- Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro
- ORLANDO R. RAVANERA
- Kim’s Dreamream
- March 13, 2020
FOR sacrificing mother earth with all its biodiversities and the ecosystems to the altar of greed and profit, the Homo Sapiens are now taking the brunt of nature’s wrath. One of nature’s retaliatory moves against humans’ cruelty is the Covid-19. This truism is the conclusion of studies, stating that:
“Ecosystems regulate pathogens (disease-causing agents) and pests. So when ecosystems are degraded, new pathogens, pests, or invasive species can spread with devastating consequences to food production and human health. Changes in ecosystems (e.g., becoming wetter, drier, warmer, or open to new inter-actions of species) can lead to the emergence of new human diseases, such as zoonotic diseases that spread from animals to humans. HIV/Aids is such a zoonotic disease, transmitted from chimpanzees to humans around 100 years ago somewhere in West Africa, perhaps as the result of human hunting and eating of chimpanzees as bush meat.”
Such horrible consequence of eating chimpanzees to human health can also be said when the Chinese began eating bats “paniki” in Wuhan, China that has given rise to a new zoonotic disease called COVID-19 that is now so alarming that has spread world-wide that has already killed thousands.
Oh, when will the Homo Sapiens ever learn that it is the most cruel of all species created by the Unseen Being. It is the only species that has caused the killing of its own kind of over 100 million human beings in just a century or so in two world wars, the cleansing of Hitler and Pol Pot and the continuing war in the Middle East and in Mindanao. The Homo Sapiens have also caused the massive loss of biodiversity manifested in the extinction of billions of species and the ecosystems. Human activity is so pervasive evidenced by massive land transformation through land clearing, extensive logging, mining and grazing.
Humanity is now in the cataclysmic era of its existence as we are now facing the sixth extinction of the planet. Indeed, in ecosystem after ecosystem, biodiversity is under threat, being sacrificed by the present development paradigm in furtherance of the whims and caprices of the egoic and diabolic mind, professing to have been made in the image and likeness of God, yet, is governed by satanic dark forces. Human beings are so enamored in self-gratification, self-promotion, externalities and religious trivialities with teachings that are just empty rhetoric. You love God? Then be one with all of God’s creation as we are all inter-connected.
Please contemplate a while on these global realities. The world has now some 7.3 billion people and an output of $90 trillion annually, with both the population and global output continuing to rise. Based on studies, “the world economy is continuing to rise at 3-4 percent per year, meaning doubling every twenty-years.” That’s how the world is becoming abundant yet there is deepening inequality as only one percent of the world’s population mostly global corporations are benefitting. While a rich family in the United States can consume a cake that is worth $72,000 in one day, there are some 821 million on earth who are hungry. Don’t you know that the combined wealth of some 8 wealthiest families in the US is the equivalent of the total assets of some 3.6 billion people most of whom are just subsisting on one dollar per day?
The trespassing of planetary boundaries is occurring in many ways including climate change and pollution. According to studies, “humanity is so much a pressure on the earth that is causing a dramatic increase in the rate of species extinction estimated to be more than a thousand times faster than before the Industrial Revolution. There are many other phenomena associated with loss of species such as the decline of genetic diversity within species and the abundance of particular species that will cause zoonotic diseases, i.e., Covid-19. The combined effect is so large that is causing what could be the sixth great extinction of the planet.” Beware!
Nature’s wrath is upon us now. Look at what we have we done in killing Gaia (Mother Earth). She has no more lungs now. Where are the 17 million hectares of dipterocarp forest that is the home of billions of flora and fauna that have lived through evolution for billions of years? In just one century, powerful loggers have extensive erased these biodiversities from the face of the earth. What have happened to the “veins” (the rivers) of Gaia? Of the 25 major rivers in the country, 15 have already dried-up or polluted? The stomach of Gaia (the bays and oceans) are very acidic because of ocean acidification, the twin evil of climate change. Of the 13 major bays in the country, 10 are already biologically dead. The Philippine Archipelago is the “center of the center of marine life on earth,” based on the UN-FAO study but our seas have become the dumping ground of toxic and highly radiated garbage from developed countries.
Gaia is now shaking (earthquake); she is also vomiting (floods); she is bursting in pain (volcano eruptions; she is bald (ozone layer depletion) and she is filled with blinding nostalgia (pollution)!
The Unseen Being can be seen in the beauty of the waterfalls against the backdrop of radiating trees and blooming flowers and above are flying birds, hovering above as if dancing to the music of the wind. We are God’s stewards of His creation but have failed and cause the earth’s demise. Let us now stand to protect the ecosystems as we are all Gaia’s sons and daughters. Let us be one with all of God’s creation and thus become Homo Pacem (men and women for peace and be transformed into Spiritus Luminius (enlightened spirits). From the depth of our hearts, we must now feel that love exemplifying oneness and in one voice whisper with compassion, WE LOVE YOU, GAIA! — All for the Unseen Being’s greater glory. Then, with that love and strong faith, how can Covid-19 win over us because if God with us, who can be against us?!
