The Planet Was There Before Us and Will Be There After Us

DAAJI shares how caring for Mother Earth begins with eliminating thought pollution from the mind and nurturing the attitudes of love and reverence. When love and reverence are there, will we intentionally hurt anyone or anything, especially our Mother Earth?

- DAAJI

Here is a sobering fact: Homo sapiens (modernday human beings) appeared on Earth around 130,000 years ago, whereas our planet is around 4.5 billion years old. This means we've been here for about 0.000028% of the Earth's existence.

Yet, in this remarkably short period, we've contributed to global warming that has heated the oceans by the equivalent of dropping one atomic bomb into the ocean every second for the past 150 years¹. Each second, one Hiroshima bomb dropped in the oceans.

How long will nature tolerate our transgressions?

Cataclysms like tsunamis, wildfires, and hurricanes, don't judge individuals and selectively punish. They are blunt and brutal. Reversing climate change is not an act of altruism towards the planet. It's our only option for survival.

You may have heard of the example of a frog in a bowl of heating water. The frog enjoys the warmth but doesn't realize the water is getting warmer. Eventually, the water gets hot enough to kill the frog.

But it's not entirely true. In real life, when the water becomes too hot, the frog realizes the danger and jumps out of the bowl. The frog is wise enough and knows when to jump. We may not have the time to jump, and we have nowhere to jump.

The story of Easter Island, famous for its monolithic stone sculptures, is a cautionary tale. Most ethnologists believe that Easter Island was once rich in vegetation and resources, but the tribes on the island plundered them. They cut down all the trees and fought over resources. The soil eroded into the seas, the birds left the island, and the fish moved to new waters. People kept fighting and most of them died of starvation. Easter Island is still there, but the human societies disappeared.

If my tone sounds alarmist, it is an alarming time.