Monday, June 25, 2012

Me, here; them and everything else in Rio+20

Again, minds and brains from all over the world gathered themselves in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, to negotiate and perhaps decide on the plight of human existence in the principles of sustainable development. Generally, there were two kinds of negotiators: brains which can control, and the other, brains which think comprehensively accepting the fact that the continuous rape of the environment, which leads to a massive imbalance in nature, is in itself the gradual extinction of homo sapiens.


Unfortunately, the clash of the overly-consuming countries and the consumed ones was definitely unavoidable: the east versus the west, or the south versus the north. But in the spirit of environmental justice, we hope that our planet can still be saved through an emphatically genuine dialogue.


What may be the root-cause of this whole crisis?


Yes, it is as if we control the whole universe.


The brain – where a lot of intellectuals regard as the abode of homo sapiens’ superior rationality – is the tiniest natural receptacle of all the galaxies combined in the whole wide universe.


As viewed in this consumerist generation in which all natural resources are considered as subjects for utilization, it is as if the existence of everything belongs to human being’s capacity to contain the essence of nature in its skull.


Can we limit nature in our brains?


The processes in nature had been dynamic to its fullest purpose serving both living and non-living things. Symbiosis is evident within the living world and the non-living is always there constantly as part of life-support systems providing a balancing platform to a quite complicated yet continuous life-process.


There was once grand harmony and order. There may appear disorders but such resulted to the restoration of order, yet part of the whole overarching cycle of life.


Every species has its own view of the world, of the universe. There may be some which yield to the physically powerful few with larger brains and all wanted to survive, but nature itself limits the survival capacity of some and the limitation is a challenge to adapt.


When ancient humans came into existence, they learned how to utilize the non-living as instruments to survive, and the living as food to sustain the natural processes within the body, perhaps to become more powerful. This skill of humans slightly above what some other animals could made them superior – the ability to think before acting – manipulation of the once orderly world.


Not in the case of the first walking and thinking mammal, perhaps. They lived within the symbiotic community, equal among others adhering to the principles of survival. When their number increased, communities evolved, varied communities with different views of survival. What is common then was symbiosis which is integral, non-compartmentalized.


During the course of time, the non-living which was originally used simply as instruments became the mode and food. The balancing platform which had been supporting the life-cycle was eventually utilized destructively. Hence, the imbalance between the living and non-living had been inevitable.


Humans when given full opportunity and power tend to abuse.


Symbiosis may be one of the strongest forces behind evolution of species especially in interdependent co-evolution, the natural course of evolution had been tampered with a disorder never experienced by the universe since the beginning. Surprisingly, the phenomenon can be traced back to the superiority complex which occurred in the human brain.


Be that as it may, human brain will still decide on the future of our home called Earth. The meeting of brains may not agree in a genuine solution, but I hope the heart and soul may help.

2 comments:

marksphere said...

Thanks for sharing this to me. I am frustrated to know that the vast majority of Filipinos are indifferent to this subject.Yung tipong akala nila, these issues should be left for policy wonks to discuss, which is wrong. Everyone should take part here. The challenge now is, how do we make people become more involved?

We Are Nature said...

Thanks for the comment marksphere. Indeed, we should act altogether. We can do small things just like the 8Rs we are promoting - kindly read this article my colleague Shiela Castillo-Tiangco wrote: http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/sunday-times/the-sunday-times-magazines/15568-green-resolutions-for-2012