Herbie Gomez
ANYONE who has been on a window seat in a plane from, say, Cagayan de Oro to Manila, vice versa, has seen the vastness of the environment. If one spent over an hour looking outside, he would have realized that only a fraction of that air travel time was used up in watching the visible signs of human activity. Minus our invisible carbon emissions, there is nothing out there but pure unadulterated nature.
I get it whenever someone says no species has hurt the environment the way man has. I have said that countless times, too, in reference to human activities that have been impacting on the natural order of things in our surroundings. While I concede that there is some truth to that statement, I’m not sure about its accuracy or if the damages we have been causing are substantial enough to qualify as “hurting the environment.” By environment, I mean Earth.
You see, Earth has been around for billions of years. It’s battle-tested. It’s a veteran of climate changes, including the Ice Age. In contrast, modern man is a newcomer and a non-veteran of climate change. Man can wipe out species, shave forests, change the flow of water, and turn the sky black but I doubt if he can really “hurt the environment.”
Take the case of our rivers. All it takes for a straight stretch of river to turn into a bending one is a little disturbance, and time which, as far as the environment is concerned, is aplenty. Believe it or not, that disturbance can be caused even by one small rodent digging a tunnel-like hole to make itself a cozy home near a watercourse. In time, as water rushes in and sweeps away loose dirt, weakening the bank, the small cavity would grow bigger and become deeper, and the waterflow would be diverted to it and away from the other bank where the current would be slower and weaker until sand and soil there accumulate to form new land. Eventually, the fast moving water would continue slamming against the area where the rodent once built its home, and then sweep out to the other side with just enough momentum--yes, just like Efren “Bata” Reyes’s billiard ball--where it would form another curve. That is why rivers meander. Now, did the rodent damage the river or hurt the environment or merely caused it to change?
We have done basically the same thing to our rivers but I doubt if the waters are complaining. Our rivers don’t say, “Ouch!” But we do.
While I do get the message and really have no problems with it, it has occurred to me that “let’s save the environment” or “let’s save the planet” is a misnomer. Say that again. The 200 thousand-year old species with a six thousand-year old civilization can save the 4.5 billion-year old planet Earth?
Where were we some when Earth was encircled by rubble that became a ring of red-hot dust and rock or when the planet was spinning so fast that an entire day only lasted for six hours? Or where were we when Earth “needed” us because a hail of meteors--debris from the formation of the solar system--bombarded it about 3.9 billion years ago? Where were we when the winds were stronger, faster and more violent than today’s most destructive cyclones because of the planet’s rapid rotation or when huge tides raged across Earth’s surface due to overwhelming gravity because the moon was still so close? Or where were we when the five great mass extinctions were taking place? What about when sulfur dioxide filled the atmosphere and then it rained sulfuric acid? It was a disaster of global proportions. Earth is no stranger to runaway high carbon dioxide levels in its atmosphere. It has been through it during the Permian extinction.
So you see, Earth has been through worse, and every time a global event like that happens, it heals itself and reconfigures. The question is not really whether or not Earth and the environment can take it. It has proven time and again that it can take the battering. The big question is whether or not we, humans, can take it and adapt. Many see human activities as hurting the environment. But I see that as man hurting himself.
To our credit, we are the only species that figured out what’s happening. We know the problem, and so we care. But come to think of it, it’s not Earth or the environment that really needs fixing. It’s us. Earth can take care of itself just as it has done time and again throughout the ages. It self-heals, and it can change. When it comes to “environmental protection,” we are really talking about the interests of a flea-like species (vis-à-vis the planet) on the Earth’s surface--us. Call it self-serving but our environmental advocacy is really all about us. It’s about our survival as a species, dummy. Pastilan.
