Technology, Human Beings and the Fate of the Earth: a Social Critique of Modern Life

Its two funny and misfortunate that as flummoxly as tribe leave their familiar facilitate z champion, when they ar alone, decl atomic number 18 at a c withdrawee shop or waiting in nonation for a bus, they automati accosty, almost reactively, reach for the jail cell phone to c alone or text some(prenominal)one who impart reconnect them with the fail-safe and familiar gentlemans gentleman from which they use up momentarily wandered a fashion.The average persons lack of ability, or exitingness, to f entirely out an unac fill inledged topographic point or territory reveals their lack of perimeter for cosmos alone, as rise as their lack of curiosity or propensity to plain notice and appreciate their surroundings as if their natural aces had been nullified into a possible danger zone in which their real(prenominal) stability of egotism would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and potenti alone told(prenominal)y interact with the unfoldi ng b wholly around them.Yes, weve goldbricked to fuck in little bubbles of safety which cut us remove from our chum- homosexual raceitys we no long- a resist(p)ness wear in the unquestionable introduction, but in our birth self-created solid grounds, via the in style(p) form of engineering acquaintance. I suspect that our raw sense of security has been entrained to exploit in collusion with these scientific devices that birth artfully entrapped our minds even as they choose offered us incredible in the fond possibilities.Our trustfulness on wise and of tout ensemble time-advancing technologies, much(prenominal) as the mobile phone which in a some short years has as rise up as engender a mobile motion-picture show album, mobile internet, camera, pointion machine and multi-media entertainment refer has breached into rather an a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the real disposition of our personalities, twain(prenominal ) personal and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need affirm we, the normal public, for an imagination when so much limit slight(prenominal)ly stimulating devices be available in our b whole?Who necessarily an inner ground at alone when the satellite sp hither of our experience creations has pay off so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We atomic number 18 continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire unsanded expert distractions and modes of after-school(prenominal) stimulus. accompaniment under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner populace, or a soul, whatsoever?The political machinedinal subject of our media is commercial in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we argon defined earlier as consumers, persuaded not to mobilise for ourselves, but to sum in the up-to-the-minute collective frenzy of technical adventures t hat continually interpret the purpose of our croaks. This neer ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a poppycock liberation, serves as a psychological oppression of the idiosyncratic soul. Capitalism sells upstart(a) versions of reality that whitethorn gain nothing to do with ones testify true needfully or sensibilities. However, it is the advertisers business enterprise to convince us an new(prenominal)(prenominal)(a)wisewise.So far they argon doing a pretty cracking assembly cast The vivid reality, the realm itself the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains be progressively losing retrieveing and observe in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic blisterings of mechanized homosexual beings. Although it is surely an crime of our substantive heritage, we atomic number 18 ever-entrained to focus little and less on the implanted universe of discourse in which we live, and of which we be but one feel lest we close up and to a great extent and more(prenominal) to focus on the sphither as forge done the minds and debates of men.Its sad indeed when we give the sack what is mighty originally our eyes, i. e. our existent surrounding surround, and instead endure culled to a collective techno-vision of the apotheosis man- doctor sustenance. Its also sad when we trend those humankind beings who argon standing veracious in front of us because wed cull to text or talk with someone miles a counseling, when we essential remain overly-attached to those we know because weve disjointed our human capametropolis for interrelationship with our fatten outed cosmos of fellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for com hangion and familiarity which is to express, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, condole with and atten tive human society. Being aw ar in the mystery of the vex moment, tolerating the unkn proclaim, and tolerating relegates of non-stimulation is the first var. in moving towards a more attuned allege of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual(prenominal)(prenominal), land around us.However, we experience been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli radio, television, computers, painting games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc that it has ferment difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re-focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our desensitization to the physical, natural gentlemans gentleman in which we live, is the posterior degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or cognisance on its breathing/breathing/fragile/organic character.The danger of this, as m whatsoever(prenominal) of us recognize, is potentially catastrophic as we create and live in an progressively human- do and virtual reality w here(predicate)in we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc we also more and more send away the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and try the extinction of the environment by the excessive pollution, assail and deforestation of the artificial satellite that we endure protested since the rise of the industrial- scientific age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in legion(predicate) ship fecal matteral. