Image courtesy of NASA
by Ariana Thornton
we are not the beginning.
not the pinnacle of evolution as we’ve been taught
not the center of the universe as we once believed
but one motif in the ever-growing intricacy of nature’s tapestry.
nobody agrees on what makes the human condition unique among animals.
our cognition? communication? intelligence?
all animals feel pain,
many feel fear and love,
some possess an intellect similar to our own.
we communicate through pheromones,
we click, we whistle, we wail.
we are as animal as the sea sponge,
as curious as the octopus,
as resourceful as the chimpanzee.
so what, then, gives us–
a species neither as successful as the ant
nor as ancient as the sea star–
the right to call ourselves masters of all nature?
nature has had 4.5 billion years to optimize its ways,
from the photosynthesis of the prokaryote-turned-chloroplast
to the tug-of-war between predator and prey
to the seating arrangements of plants in a forest–
every natural placement has a purpose.
we are not the sower but the seed,
not the controller but the co-participant.
who are we to skew and strain this ancient balance?
globally, since 1969–
when we witnessed the oil spill that
catalyzed the first Earth Day–
we have
doubled our population,
tripled our fossil fuel use,
quadrupled our total daily use of electricity,
increased our plastic production tenfold,
released ten trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,
raised global sea level by four inches,
caused the decline of one-quarter of all fish and plant species
and more than half of all amphibian, bird, and butterfly species
known to exist in this universe.
as one billion of us go hungry,
the amount of edible food we waste is enough to feed them all.
this is the story of how the enormous consumption by a privileged
10 percent of us
threaten the basics of life for
90 percent of us,
originating not from Earth’s inability to provide but from
our inability to share.
is the human condition, then, our obsession with more?
our extractive, exploitative thinking has led us to a
rocky precipice.
look at the footsteps behind you–
they belong to the history of us.
look beyond your feet, into the dark chasm–
this is where we are poised to take our next step,
into a future where
global sea level is ten feet higher,
culture is lost,
the Atlantic ocean current stops,
the Amazon rainforest tips into savannah,
millions die from natural disasters,
millions more become climate refugees,
and where we have irrevocably altered the planet for the worse.
we can either free fall into the chasm
or back away from the cliff,
back away from the ideas that led us here in the first place.
the extractive, exploitative thinking that caused the climate crisis
cannot be the same thinking we use to solve it–
we are not apart from nature but a part of nature.
shall we learn from our ancient co-participants in this
fragile sandbox of Earth, to
forge a new path and protect our only home?
let us embrace humility and empathy,
this beautiful human condition, to accept that
we, the humans, are not the beginning,
and to ensure that
we will not be the end.
what can each of us do to make this happen?
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