Why Climate Change = Famine?

Last night there was a spectacular lightning-thunder show performing in the sky. Many of us were in awe as we watched.

However, in the midst of strange weather, have we ever considered this as “the hard time” for all the little creatures in nature?

The Intrinsic Relationship: Nature & Humanity

Whenever there is a sudden change of weather (extreme hot-cold-rain-storm), I've learnt to say a prayer for all the little baby creatures (birds/ bees/ butterflies/ snails...etc). Praying that they will have the required strength to survive these "tough, new weather patterns" offered by Humanity.

Especially now is early spring, so we suppose to have nice warm breezy spring weather. But instead, temperature has been either below 15C for one week, or rise above 30C the next week...typically with a mix of strong wind, rain and thunder in between as well.

We humans are accustomed to live inside our own comfortable home, all equipped with centralized heating/cooling system, so weather to us nowadays is of the least concern as part of our daily priorities.

But if we try to observe nature, pay a little more attention and just look around, we will begin to notice all these poor little creatures are either soaked, half-dried, chilled, or dehydrated (too-hot) depending on the outside weather.

Basically, since the beginning of time, Mother Nature has always been relying on stable weather in order to grow and strive. Whether it is for food crops/ plants/ flowers/ animals/ birds/ insects/ or humans. We are all the same.

And in order to grow plants/ flowers/ food crops, we need the help of our little creatures (birds, animals and insects, etc) encircling their life (finding food/ building nest/ nurturing their offspring...etc), engaging in all the regular daily activities similar to what we humans do for our own families.

The main difference is that Humanity has long forgotten our innate status as the members of Mother Nature!

In fact, modern day human beings are very much "out-of-sync" in all of the fundamental wisdom that were once passed-down by our ancestors. I now almost feel ashamed as "being human" after keenly observed the incredibly honorable behaviors in birds (see Heaven Sent)!

That's why I would suggest everyone read "The Third Covenant" by Dr. Albert LaChance, as he has linked all the missing puzzles back into ONE whole. Our world deserves to break-through and evolve better than this current state (i.e. The Excessive Consumerism Era). However, this Modern Day Renaissance will happen -- if and only if -- everyone could finally comprehend the "root-cause" of the current disease in our human society.

The bottom line is that "everything is intricately linked with everything else". Therefore, what doesn't seem to be affecting us now personally and/or directly WILL definitely affect us as a whole in the end.

The Vicious Cycle of "Four Seasons in Two Days"

Take for example, lately we can easily see the happenings of swift weather change -- turning our "annual four seasons" into "four seasons in two-days". From a sudden arrival of hot-summer afternoon, followed by an all-night heavy rain thunder storm, and then the very next morning becomes bitter-cold, windy and winter-like, etc.

This kind of weather patterns will no doubt wipe-out many species in nature overnight, that are either weak-sick-old or too young (i.e. newborns/ offsprings). And it doesn't matter if they were plant sprouts, flower buds, insects, butterflies, bees, flies, snails, birds, other animals etc.

This alone will lead to food security in question. All depending on the frequency of having strange weather patterns in our near future. One thing for certain is that our farmlands, gardens, and food crops will not be as strong and fertile in future -- all because of climate change, and eventually if it ever gets worse, then nothing will grow.

And the final result? The entire Humanity will cease to exist!

Bugs: The Earth Saver

Bugs are crucial to the environment. It’s said that we live in the Anthropocene - an epoch defined by human impacts on the planet. Humans might have built civilizations, but it’s bugs that dominate the world. After all, over half of all known species are insects.

So if they all suddenly vanished, you'd notice... No more summers of singing cicadas and flickering fireflies. No bees to pollinate apple, cherry, peach, or almond trees. No one to make honey. A world without insects means a world with empty grocery-store shelves. But that would be just the beginning of our problems.

At any given moment, it’s been estimated, there are 10 quintillion insects flying, crawling, hovering, marching, burrowing, and swimming around. They maintain the world as we know it: Without insects to pollinate them, most flowering plants, from daisies to dogwoods, would die out.

In terms of variety, the numbers are equally impressive: Something like 80 percent of all the different kinds of animals are insects.

The Restoration of Mother Earth

Interestingly, without humans, our Mother Earth may finally have a chance to re-boot and regenerate for itself.

All too bad for humans -- and humans only -- simply because we are being on the very top of food-chain in the entire ecosystem. How ironic (and arrogant) it is for humanity to depend on all the other species in order to survive, and yet we have continued to ignore their existence and well-beings!

If humans were to suddenly disappear, biologist Edward O. Wilson has famously observed, the Earth would “regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago.” But “if insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

Now populations of species worldwide are falling at alarming rates. The extinction of the one-inch-wide Xerces blue butterfly, may have been a harbinger of what some scientists fear could become a global insect die-off.

That's why we need to start teaching little kids about nature while at home and/or in schools.

The earlier the better.

So that even after these little kids grow up, each and everyone of them will be very much ingrained for their connection with nature.

And hopefully, this new generation will be more compassionate towards nature than we currently do. As they make choices regarding personal habits, daily activities and even career choice etc.

Wishing for someday…that all of Humanity as a whole will "regain" this kind of fundamental awareness towards our only ONE home -- Mother Nature & Planet Earth!

See also:

Thomas Berry: The Great Work of the New Millennium

Thomas Berry: Technology and the Healing of the Earth

Thomas Berry: Bioregions -- The Context for Reinhabiting the Earth