Hope

   

     Sadly I spend more time than I would like thinking about how I've come to the point of having no hope.  Oh, people love to lecture me and preach at me about how I should have hope.  Equally as sad, is that they really can't give me any good reason to have hope.  

     Well, to all those who have been so upset with my lack of hope I can say 'I see one source of hope.'  Nature. I will have to admit that it is a hope without homo sapiens. Maybe that's why I see it as hope. I still have no hope for humans.  Let me explain. 

     A few weeks ago I was hiking through the desert in the Organ Pipe National Monument. (Yes, the place where Culus Primus is being his usual ***** self destroying the local native's sacred areas as well as magnificent natural wonders to build his useless wall.) I came across an old mine.  Yuck!  Called an historic site, it was nothing more than an area with three holes dug in the ground filled with old mining junk and a cabin, now fallen down, filled with one-hundred year old trash. Wow, I want to save that to show my grandchildren. (sarcasm) 

     The experience was, at first, a real bummer. Then I went down the trail a short distance and saw what was little more than a pile of stone and wood.  My information said that it was the mine store. There was nothing left to really indicate what it was, but I must assume that the author of the park information had a source that told him it had been a store. In any case that lifted my spirits. Abandoned to the elements, nature had brought down the structure with plants rapidly moving in. Take the homo sapiens out of the picture and health returns.   

     Pamela and others keep telling me that the Earth will survive us, which doesn't really justify our continued existence and slovenly, destructive behavior, but makes me feel a bit better.  Here before me was the evidence.  

     Could this be a glimmer of hope?  I'm still pissed that we're causing the extinction of so many species of plants and animals that might otherwise have survived the next extinction, but can I find a ray of hope?  It still doesn't excuse us for the destruction, damage and suffering we are causing the rest of the world until we are finally eradicated. 

     A few years back Pamela and I visited the  Olympic Pennisula.  There we found the Elwha River.  It had, at one time, been damed. The dam destroyed a major salmon breeding river and the impact was devastating. Believe it or not the dam was partially destroyed so that the river could again flow naturally.  Quickly nature set about repairing the human damage, regaining its equilibrium and now the salmon are again making their way up the Elwha to spawn. Take the homo sapiens out of the picture and health returns. 

     C.B. Brown, for whom Brown Mtn west of Tucson, AZ is named  (Cuk Do-ag to the Tohono O'odham tribe), worked hard to keep what is today the Tucson Mtn Park from being destroyed by homesteading, over-grazing and mining.  The reward of his efforts is arguably the most magnificent desert ecosystems in Arizona, if not the entire southwest.  But there is also Buenas Aires and KOFA.  They are not nearly as magnificent but they are examples of how, when you remove the human element, nature can recover. 

     Earlier today some friends visited me at my camp just outside the KOFA Wildlife Refuge. I gave them a guided tour up to Signal Mtn to where the trailhead to Palm Canyon starts. At the top of the short trail one can look up and see the only truly indigenous palm trees in the State of Arizona. On the way I had a wonderful time pointing out all of the beautiful desert plants.  As I was telling them about the desert around them I made the statement "this desert is in pretty good shape considering what it's been through: mining, over-grazing, trampling, military abuse."  It was, perhaps, that statement that spawned this monograph. Remove the human element and health returns. 

     I know it's hard to admit that your species is the scourge of the Earth, but I think that I get most upset with all of the stupid excuses I hear from people unwilling to look realistically at the nature of the homo sapiens. I really get bent out of shape when their entire argument is based upon some archaic deity whom they believe gives us the right to be AHs. We are not more important than other species. In fact, if we were to suddenly disappear the world would not only not miss us but would be much better off. Sorry. This is fact. 

     I don't want to live without hope. No one wants to live without hope. It is a horrible, empty, painful feeling to be without hope. Nevertheless, I have no hope for homo sapiens.  I don't think we have the ability to address our over-population and destructive nature. What is worse, I don't think we have the real desire. We are far to arrogant.  And so I place my hope in the one aspect of this World that has successfully continued for millions of years ... nature. 

     Humans think we're superior to nature. We're not.  Humans think we can do things better than nature. We can't.  Humans have religions that teach that we're other than nature. We're not.  We are a part of nature, and nature will deal with our arrogant, distuctive behavior in its own way and return health and equalibrium to the Earth.  Now in that I can find hope.