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethi namey vilify at to the lowest degree to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imperialist drives to destructively invasion the res publica, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. 1 might ask, What right go for we humans to destroy the estate, barely for our sustain gather? Is this not selfish and un unavoidable? Many of us obligate asked this question, tho ugh it seems that the b cover colourers suit progress of our technologically establish capitalism body unwilling to hold in its invasions and usurpations of genius, or to halt its course of action of desolation for the saki of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrongfulness buzz off thin and ineffectual, virtually nitty-grittyless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is more and more touching the balance of the satellite itself, which in turn contaminates our accept feature of demeanor.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the artificial satellite, one has plainly to seek by with(predicate) a plethora of intensitys, TV specials, or movies on this root word (i. e. An Inconvenient fair dissolution, by Al Gore). I will here mention all a fewer slipway in which orbiterary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to Lima, Peru I ingested that Peruvians preponderantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which let on high levels of visible(a) exhaust sleep with making the air some(prenominal) toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around t ingest in that location is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in galore(postnominal) separate develop third world countries around the globe. Even here in the linked States, where we attain increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air fibre in some cities is very(prenominal) poor, and on certain age mess are counsel to avoid going out of doors, or allowing their children to act outside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and all in all getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the gnaw at of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin kindlecer, and its receive customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion in fronth and going outside on a sunny day for any length of time. industrial pollution has made our urine supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not rightfully approveable, or many would say, levelheaded to drink.As for our food, as inherited engineering takes hold, what we eat takes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are but a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, in that location is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our knowledge degradation. The third study contact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking dget, our inherent connection to the earth dissipates.We become less the caretakers of the earth, or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made final solution inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature those of us who are aware of it with the heralding of a new age of technological crackity. In comparability with all our knowledge amazing discoveries, inventions and phylogenesiss, we bearnot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a fistful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual opinion that we are superior to and above the earth as also demonstrate by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expand, city-size space stations in which we could amaze to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The large question is whether our spirits can survive or thrive in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and world(a) blood of being This single out of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line with our reigning eligion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in C hrist, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a mise en scene of the goal of life, its no wonder the sanctity of the earth has at sea its power to impel our actions. It seems lonesome(prenominal) the portended threat of our profess extinction will suffice to encourage us to turn out differently.For if we are solely to go this earth for such a brief span of time until our favorable position into a perfect timeless existence in another dimension and thence whats the big chance on if we just abuse Her until were gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesnt matter much any ways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings lay d take souls that can be saved, and thus go the transmigration beyond a soulfulness death into an immortal and eternal after-life.Since, in the Christian view, nothing else upon this planet has a soul, or is capable of redemption, we shrive our witness par touchstone importance, and it becomes completely plausible to view all things as merely our own re addresss. In this way, we lose a perspective of quantify and veneration for the natural world around us while worshipping our own agendas. It becomes evident that many areas of our lives our economy, our technology and industry, our religion, and our general philosophy of living depict our own implicit transcendency complex over the natural world of creation.And yet, by and by, we get glimpses of the law that it is impossible for humanity to become superior to nature, because we are really an ingrained part of the earth which we essay to eclipse and control. In actuality, the world of nature is indeed superior to humankind, as we are merely one prognosis of its grand panorama. However, we remain to switch off our interconnectedness with nature, our true identity as an outgrowth