“They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot. They put all the trees in a tree museum, and charged people a dollar and a half to see ‘em. Oh no, don’t you know, you don’t know what you got until its gone. They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Thank you, Joni Mitchell for expressing in that song, how little we, as caretakers of the earth, really do not give a hoot! Always in catch up mode, we humans as individuals, and collectively as government, always seem to be just one or two beats out of step with the drum.
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Two weeks back, a shocking revelation was aired on TV that there are only two, yes two, northern white rhinoceros left on the planet – and strangely, in Africa.
The cost to artificially inseminate these two cows is astronomical, and logically this money could be “better spent” saving from starvation, the millions in North Africa.
My pointed question would be – “You mean to say you woke up this morning and all of a sudden, saw that there were only two of the species left?
What about the previous year and the five years before that? If the natural procreation rate was notably less, you can monitor that easily.
If poaching is the cause of the reduction in numbers, well, you can monitor that too. So – who was not doing their job or more likely, who was turning the blind eye to the developing reduction in the herd and perhaps dipping fingers in the till.
By virtue of this possibility, it would mean no research grants and reduced monitoring of the herd and therefore not warring against the poachers.
We are supposedly lords of the earth and keepers of all the animals thereon, why is it then that the red flag indicating an approaching crisis is hoisted too late in most cases? I believe that a local species of penguin is also on the endangered list.
Surely action sooner than later would have saved the situation, or is it because of the overfishing factor that leads to these penguins actually being starved to extinction? Be that as it may, in my lifetime, and most likely in yours, you would have noticed changes to the order of things.
Years back there would be flying and floating battalions of white butterflies that would arrive one day and bob and weave across the sky, providing a food bonanza to the bird population.
Years back too, a walk along most of our beaches would yield a bonanza of the most beautifully tinted and curiously shaped seashells. Today, not so simple a task to make a collection to take home to Gauteng, and this I put down to the greater number of beachcombing holidaymakers.
I suppose that is just really a sign of the times, since our world population is increasing at an alarming exponential rate.
In past centuries, natural plagues and pestilences and wars, brought about great loss of life, could it be that Covid-19’s purpose was to do the same, but we were smart enough and prepared enough to beat it?
HAVE YOUR SAY
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