A race called humans owned a very special planet called earth. Every year Mother Earth would sprout forth a bounty of fruits and vegetables and grains that could feed millions of them. All the food made them healthy, wealthy and wise. They flourished and soon millions turned to billions.
“Just think”, said a wise man, “If we could have all the fruits and vegetables that are inside the earth, we could feed many more with lesser land and also build factories, residential complexes and shopping malls.”
By now the writing on the wall was clear. The chemicals were not able to keep pace with the spread of diseases. More and more of them were falling sick and dying. But their faith in chemicals was deep rooted. Of course chemicals were the panacea for all problems. Just that they had not yet discovered the right chemicals.
“You’re right,” said all the rest of them, “We wouldn’t have to wait for Mother Earth to sprout food slowly every year.”
So they decided to pump chemicals into her to make her produce more food faster. The chemicals made her feel sick but she tried her best to keep up with the rate of production demanded of her. Due to the production and time pressure, she could no longer lovingly fill all food with as much goodies as she would have liked. The reduction in nutrients began to tell on the human race’s health and various diseases began to show up. But they did not give a damn. Who cared about diseases? A small dose of chemicals and all the uncomfortable symptoms would vanish. What was important was to produce more and more, faster and faster.
Now they had large amount of food. But it was still not enough. They discovered that the race of insects who shared the planet with them was also sharing their food. What insolence! They decided to teach the insects a lesson. So they poisoned all the food. The insects would eat the food and get exterminated. That would teach them not to mess with humans. It did not matter that the poisons were harmful to the humans themselves too. Chemicals would protect them.
Next they noticed that not all foods were equal. Some food was getting produced faster and in greater quantities while others were laggards. So they decided to eliminate the laggards and favor the achievers. The loss of variety further diminished the nutrients available to man. But then as usual there were always chemicals to make up the deficit. Further men discovered they could design better foods than Mother Nature and began to force her to produce the foods designed by them.
Mother Earth began to feel very depressed. She was being made to work longer hours and there was no job satisfaction. It was just drudgery producing more and more of the same stuff designed by humans. The chemicals and poisons hurt her and she was under great pain. Finally, one day unable to bear the stress, she gave up and dropped dead. The humans dug deep into her bowels. But there was not a morsel of food left inside her. In their greed, they had killed the mother who fed them and now they would die with her.
Related Post: The Curse of the Last Swan
Related Post: The Curse of the Last Swan
The pictures have been taken from the internet. The credit for the pictures to the best of my knowledge in the order of appearance is given below. In case the orginal owner feels credit has been wrongly given or does not want to share the pictures, please do let me know. I will do the needful.
- http://redwoods.info/
- http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hm/hhw/howto/fertilizer.htm
- http://nanoall.blogspot.com/2010/12/nano-encapsulated-pesticides.html
- http://jimbonham.com/blog/genetically-modified-foods/
- http://www.lazydesis.com/chai-time/19641-10-great-inventions-should-invented-part-2-a.html
- http://blog.gabrielmorka.com/