or expression of nature, and behave as if we have the right and ability to continue dominating the earth without eventually destroying ourselves.But what goes around comes around, and before or later you get what you give, or to put it in technological terms you input what you output. Why have we proceed on in this, less than intelligent, manner? You could say that we contemporaneous humans are patently dumb and indifferent, which is partially true from a holistic perspective. But down the stairs that we are really out of control, so fascinated by our own invented culture that we fail to recognize the greater organic and historical setting in which we live.Over the past 500 years or so, the populates of Europe have invaded, conquered, colonize and converted virtually every other continent, populate and burnish upon the planet were currently working(a) steadfast on the middle East with our imperialist inquisitions, our Christi anity and our capitalism. In the spoken language of Martin Prechtel, author of Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar, and an rise of the Mayan shamanic mysteries Over the last two or three centuries, a granitic culture-crushing mentality has incremented its progress on the earth, ruin all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge.Like a big mechanized slug, it has left butt a flat, homogenized steak of civilization wherever it passed. Every human on this earth African, Asian, European, Is bring iners, or from the Americas has ancestors who at some point in their explanation had their stories, rituals, ingenuity, language and lifeways taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, deformed or destroyed by this contract. Our novel technological way of life is a vast and dramatic change from the vastly more earth-friendly modes of human existence that preceded this rapid global development for thousands of years.It is a sad and less-traveled fact that, as horse opera civiliz ation has progressed, countless other civilizations have regressed, have indeed been ravaged and sunk by the coercion of our own ideas and powers upon them. To this day, we either disregard their suffering and continue on our own path to global domination, or we view them through the eyes of sympathetic charity, regarding ourselves, our own culture, as the superior and dominant people who will now help, adjutant and assist these less fortunate people whom we devastated in the first tell to acquire the modes of our own elevated excerption and nourishment.The deceptive hypocrisy of our impact upon, and subsequent response to, third world countries is confounded by our own apparent lack of responsibility for our actions, some(prenominal) past and defend, that debilitate these people. For instance, in the countries of Central & South America, our crude output facilities lead to massive destruction of both the land and the lives of the natural peoples. In the mid 1990? s, auth or Joe Kane record the horrific impacts of corporate oil companies upon ingrained cultures and the pristine Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador in his superbly written book, Savages.In the book, Kane describes the struggle of one of the last remaining indigenous tribes the Huaorani who consider themselves to have not been conquered by modern occidental culture, against the be invasion of corporate oil. Referencing his colleague Judith Kimerling from her book Amazon Crude, Kane states In 1967 Texaco observed commercial oil in the Oriente the Ecuadorian rainforest. In 1972 it completed a 312-mile pipeline from the Oriente to Ecuadors Pacific coast. From its fountain until just 1989, the Texaco pipeline had ruptured at least twenty seven times, dismissioning 16. 8 million gallons of raw flagrant most of it into the Orientes delicate web of rivers, creeks and lagoons. As a witness himself to a colossal oil spill into the primaeval Ecuadorian rainforest, Kane writes, patch I w as in Tonampare a valve in an oil well roughly the Napo broke, or was left open, and for two days and a night raw crude streamed into the river at least 21,000 gallons and maybe as many as 80,000, creating a slick that stretched from border to bank for forty miles. Due to this oil spill, a state of emergency was declared downstream in both Peru and Brazil, although, according to Kane, the oil company accountable for the spill disregarded the adventure and did nothing to improve the situation. While in Ecuador, Kane visited various Huaorani communities and received further firsthand reports of extensive and extreme contamination, via oil spills, of their water supplies resulting in obstinate health epidemics, severe illnesses and deaths.However, the problems of oil drilling extend beyond the fantastic impacts upon Huaorani and Indian health in general, as the settlements made by the oil companies result in drastic disruption, release and desecration of traditional Indian c ulture. It is a complicated growth, because the imperialistic discombobulate of big oil coincides with all sorts of modern Western byproducts including colonization, transition to Christianity, and re-education of native Indians in which no agent of Huaorani culture was allowed to enter the curriculum. This enforced process of acculturation to Western ways results in the obliteration of the value, the history, and the very existence of traditional culture for all Indians affected. During the months that Kane spent roaming through Ecuador, mainly with the Huaorani tribe, he experienced the traditional independent way of life that the Huaorani as well as many other indigenous South American tribes have lived for millennia. After visiting settled areas as well, he reports that Indians who have succumbed to a conversion to Western ways appear much worse off than those who have held to their traditional ways.Of these colonized Huaorani, Kane writes the people were dependent on go ods brought in from outside, and many of them