In 50 years or so (I’m guessing I won’t be alive), many children of that era may never know the taste of fresh fish or seafood. Who knows what other things will go extinct or inedible by then.
It’s not just song birds that will go extinct, I assume. The future generations will never get to hear some sounds that existed in nature. It’s being able to see those birds, hear those birds, knows them at all. Being able to just experience seeing a fish. Seeing a whale. Tasting a fresh healthy fish. Things we taste, see, hear and smell in modern life in 2020 may never exist by 2070. We really do take things for granted. We are almost depriving the experiences of future children by prioritizing our own experiences first. We’ve been doing things with no consideration of consequences for the future.
Having been a meat eater and an all-around omnivore my entire life, I never really understood the environmental impact of meat, seafood, dairy and etc. until recently. Everything came to us so easily, happily and innocuously packaged under some cheerful branding or attractive logos or another. But now that the cat’s out of the bag, it’s impossible to conceal the truth. They say ignorance is bliss. In this case, it really isn’t. We are killing the planet. Out of pure greed for “taste,” really.
It’s really the human taste bud and appetite for meat, the demand, that we must control, nothing more. As long as there is demand and a desire for meat, people will keep eating it regardless of environmental impact. It’s extremely difficult to reverse a person’s appetite or cultural affinity toward one type of food or another, I imagine. But I believe our love and dedication to protection of nature must outweigh the desire for our tongue/brain to taste something. It must. Otherwise, this immediate primal desire keeps overriding our long-term potential for survival and hurting the very house we live in.
That’s the epitome of what makes humans different from animals, after all. If we keep indulging in the desires of our primal brains, that love to engage in sensory pleasures in sight, taste, touch, smell and sound, what makes us different from other animals? Animals are already doing that, driven by lust, survival instinct and reptilian instincts. But as long as we exercise our advanced human brain to set aside our immediate desires to eat or taste meat … or indulge in this luxury or that luxury … we can exercise control + self-restraint to protect the things that really matter to us.
Suffering and sacrifice. It’s foreign words to many people. But there’s no other way. As long as the human society at large is manipulated by desires, there’s no hope. Quelling desires, keeping them under our control. That’s the goal. It’s possible, and many have already shown us that.
Just like our parents took care of us when we were little and vulnerable, and forgave us for all our mistakes and trouble-making as babies and children. It’s time for the adults of today to forgive the transgressions of past generations and to do the right work (for the environment) by ourselves.
I imagine we are all living under one roof, this house called the Earth. There’s all kinds of families living under this same roof. Yeah, we compete against each other and fight all the time like a dysfunctional family, but one thing we can’t deny is that we are all living in this one house. We better take care of it, otherwise this whole thing collapses, and we can’t live anymore. So it helps to take care of the oceans, our backyard, take care of the garbage, making sure all the rooms are clean. We can’t bring the house down just to fill our tummies and please our tongues.
Human beings were supposed to be the kind, wise kings and queens of everything on land and sea, everything in nature. We were supposed to supervise, respect the circle of life, and make sure everything runs smoothly, like Mufassa does on The Lion King. In one way or another, well in many ways to be honest, we became unfit to rule.
If we don’t want future children to not hate us any more than they already will, we better start doing some stuff now to atone for the sins of our ancestors and ourselves.
I’m sure we can do it. Inshallah.
