It all started in a garden, designed on a dynamic ecological balance between living species and their physical environment. Ancient documents call it the Garden of Eden. We know it as planet Earth.

Following millions upon millions of years, an intelligent species evolved, so intelligent that its creator felt the need to advise it.  Ancient biblical documents explain such advice limiting the use of the garden, in not touching the apple tree. The intelligence was warned that it would be expelled from the garden if it went over this limit.

The greed of this intelligence, increased beyond any control, greedy for more and more power and materialism. Egoism led the species not only to exceed the limit, but to mutilate, decimate and even uproot and destroy the apple tree – the safeguarding of life in the garden.

Basic principles which bound such intelligence – referred to in ancient documents as the Ten Commandments – were not only ignored and ridiculed, but what these forbade became the rule of law: deceit, murder, robbery, rape, hate; some even regarded as qualifications for success, and even a place in governments.

The foundations of life on the planet became victims of such intelligence: exploited, polluted, and raped, without any reasonable justification, except to satisfy greed. The ecosystem was not found good enough for the use of such intelligence.

Organisms were genetically modified for more profit motives. Toxic chemicals were sprayed haphazardly to kill what was not needed, or which competed with commercial interests. Commercial ventures played with toxic chemical concoctions, justified by some PhDs as producing more inexpensive food for the people – a Hobson choice for the guinea pigs of commercial greed.

Toxic waste filled the oceans, dispersed in the air and covered the land, all in the name of progress and the benefit of the people.

Now oceans belch toxic and plastic waste. Land and fresh water succumb to toxicity, while the atmosphere, also considered as a dumping place for toxic waste, reacts with the physical environment of this ecosystem, disrupting the dynamic ecological balance. Everything is given a monetary price tag, except the ecosystem.

One influential political leader with such intelligence trumpets that all this is fake news aimed at destabilising the world’s economy. Other politicians follow in his footsteps proclaiming that as long as the economy is doing fine, there is nothing to worry about.

Pygmy politicians finding a back seat on the political bandwagon, accuse those genuinely concerned with the social and ecological degradation, as fundamentalists and Jacobins.

And the people bowed and prayed, to this mammon god they made. And though the signs flash out their warnings, with disasters that are forming, the words of scientists are met with scorn, as fiction porn, while the sound of silence, which like cancer grows, shatters planet Earth, with the applause of a square-circled mentality hailing their leaders as saviours of humanity.

Mother earth sighed, mother earth tried, and mother earth cried. But the intelligence is convinced that it needs no creator to direct it, no ecosystem to sustain it, and no other intelligence to advice it. It is supreme and rules, decides and programmes life on planet Earth in the name of greed for power, consumerism and materialism.

Planet Earth has never faced such an intelligence which revolts and questions its creator, and which has the power to destroy itself. This does not worry Planet Earth at all. It needs nobody from its creation to save it. It can take care of itself without any problems.

No species can survive if it does not respect this dynamic balance which supports it. There is a limit which no species can ignore or abuse of

During the Jurassic period that spanned 56 million years, ending 145 million years ago, dinosaurs, the strongest gigantic species, dominated the planet. Evolution of smaller modern feathered dinosaurs, birds, saw the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Who would have thought that such creatures would go extinct? In the ongoing evolution on planet Earth, this was just a bat of the eye.

The first fossils of today’s intelligence appeared around 55 million years ago: a relatively young species. Today this intelligence is on the warpath with the ecosystem which sustains it, blinded by egoism, greed and arrogance. A more evolved future intelligence will have ample archaeological material to evaluate and study.

Terrestrial, marine or atmospheric waste dumps, including fossilised bones riddled with holes adjacent to monstrous mass-killing machines, without doubt will offer more than enough evidence leading to the extinction of a species which dominated the Anthropocene – the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.

Some intelligent affluent rats, head buried in the sand, where they only see their accumulated riches and account balances, may no doubt loudly blare that this is a vision of doom and gloom, fake news, which can only destabilise the world’s economy. Another arrogant characteristic contributing to the demise of such intelligence.

Those who are concerned with life on this planet and can relate the scientific, social, and spiritual attributes of the ecosystem, consider this as a part of evolution in this ‘Garden’.

Political blocks, displaying golden or silver stars on blue backgrounds, owe their existence to parochialism ingrained on power and materialism. In no way will any star help the delicate dynamic ecological balance. Planet Earth does not have or need any such intelligent parochial acumen.

The dinosaurs have come and gone, remembered for their gigantic size and strength. This intelligence has come and will go, remembered for inventing and perfecting the wheel, but not intelligent enough to avoid being the victim of its own intelligence.

It has been said that insects have seen man come and they will see man go, Monsanto or not. Evolution will take care and put in place this egoistic intelligence convinced that it is not anymore part of the ecosystem: believing it is superior and more intelligent than the ecosystem itself.

The story of the apple tree will still remain the concept of all life in this garden. No species can survive if it does not respect this dynamic balance which supports it. There is a limit which no species can ignore or abuse of.

Alfred Baldacchino is a former assistant director of the Malta Environment and Planning Authority’s environment directorate.

aebaldacchino@gmail.com

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.