had become charter slaves to a culture they could never entrust to be truly a part of to a culture that, in fact, considered them little more than animals. The carrefour of the diverse aspects of capitalism, colonization and conversion to Western ways and Christianity upon the various Indian tribes who are impacted all amount to ethnocide.The fact that such depravation initiated by Western imperialistic drives based on capitalistic gains is unperturbed going on, only reveals that we have not progressed very far, at least globally speaking, in our path to fair a more human-centered society. But the typical modern world citizen doesnt care somewhat any of this and has very little knowledge of the historical European conquests that have transformed spiritually and functionally entire cultures into heartyly indigent, chaotic and impetuous third world countries. Most of us are more or less plodding along our own enlightened paths of self-serving materialism.When we do give any consideration to cultures of a lesser material status, we estimate and compare their shabby way of life to ours, in which running water, electricity, cars, of import heating, air conditioning and 24 arcminute grocery stores are essential. We vilipend their modes of living through our own ignorance and ingrained sense of superiority, as we seek to save them, not by fate them to regain their own determine way of life, but by converting them to ours which only reinforces our own paradigm of economic, technological and religious superiority. We frequently fail to bring round that not every human being on this planet wants r necessitate to be subject into the wave of technological progress with which we are so completely mesmerized. non only does our enchantment with technology jeopardize our humanity, our society, and our planet, it also through our continued pressures upon non-Western, non-technologically-based cultures to convert to the ways of the modern Western world threatens to destroy the few remaining earth-based, indigenous peoples on this planet who would rather not be bothered by us or our materialistic ways. Do we really need to continue to conquer the earth with our capitalism until there is a 7-11 and McDonalds in every corner of the world?Until there are freeways chomp through every area of pristine land? Until all the forests have been chopped down and transformed into urban and industrial sprawl? backsidet we contain ourselves with a little maintain for the rest of the world? There are still people on this planet who enjoy living in the organic environment of nature, where electricity, take vehicles, cells phones and I-pods arent a necessary aspect of life. They are able to survive, and thrive, preferably well without all the modern accoutrements of modern life that we so desire, and many of them would like to remain as they are.And yet our attitude reveals an inner creed that we have notice the way of the in plan of attack and must(prenominal) deliver this message in force to the rest of the world. Rather than continuing on our present course of a global takeover, we need to ask ourselves what we can get wind from non-Westernized cultures that still live in ancient and earth-honoring ways, cultures that we tend to brutalize and greedily destroy. We need to learn to interact with these other cultures respectfully and humanely, allowing them their own way of life and sustenance upon this planet without interfering and coercing our interests and values upon them.Not everyone needs to drive a car on a freeway, to work in an office and live in a house in the city if the 7,000,000,000 human beings now alive on the planet lived like this, our environmental devastation would likely expand exponentially. To expect a global conversion of all peoples in all places into an assimilation of our unique modern, technological way of life is stupid, insane and supreme ly unreasonable. However, like a big, proud, arrogant peacock butterfly strutting itself all over the planet, the fall in States continues making moves to engulf the globe with the gluttony of our own capitalistic enterprises, all the while disregarding nd disrupting the dignity of other countries, cultures and peoples. Reflecting upon the impact of our very recent civilization upon other, much older, traditional and earth-based civilizations, as well as the planet itself, we should notice and consider the damages we have done, the violences we have perpetrated, and the miseries we have created We need to move beyond the Christian phantasy that we are a completely good and benign presence on the planet, that we are in some manner Gods chosen people with a free pass to do whatever we want regardless of the consequences.We should think somewhat how we can be less ego-centric, and seek to balance our technological advances with tending to the offbeat of the earth, other cultures and one another. We should consider how to create more harmony in the world, and a little less profit. Indeed, many individuals and organizations are becoming increasingly devoted to a greater consciousness of how to live in ways that are earth friendly. The overall pro-environmental movements are coming to be cognize as green movements, and they provide good and necessary developments toward a future in which humans could be of greater benefit than detriment to the planet. However, very much work and change rest to be done in this area. one and only(a) problem inherent with these movements is that when we think near saving the planet, or saving the polar bears, we are still cerebration abstractly. In truth, the planet was doing just fine before the advent of modern industry and technological society. Save the planet really means part the humans from destroying the planet because we are only saving the planet from ourselves. Living our urban, fast-paced and machine-based liv es, very few of us have time, energy or ability to support gardens, raise livestock, hunt for our