Environmental Problems

The Unconcealed Metaphor of Mother Earth

Janet An  Braza

            The Earth is our mother who gives birth, nurtures her child and undergoes all the pain and agony to give it utmost comfort. Mother Earth is also indomitable patient, it adjust to many changes like climate, nutritional levels and natural calamities to maintain an equilibrium.

            Life on Planet Earth exists in a delicate balance, system of interdependency among plants, animals, insects and the environment. The planet supports an infinite variety of ecosystems, each of which is untimely dependent upon all others for survival! If a single species becomes instinct, everyone on the planet is affected, Our concept of justice should therefore be widened to include generations yet unborn, since ant action taken today necessary affects them.

            Prevailing myths about our relationship with Mother Earth are now obsolete and destructive. Already, the four henchmen of ecological apocalypse loom in the distance – toxic waste, the greenhouse effect, the depletion of the ozone layer and mass extinction of biological species, including indigenous tribes considered primitive and uncivilized.

            The carrying capacity of Earth has been absorbing harmful emission and the poison of pollution, produced by economic activities of man. Today, the toxic emissions from the reckless industrial and agricultural activities of an exploding human exploding population are fast outstripping the carrying capacity of Mother Earth, of its vast terrestrial, atmospheric and oceanic sink.

            We are following a path leading to extinction. Carelessly, systematically and ruthlessly human beings have assaulted the environment and pillage earth. Humans have become the greatest threat to global life-support systems because of their greed, short sightedness or simple stupidity.