I’ve been around for billions of years. I’ve seen more than any creature has, combined. I have experienced both devastation and abundance and witnessed both tragedy and celebration. However, out of all the creatures that walk upon me, Humanity has both intrigued me and outraged me most. Every other creature seems to understand the delicate balance that is life, yet Homo Sapiens, seem to lack this innate sense, and I fear that this missing link will lead to their demise. Though I am indifferent to man, as he is to me. I feel a sense of urgency to try and redeem them and give them a second chance. I am taking this injustice upon myself. I am indeed Mother overall, aren’t I? I am powerful I will survive this Climatic change, as I have for eternity, but the question is whether you will.
I would like to address you, personally, and allow you to hear my simply complicated truth. You pollute: my crystalline water, my crisp air, my night sky, my breath-taking silence, and my life-giving soil. I breathe life into your lungs, asking for nothing in return. But now I ask you this: why do you abandon me? After all I have done for you. Am I not worthy of your respect and adoration? Instead you let ignorance and pride engulf you. You think you are the most superior and intelligent animal; I beg to differ. No animal, since the beginning of time has ever inflicted mass extinction, upon themselves, knowingly. You’ve hidden from it all for far too long. Do something before the consequences have cemented themselves into all that I am. I love you far too much, to see you perish, as all of life is precious to me.
My responsibility, as Mother, is to guide her children, but it’s your decision to take my warning or not. You humans love to overcomplicate things, when in fact the solutions are simple. Before you can practically change the external travesties; you need to heal your internal wiring. You need to practice compassion, gratitude and altruism, to ensure a stable foundation upon which to rebuild your future upon.
But how can I expect you to love me, when you fail to love your very own species? Instead, you wage war, express intolerance, judge based on the material, and disregard those less fortunate. The alternative is that you treat one another with love and kindness, honing your ability to express compassion. Is that too difficult? You all are the same species. No different from one another. Individualistic, but equal. Once you are compassionate towards one another, you will find it easier to be compassionate towards not only me, but every other creature. To care for something shows that it is of value, am I not of value?
How can I expect you to care about me, when you don’t see reason to be grateful for me? I keep you alive. I quench your thirst with water from deep within my ground. I feed you with all that I produce, using my soil and water. I remind the trees to refresh your lungs. I keep that delicate balance from faulting. Underneath it all I am the gears that keep the machine running smoothly and I supply the oil that keeps the gears turning. If I wanted to be a dictatorial ruler, I would have, but I saw it to be more promising if those that walk upon me were free, because there is a certain beauty, beyond words, that comes with Liberty. That
liberty has been gifted and now needs to be put to good use. You have the right to choose whether man looks Global Warming dead in the eye or whether man shrivels up and turns a blind eye, because of me. Choosing to attack Global Warming is choosing to save yourselves as a collective.
How could I desire that you put me and others before yourselves, when your society is built on a narcissistic structure of power and greed. Is it truly human nature to be selfish? I think not. You humans are social creatures, mimicking one another to find acceptance, but really you are being inauthentic to your truth as a species. You are not selfish. You have the potential to cultivate an attitude of altruism, when you feel content with yourself. That sufficiency discounts status, biological sex, place of birth, skin colour, beliefs, and who you love. That sufficiency is accepting yourself, wholeheartedly. You first need to feel content with yourself before you help others. Being selfless is the foundation of unity. Helping others is the basis of humanitarianism and is the most pivotal key in unlocking your human potential. Your species needs to look outside of their own perspectives and begin to see the bigger picture, as I see things.
Compassion, gratitude and altruism are all interconnected. All three of these principles need to be understood and embodied to the fullest capacity, in order to give you a fair chance of survival. I could go on about the practicalities of stopping Global Warming, but I know that to solve an issue, you need to find the root cause. In this case I believe that it is your lack of empathy. Those practicalities are doable and well-known, but are these core principles beyond what you are capable of? I know that you can redeem yourselves.
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Bronwyn is a student at El Shaddai Christian School. She is the winner of the 2019 Peter Beneson Writing competition for Western Cape Schools.
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This article was contributed by the winner of our Cape Town Chapter Peter Beneson Writing Competition for Schools. This blog entry does not necessarily represent the position or opinion of Amnesty International South Africa.