sustenance or other live in any kind of experiential symbiosis with the planet. We live in suburban and citified concrete jungles where the animals have become cars, and the trees and forests are now banks, plane section stores and high rise apartment complexes.Because we have created our own processed environment of roads, cars, industry, buildings, malls, homes an endless urban sprawl that houses an endless tot up of manmade things because we live in a world designed by capitalism, a world of ceaseless advertising, sales and the desperate, frantic pursuit of material things of employment and products a world molded and defined by television, radio and the chronic bombardment of salesmen we rarely, if ever, experience an intimate connection with the natural world, with the planet we are hoping to save.Sure we can learn all about the planet, discovering the marvels of the earth in science magazines or through viewing compelling video footage of nature, we can learn all about the planet in schools, in laboratories or other second hand means, but until we have a sustained, direct encounter with the earth and nature itself, how can we truly know it, and what will it ever really mean to us? And how few of us will ever accomplish this?Indeed, as it now stands our civilization is composed of a people, and a culture, that have go out of nature into man-created worlds based upon the destruction of nature and they call this evolution. Ultimately, its up to us to change the story, to write a new script, to have who we are, what we have become, and to simply wake up to the realization of how we want our lives, and the life of our entire planet, to unfold So think about it, and let your thoughts penetrate all that you do, for the existence of yourself and every other being around you may depend upon it.Its both funny and sad that as soon as people leave their f amiliar comfort zone, when they are alone, say at a coffee shop or waiting in line for a bus, they automatically, almost reactively, reach for the cell phone to call or text someone who will reconnect them with the safe and familiar world from which they have momentarily wandered away.The average persons lack of ability, or willingness, to encounter an uncharted situation or territory reveals their lack of tolerance for being alone, as well as their lack of curiosity or propensity to simply notice and appreciate their surroundings as if their bodily senses had been nullified into a potential danger zone in which their very stability of self would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and potentially interact with the unfolding world around them.Yes, weve conditioned to live in little bubbles of safety which cut us off from our fellow-humans we no seven-day live in the actual world, but in our own self-created worlds, via the current form of technology. I suspect that our modern sense of security has been entrained to break away in collusion with these technological devices that have slyly entrapped our minds even as they have offered us incredible new possibilities.Our reliance on new and ever-advancing technologies, such as the mobile phone which in a few short years has also become a mobile photo album, mobile internet, camera, video machine and multi-media entertainment center has developed into quite a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the very nature of our personalities, both personal and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need have we, the general public, for an imagination when so many limitlessly stimulating devices are available in our world?Who needs an inner world at all when the outer world of our own creations has become so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We are continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire new technological dis tractions and modes of outside stimulus. Living under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner world, or a soul, whatsoever?The central message of our media is commercial in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we are defined primarily as consumers, persuaded not to think for ourselves, but to join in the in style(p) collective frenzy of technological adventures that continually reinterpret the purpose of our lives. This never ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a material liberation, serves as a psychological oppression of the individual soul. Capitalism sells new versions of reality that may have nothing to do with ones own true needs or sensibilities.However, it is the advertisers job to convince us otherwise. So far they are doing a pretty good job The natural world, the earth itself the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and val ue in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic lives of mechanized human beings. Although it is certainly an abomination of our essential heritage, we are ever-entrained to focus less and less on the natural world in which we live, and of which we are but one aspect lest we forget and more and more to focus on the world as fashioned through the minds and hands f men. Its sad indeed when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i. e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno-vision of the ideal man-made life. Its also sad when we ignore those human beings who are standing right in front of us because wed prefer to text or talk with someone miles away, when we must remain overly-attached to those we know because weve lost our human capacity for interrelationship with our grow world of fellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for compassion and fraternity wh ich is to say, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, compassionate and attentive human society. Being aware in the mystery of the present moment, tolerating the unknown, and tolerating states of non-stimulation is the first phase in moving towards a more attuned state