that. Floods and heavy rains: dams, aqueducts, and living on the high ground or building big boats. Earthquakes, while still troublesome, are mitigated by lots of rebar and better cement. Even the Ice Age didn’t slow Sapiens very much although there was collateral damage to other species. Now with the Hot Age coming, homo sapiens will have to adjust but our science will save us – or not. And, Mom, forget the viruses – we got that Covid thing covered with the RNA – sort of.
There has been a rumour circulating in academia that the male of the species sapiens is losing some of its virility. The sperm count is down. Admittedly, we homo sapiens have been trying to control our numbers on our own with wars, one-child policies, and contraceptives. Yeah, I know, we are failing – our numbers are growing almost exponentially. In the other camp, there have been efforts to increase bedroom activity with hormones and pills – why should rabbits have all the fun?
Anyway, Mom, this latest thing with the forest fires is not a good thing. We homo sapiens are nimble enough to scoot away, but many of the other critters you put here to keep us company, are not. Fire is one thing, but if the smoke, along with our other pollutants, is your game plan to decimate us, and frankly it does bother my eyes, we will adapt to that too. Or not.
In the meantime, the pink sunrises, colourful sunsets, and red moons are appreciated. Just saying.
