Enemies of nature

I find it horribly ironic that the article I had to edit for my Print Production midterm last week was about a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit Asia, killing thousands. Who would have thought a journalism exam could be a grotesque omen of future events.

While reading about this latest global tragedy in the New York Times, I saw the usual assortment of articles about war and terrorism, and I became extremely bothered. Every day people across the world continue to engage in battles against one another, some organized, some involuntarily, and innocent lives are lost for petty causes.

Instead of attacking each other, we should be looking at something bigger that appears to be attacking all humans: nature. First the tsunami, then the Gulf hurricanes, and now more destruction in South Asia. I am not a very superstitious person, but this sudden increase in natural disasters is so unfathomable that it almost seems like a sign from above. And yet at the same time, it is not so hard to believe if you think of the ways in which humans have continually neglected and damaged our planet. We have been warned of the effects of global warming but done hardly anything to respond. Is this our pay-back? The beginning of Armageddon?

Yes, the immediate responses to recent disasters have been to support one another. And yet the global conflicts rage on. If we continue to misuse our planet as a battleground, there may be nothing left to battle (or better yet, live) on. In too many ways, humans are the source of most global problems. Instead of fighting against each other, we should be banding together to remedy the damage we've inflicted on our natural world.