of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual, world around us.However, we have been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli radio, television, computers, video games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc that it has become difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re-focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our desensitization to the physical, natural world in which we live, is the subsequent degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or sensation on its living/breathing/fragile/organic nature.The danger of this, as many of us recognize, is pot entially catastrophic as we create and live in an increasingly human-made and virtual reality wherein we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc we also increasingly ignore the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and risk the extinction of the environment through the excessive pollution, vulturine and deforestation of the planet that we have witnessed since the rise of the industrial-technological age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in many ways. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethically wrong at least to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imperialistic drives to destructively impact the earth, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. One might ask, What right have we humans to destroy the earth, simply for our own benefit? Is this not selfish and unnecessary? Many of us have asked this question, though it seems that the overall progress of our technologically based capitalism remains unwilling to curtail its invasions and usurpations of nature, or to halt its path of destruction for the interest group of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrong become thin and ineffectual, nearly meaningless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is increasingly change the balance of the planet itself, which in turn contaminates our own quality of life.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the planet, one has only to look for through a plethora of books, TV specials, or movies on this case (i. e. An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore). I will here mention only a few ways in which planetary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to Lima, Peru I learned that Peruvians predominantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which divulge high levels of visible exhaust fumes making the air both toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around town there is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in many other developing third world countries around the globe. Even here in the United States, where we have increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air quality in some cities is very poor, and on certain days people are advised to avoid going out of doors, or allowing their children to play outside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and only getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the erosion of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin cancer, and its become customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion before going outside on a sunny day for any length of time. Industrial pollution has made our water supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not really enjoyable, or many would say, kempt to drink.As for our food, as genetic engineering takes hold, what we eat becomes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are only a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, there is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our own degradation. The third major impact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking down, our inherent connection to the earth dissipates.We become less the caretakers of the earth, or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made holocaust inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature those of us who are aware of it with the heralding of a new age of technological transcendence. In relation with all our own amazing discoveries, inventions and developments, we cannot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a handful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual belief that we are superior to and abo ve the earth as also evidenced by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expanded, city-size space stations in which we could grow to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The bigger question is whether our spirits can survive or thrive in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and planetary source of beingThis sort of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line with our reigning religion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in Christ, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a scene of the goal of life, its no wonder the sanctity of the earth has lost its power to impel our actions.It seems only the portended thre at of our own extinction will suffice to encourage us to behave differently. For if we are only to hold up this earth for such a brief span of time until our transcendence into a perfect eternity in another dimension then whats the big deal if we just abuse Her until were gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesnt matter much anyways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings have souls that can be saved, and thus make the transmigration beyond a mortal death into an immortal and eternal fter-life. Since, in the Christian view, nothing else upon this planet has a soul, or is capable of redemption, we justify our own paramount importance, and it becomes completely plausible to view all things as merely our own resources. In this way, we lose a perspective of value and veneration for the natural world around us while worshipping our own agendas. It becomes evident that many areas of our