She doesn’t need you or me.
Well, maybe just you and me. That would be ok.
We’ve always had to fight her to live. Environmentalism is not 100% about saving the planet from our wicked ways. It is also about preserving certain ways of life. Certain perspectives on things. Making sure certain skills stay relevant.
Ways of life can decay, too, if left unshielded from the elements. Much can be lost in just one generation. One iteration; one update, can wipe out an entire legacy.
So humans need preserving. But you can’t just rub us in salt and expect us not to spoil. Clothing and air-conditioning and tummy-tucks, in a way, are preservatives. And we factory farm ourselves to generate high yields. Preservation modes, however, turn adaptability into a dirty word.
Reproduction by any other name is a delicate manufacturing process with an aqueous assembly line. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Water, you need mostly, though, to get anything done.
We are not spontaneous sexxers like coral or impersonal ratatatters like ants. We humans can make Yellowcake and Yellow #4 by the ton, but cannot seed ourselves or leave our eggs at the B71x bus stop for a passerby to knock up. We have a small window in which to live in this world, even without comforts and Housewives.
The Earth knows this.
She sees “The Big Fat “I” and “My Hummer And Me” on the bestseller lists. Make them selfish enough, she calculates, and they’ll extinguish themselves…
A toxic earth, i.e. – one that cannot support us, still functions. Still goes on. So who really needs the save, Simon?
If energy never ran out, would there be no war? Then again, if we never wanted for power, would we run out of fresh water and fish slower or faster?
Is it worth more if oil is limited or limitless?
Hey, man, that’s my stash. So, uncool.
Oil. Squished fish and depressed dinosaurs?
Adverbally, though, is anyone really upset that dinosaurs are extinct? They are really tough to zoo. And deer eating the tomatoes are one thing. But would you rather a T-rex eating your entire spinach crop as a side dish to your juicy raw thigh?
T-Rexes preferred dark meat. Thighs, especially. Since a meal was usually in flight mode just before being prepared, the thighs were especially full of juice.
Then again, if dinosuares happened to have lived now, Brontosaurus fucking would have been perfect programming for any channel in the Discovery empire, or a wonderful safari destination package extra. “Feel the ground shake under a jeep while parked on an amazonian bluff, as you witness two 8000lb truckosaurs crashing hips and flattening trees in reptilavian ecstasy…”
In 200,000 years, New York City will either be under 2 miles of ice or 1000 feet of water. Vegas odds are never on stasis.
God, I hope it’s ice, man.
Then, in 300,000 years, as the glacier recedes (like it’s done a few times), a melting midtown ice sheet will reveal “Manhattan Man,” with his right thumb still frozen to his crackberry, wearing his perfectly preserved Cavalli leathers. Our highly advanced distant progeny will then put him on display in the Homo Erectuseum right next to Lucy with her stone tipped spear and that kid from Pompeii frozen in ash.
“I so want the SapienHead holographic upgrade,” one will think to another via iMind™ as they pass through the exhibit, “What a pleasure zone! All Sapiens did was just screw each other. Eighteen billion, can you believe they…”