The issue of conservation arises every summer in the West and Midwest. Pundits and politicians constantly tell us there is not enough water to spread around. Drought ensues, fires sprout up, and we are all left high and dry? literally.
Despite the fact that year after year we face an ever-worsening drought, we continue to abuse our scarce resources by watering our flowers and lawns non-stop. We fail to remember that we live in a desert. We forget that by making the decision to inhabit this harsh desert environment, we accept the responsibility of preserving it.
American society has a very hard time conserving anything. By not using our resources wisely and cautiously, we condemn future generations to live without the beauty we enjoy today.
More than just natural resources suffer from our opulence. Our desire for new land drove American Indians out of the West, out of their homes and away from the land they and their ancestors deemed holy. Early settlers did not value the people native to this land. Those settlers were greedy, hungry for more and arrogant.
Early American settlers didn’t have enough respect to preserve native culture. Now their descendants struggle to salvage what is left of it. After hundreds and hundreds of years of pushing the American Indians further away from the land we stole from them, we are finally trying to preserve what little of their culture is left. We have pushed them onto reservations, covered their lands with what we thought better suited us and treated them as nothing more than drunks and deviants from the past. With all this disrespect, it’s a wonder they still want to share their culture with us at all. Thus began the tradition of overindulgence, self-righteousness and lack of respect in the West.
Americans are not the only people guilty of the crime of selfishness. There are still many indigenous peoples scattered throughout the corners of the planet. They are being pushed further and further into these corners so that we can have the resources they had the respect to preserve for our own greedy societies.
We then exploit these “less developed” societies. Our culture is so obsessed with fashion, beauty and the latest anti-aging cream that we often forget what the real costs of these items are. Many times we forget the most “fashionable” and desirable items are produced by people working in nearly slave-like conditions. These factory employers don’t pay wages up to par with the cost of living, employees work in deplorable environments and are not offered health insurance. By purchasing items made in such factories, the only thing we preserve is the exploitation of their workers.
Not only do we destroy and exploit cultures, we destroy other living things. Our lack of respect has led to the extinction of hundreds of species of both plants and animals. There are hundreds of species on this planet of which we are unaware. And in the web of life, each species depends on others. As we destroy one, we destroy many. By dumping pollutants into lakes, streams and oceans, we destroy an intricate ecosystem that we know little about.
Scientists threw a party recently to announce that they may be able to clone an extinct species: the Tasmanian Tiger. The press was far too busy reporting this new technology to remember how the helpless animals became extinct in the first place.
Technology has become a justification for the evils we commit. If we can kill off a species of wild animals or plants, then bring them back and put them in a zoo, everything is fine, right?
Wrong. It’s the “Jurassic Park” syndrome: We are so concerned with whether or not we can, we don’t stop to think if we should.
However, unlike in “Jurassic Park,” we killed these animals. It was our own lack of respect that led to their demise. Bringing them back through cloning would only perpetuate the problem.
Our lack of respect for plants, animals and even other humans has created a world that makes me wonder whether or not I want to bring children into it. We have strained natural resources, pushed people and animals out of their habitats to make them more comfortable for us to live in. We have been bad neighbors and tenants on Earth.
We continue to have families that are far too big for the earth to handle. The population of Africa doubles approximately every 24 years. The population of the United States doubles every 99 years. But in Europe, where they have long since run out of room and resources, the population doubles every 266 years.
We can no longer afford to water our lawns every day. We can no longer wipe out species with the hope that cloning will one day bring them back for us to enjoy only in zoos. We can no longer devalue indigenous or other “civilized” societies with the misconception that our culture is better.
Conservation is the key to preservation. When we neglect other things around us, we neglect our own future.
So please, water your lawn sparingly. The world would be a better place if we all had dead lawns.
Casey welcomes feedback at [email protected]. Send letters to the editor to [email protected]