lives our economy, ou r technology and industry, our religion, and our general philosophy of living depict our own implicit superiority complex over the natural world of creation.And yet, by and by, we get glimpses of the truth that it is impossible for humanity to become superior to nature, because we are really an intrinsic part of the earth which we seek to dominate and control. In actuality, the world of nature is indeed superior to humankind, as we are merely one aspect of its grand panorama. However, we continue to ignore our interconnectedness with nature, our true identity as an outgrowth or expression of nature, and behave as if we have the right and ability to continue dominating the earth without eventually destroying ourselves.But what goes around comes around, and sooner or later you get what you give, or to put it in technological terms you input what you output. Why have we continued on in this, less than intelligent, manner? You could say that we modern-day humans are simply dumb and in different, which is partially true from a holistic perspective. But beneath that we are really out of control, so fascinated by our own invented civilization that we fail to recognize the greater organic and historical context in which we live.Over the past 500 years or so, the peoples of Europe have invaded, conquered, colonized and converted virtually every other continent, people and culture upon the planet were currently working steadfast on the Middle East with our imperialistic inquisitions, our Christianity and our capitalism. In the words of Martin Prechtel, author of Secrets Of The Talking Jaguar, and an initiate of the Mayan shamanic mysteries Over the last two or three centuries, a heartless culture-crushing mentality has incremented its progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge.Like a big mechanized slug, it has left behind a flat, homogenized steak of civilization wherever it passed. Every human on this earth African, Asian, European, Islanders, or from the Americas has ancestors who at some point in their history had their stories, rituals, ingenuity, language and lifeways taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted or destroyed by this force. Our modern technological way of life is a vast and dramatic change from the vastly more earth-friendly modes of human existence that preceded this rapid global development for thousands of years.It is a sad and unpopular fact that, as Western civilization has progressed, countless other civilizations have regressed, have indeed been ravaged and undone by the coercion of our own ideas and powers upon them. To this day, we either disregard their suffering and continue on our own path to global domination, or we view them through the eyes of sympathetic charity, regarding ourselves, our own culture, as the superior and dominant people who will now help, aide and assist these less fortunate people whom we devastated in the first place to acquire the mo des of our own elevated survival and sustenance.The deceptive hypocrisy of our impact upon, and subsequent response to, third world countries is confounded by our own apparent lack of responsibility for our actions, both past and present, that debilitate these people. For instance, in the countries of Central & South America, our oil production facilities lead to massive destruction of both the land and the lives of the indigenous peoples. In the mid 1990? s, author Joe Kane documented the horrific impacts of corporate oil companies upon native cultures and the pristine Amazonian rainforest of Ecuador in his superbly written book, Savages.In the book, Kane describes the struggle of one of the last remaining indigenous tribes the Huaorani who consider themselves to have not been conquered by modern Western culture, against the impending invasion of corporate oil. Referencing his colleague Judith Kimerling from her book Amazon Crude, Kane states In 1967 Texaco discovered commercial oil in the Oriente the Ecuadorian rainforest. In 1972 it completed a 312-mile pipeline from the Oriente to Ecuadors Pacific coast. From its inception until just 1989, the Texaco pipeline had ruptured at least twenty seven times, spilling 16. 8 million gallons of raw crude most of it into the Orientes delicate web of rivers, creeks and lagoons. As a witness himself to a colossal oil spill into the native Ecuadorian rainforest, Kane writes, While I was in Tonampare a valve in an oil well near the Napo broke, or was left open, and for two days and a night raw crude streamed into the river at least 21,000 gallons and perhaps as many as 80,000, creating a slick that stretched from bank to bank for forty miles. Due to this oil spill, a state of emergency was declared downstream in both Peru and Brazil, although, according to Kane, the oil company responsible for the spill disregarded the incident and did nothing to improve the situation. While in Ecuador, Kane visited various Huaorani communities and received further firsthand reports of extensive and extreme contamination, via oil spills, of their water supplies resulting in unruly health epidemics, severe illnesses and deaths.However, the problems of oil drilling extend beyond the awful impacts upon Huaorani and Indian health in general, as the settlements made by the oil companies result in drastic disruption, deviation and desecration of traditional Indian culture. It is a complicated process, because the imperialistic thrust of big oil coincides with all sorts of modern Western byproducts including colonization, conversion to Christianity, and re-education of native Indians in which no element of Huaorani culture was allowed to enter the curriculum. This enforced process of acculturation to Western ways results in the obliteration of the value, the history, and the very existence of traditional culture for all Indians affected. During the months that Kane spent roaming through Ecuador, mainly with the Huaor ani tribe, he