A Change in Attitude for Earth

A Change in Attitude
for Earth's Sake

On this particular Earth Day 2010, the best thing for the Earth right now is change. The Earth needs change. It specifically needs us humans to change. Not just change our lifestyles but our attitudes and our way of thinking.

Most people, if they “celebrate” Earth Day, it is just for the day. We have all heard the slogan “Earth Day Every Day”. Well, we humans need to change that slogan into a way of life. Every thing we do affects the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we walk on. Every purchase we make, everywhere we go, what we do and the choices we make have consequences to life on Earth. Even if we don’t notice our actions affecting anything, it does. Just breathing has an impact on your atmosphere. You are exchanges gases and that triggers a chain reaction.

Of course I am not saying to stop breathing. Not everything we do is negative. Breathing in and out is just one of many examples of how much we influence our world whether we are trying to or not. Our very existence, just being here, impacts the planet. Multiply that by billions of people and you have a huge impact.

Now, knowing this what kind of impact do you want to have on the planet? How do you want to leave the planet for future generations?

When we talk about the Earth, Nature, wildlife, they are not some far away abstract objects that do not affect you. They are not “tourist attractions” for your pleasure whenever you have the time. The planet and all that is natural on it impacts your very existence on a daily, hourly, and second by second basis. You see colors because of it. The plants, chemicals and animals provide that color. You eat because of it. Your food and water come from the Earth thanks to the natural world. You breathe because of the existence of plants. So while your existence has an impact on the world, the natural world has an impact you. They, plants, animals, microorganisms, fungi, etc. each, individually impact the world you happen to live in thanks to them. Collectively they all make it possible for humans to breathe, walk, have rain to grow crops, stabilize the climate so the Earth is habitable, they all make it possible for us to …well…exist.

So what kind of impact are you having? What are you contributing to the planet?

Behavior changes when attitude, mind-set and thought processes change. We need to stop seeing the environment as a thing out there in a park. This planet is alive teaming with life that we humans keep killing. At least 100 species a day slip into extinction unnoticed. This is our life support. You are here and alive only because “the environment” is here. The animals, plants, rocks, streams, etc. You are here because they are here.

So how do we change our mind-set? What do we change it to?

People feel disconnected to the world that supports them. We have created an artificial world that we have come to believe supports us. It doesn’t. All our sky scrapers, highways, malls, IPods, Internet, cars, and yes, even televisions could all disappear tomorrow and we would all still be alive. The same cannot be said about the trees, shrubs, soil, animals, single celled organisms, etc. If they all disappeared tomorrow we would not survive, not for long.

So we “dominant” “intelligent” humans are completely dependent on these creatures. Yet we view them as underlings, unimportant, obsolete.

We need a new way of looking at life on this planet. Henry Beston wrote in The Outermost House in 1928, “They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”

This is a good place to start. Native Americans view all life on this planet as separate Nations, thus giving them equal standing and equal rights to exist. We are not more important. We are all Nations with the same right to exist and working through the same struggle for life. Plants, animals, water, sky, and rocks all have the same right to exist as we humans do.

We need to put the “Thou” back into all life on this planet, because whether we believe it or not or admit it, all life is sacred. All life is important and plays its role in keeping the world turning. We all evolved on this planet together. There is no “Evolutionary Ladder” where we hold the top. All life is not striving to be human. All life is striving to survive. Each has his or her own trials to get through.

The Wolf Nations are just as important as the human Nations. Once we understand this Truth we then see things in a new light. Slaughtering innocent people and invading peaceful Nations is an outrage to people. So what is the difference? What gives us more right to invade these Nations of Earth? Is it because we can? Peaceful Nations tending to their own survival are invaded and often destroyed by human Nations. We rape the land for resources killing all the Plant and Animal Nations that lived there. We remove entire mountain tops because we can. We have forced massive rapid extinction rates losing species at alarming rates before we have even identified all species on this Earth.

We have declared outright war on these Nations that support the planet and us.

“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."

- Albert Schweitzer

Let us mark this Earth Day 2010 as a turning point. Let it be the day we had a change in attitude. The day we set our Ego aside and came to the realization that all life has the right to exist. If we change our attitude and see things from their perspective then our behavior will follow. Then one day soon we will take to the streets when an animal Nation is invaded, we’ll express outrage at the slaughter of wildlife, and hold a national or even global day of mourning for those species lost in our careless destruction. One day removing entire mountain tops will be unthinkable. With a new outlook on life on Earth we will finally have a global Peace Summit and end our War on Nature. Then there will no longer be a need for Earth Day. It really will be every day.