The ungrateful species

I consider myself fortunate beyond words for my opportunity to experience life on this planet. I am here for a mere moment in the vast expanse of both time and space, but what a moment. Not only to experience the universe but more particularly the pleasure of appreciating the infinite beauty, variety and mystery of life on Earth, possibly the only place in the universe it exists. And to witness it at precisely the time when we best understand it all, the understanding adding so much to the experience. It puzzles me why so few people seem to feel the same way.

We are systematically destroying life on our planet, species by species, while at the same time polluting it like vandals. Our cavalier attitude towards the health of Earth, our home, is inexplicable for seemingly intelligent and feeling creatures.

Is it religion? Do too many people feel that it is the afterlife that counts and not this one? That the Earth is simply to be used temporarily until the chosen are raptured up to heaven and the sinners left to roast as the world is consumed by fire? Or are people simply too occupied by their immediate lives to care about the big picture? I have no answers.

In any case, we are an ungrateful lot. If this is indeed the only planet with higher life forms, then we may be the only organism in the universe with the opportunity to appreciate life's wonders. Yet most people apparently never seriously do. If they did, we wouldn't be despoiling the planet. But we are, and that's a damn shame.