My fear of nature is born of an awareness that the human race has no respect for it. That is a frightening fact, when you consider that nature is easily the most destructive force on earth. But I have even greater fear of people who think they understand it and like to tinker with its idiosyncrasies. Naturalists scare me the most. They are uniformly bogus in their exploitation of the media, showing us how they are saving the planet. Fashion is all the difference for these environmental hypocrites, and I must say they look like the real thing in their khaki shorts, stylish safari hats, designer boots and black socks that give them an air of scientific eccentricity.
Naturalists claim to have a profound respect for the environment, as anyone can see in the pleasure they take digging for beetles, bounding through the woods in relentless pursuit of the silver winged monarch, which they torture and kill for their prized collections. Their deep appreciation of wildlife is evident as they torment sleepy owls who do not wish to pose for photographs. Never satisfied with wildlife either, they invariably find ways to foist themselves upon local inhabitants, who find it necessary to bring out their collections of human skulls to get these nature boys to leave.
Camera crews document every scripted move of these made-for-TV adventurers. Personally, I don’t know why they ever come out of their air-conditioned trailers. I guess I’m just a wimp when it comes to the outdoors. There are also quite a few magazines that glorify these brave men of the bush who do not share my cowardice. They all seem to have names like Thornhill, Williamson and Hammertoe, and they write brilliantly about things like the mating habits of the palmetto beetle, which people of the southeastern part of the country know better as a giant cockroach that is bigger than your grandmother’s orthopedic shoes. Photographs of dragonflies that dwarf Bell helicopters are intriguing, but I would avoid them unless the seating was extremely comfortable.
Of course, all of these naturalists claim to be part of the “green movement.” This growing environmental awareness movement is well meant for the most part, but its propensity for conferences where environmentalist quacks bask in the limelight is unfortunate. The “green movement” raises millions of dollars at rock concerts and other promotional events, but that money is like a pea on the plate of a starving man. It is clearly not even close to enough to buy nature’s forgiveness for what we have done to the planet. Then there is the new catchphrase “think green.” How nice. While we’re thinking global warming away, the naturalists are “thinking green” as they pollute faraway places with their oil-burning Land Rovers, litter pristine rain forests with trails of soiled toilet paper and then return home to drive their Lincoln Navigators through the countryside.
Can you think of any reason why I should not fear nature? I’d have to be a complete moron not to fear something that powerful. If it ever comes down to it, nature will do a tap dance on the “green movement” and its puny efforts to save the planet. It can be all things at once. On any given day, it can be the lovely garden in front of your house or the tornado that hurls that house into the next county. In our thoughtless plundering of the environment to acquire “more” we have slapped nature in the face too many times. We continue to trample on nature’s possessions as if they belonged to us. It is not difficult to imagine nature enraged when we murder its forests to make room for condominiums. It is now payback time, and I am afraid to say that I do not see the “green movement” having any impact on the accelerating erosion of polar ice caps, the increasing frequency of natural disasters, depletion of ozone in our atmosphere or extinction of plant and animal life vital to the equilibrium of the environment.
Can we save ourselves? We seem to be content to watch, in a collective stupor, as our civilization teeters on the brink of catastrophe. Are we fools? All the “green” people and beetle-digging naturalists in the world cannot save us from our own stupidity. We do not need men in khaki shorts chasing butterflies. What we do need is all of the resources we can muster to throw at this threat to our future.
The “green movement” is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to apologize to nature and offer up insignificant sacrifices to appease it before it destroys us all. We have caused nature to become very angry, and bad things tend to happen whenever anger of any kind is not resolved. In this case, we are talking about unbridled violence. I have never seen a tsunami firsthand, but I comprehend enough to know that it is just one angry response to the basic human condition that is characterized by selfishness, greed and the obsession with immediate gratification.
I am haunted by a question that causes me great pain to ask. Will our grandchildren and great grandchildren live to see the beauty of a forest?