Posted by
Edwin Leap on Monday, June 09, 2008 10:14:14 AM
In an ever green world, one wonders about the sincerity of modern Americans. Just this morning I saw a news clip about a black bear being removed from a tree in a Connecticut neighborhood. He stopped in, took a nap, then the next thing he knew there was a tranquilizer dart in his bear-butt and he was falling onto a net, only to be hoisted off into a distant forest.
So, let me ask, since we are struggling to snatch the earth back from anthropogenic disaster into a more harmonious state with nature, or Gaia, or some other nebulous state of primordial bliss, why do we have to remove bears from trees in suburbia? Let me get this straight: humans are bad, humans don't belong, humans are wrecking the world (and for all we know the known universe). But humans are willing to exercise their fiat to take innocent, sleeping bears out of their neighborhoods?
Fossil fuels, bad. Nuclear power, bad. Urban sprawl, bad. Meat, bad. Fishing, bad. Hunting, bad. Cars, bad. Mankind, bad. Bears, bad? I don't get it. If we really want a return to nature, wouldn't a few large predators, on the order of 300 pounds, be good for mankind? Wouldn't it help global warming, or prevent the next ice-age, or reduce human consumption of natural resources if bears, wolves, mountain lions and other critters just snatched up a few people now and then? How do we draw the line? Humanity as a whole is a disease, but our individual safety is far more important than a poor, weary bear getting a good nap in a nice neighborhood?
Or, could it be, that even the most ardent environmental suburbanites consider themselves, after all, the top of the biological ladder? Interesting. Danger and the risk of death have a way of making us see the world more clearly. I wonder how many deaths will have to occur, how terrible a famine will have to descend, for mankind to stop the global warming madness that is enveloping us. Probably as many as it takes to reach suburbia and the nicer areas of large cities.
I wonder.
And I hope that old bear got back to sleep in the woods, and woke up with odd, hung-over dreams of houses, trees, dogs, little girls and bowls of porridge.
Edwin