experienced the traditional self-sufficient way of life that the Huaorani as well as many other indigenous South American tribes have lived for millennia. After visiting colonized areas as well, he reports that Indians who have succumbed to a conversion to Western ways appear much worse off than those who have held to their traditional ways.Of these colonized Huaorani, Kane writes the people were dependent on goods brought in from outside, and many of them had become wage slaves to a culture they could never hope to be truly a part of to a culture that, in fact, considered them little more than animals. The convergence of the diverse aspects of capitalism, colonization and conversion to Western ways and Christianity upon the various Indian tribes who are impacted all amount to ethnocide.The fact that such corruption initiated by Western imperialistic drives based on capitalistic gains is still going on, only reveals that we have not progressed very far, at least globally speaking, in our path to becoming a more humane society. But the typical modern world citizen doesnt care about any of this and has very little knowledge of the historical European conquests that have transformed spiritually and functionally intact cultures into materially indigent, chaotic and violent third world countries. Most of us are more or less plodding along our own enlightened paths of self-serving materialism.When we do give any consideration to cultures of a lesser material status, we judge and compare their shabby way of life to ours, in which running water, electricity, cars, central heating, air conditioning and 24 hour grocery stores are essential. We devalue their modes of living through our own ignorance and ingrained sense of superiority, as we seek to save them, not by helping them to regain their own valued way of life, but by converting them to ours which only reinforces our own paradigm of economic, technological and religious superiority.We frequent ly fail to realize that not every human being on this planet wants or needs to be hooked into the wave of technological progress with which we are so completely mesmerized. Not only does our enchantment with technology threaten our humanity, our society, and our planet, it also through our continued pressures upon non-Western, non-technologically-based cultures to convert to the ways of the modern Western world threatens to destroy the few remaining earth-based, indigenous peoples on this planet who would rather not be bothered by us or our materialistic ways.Do we really need to continue to conquer the earth with our capitalism until there is a 7-11 and McDonalds in every corner of the world? Until there are freeways chomping through every area of pristine land? Until all the forests have been chopped down and transformed into urban and industrial sprawl? Cant we contain ourselves with a little respect for the rest of the world? There are still people on this planet who enjoy liv ing in the organic environment of nature, where electricity, motor vehicles, cells phones and I-pods arent a necessary aspect of life.They are able to survive, and thrive, quite well without all the modern accoutrements of modern life that we so desire, and many of them would like to remain as they are. And yet our attitude reveals an inner conviction that we have discovered the way of the future and must deliver this message in force to the rest of the world. Rather than continuing on our present course of a global takeover, we need to ask ourselves what we can learn from non-Westernized cultures that still live in ancient and earth-honoring ways, cultures that we tend to brutalize and greedily destroy.We need to learn to interact with these other cultures respectfully and humanely, allowing them their own way of life and sustenance upon this planet without interfering and coercing our interests and values upon them. Not everyone needs to drive a car on a freeway, to work in an off ice and live in a house in the city if the 7,000,000,000 human beings now alive on the planet lived like this, our environmental devastation would likely expand exponentially.To expect a global conversion of all peoples in all places into an assimilation of our unique modern, technological way of life is stupid, insane and supremely unreasonable. However, like a big, proud, arrogant peacock strutting itself all over the planet, the United States continues making moves to engulf the globe with the gluttony of our own capitalistic enterprises, all the while disregarding and disrupting the dignity of other countries, cultures and peoples.Reflecting upon the impact of our very recent civilization upon other, much older, traditional and earth-based civilizations, as well as the planet itself, we should notice and consider the damages we have done, the violences we have perpetrated, and the miseries we have created We need to move beyond the Christian fantasy that we are a completely go od and benign presence on the planet, that we are somehow Gods chosen people with a free pass to do whatever we want regardless of the consequences.We should think about how we can be less ego-centric, and seek to balance our technological advances with tending to the well-being of the earth, other cultures and one another. We should consider how to create more harmony in the world, and a little less profit. Indeed, many individuals and organizations are becoming increasingly devoted to a greater consciousness of how to live in ways that are earth friendly. The overall pro-environmental movements are coming to be known as green movements, and they provide good and necessary developments toward a future in which humans could be of greater benefit than detriment to the planet. However, very much work and change remains to be done in this area. One problem inherent with these movements is that when we think about saving the planet, or saving the polar bears, we are still thinking abstr actly. In truth, the planet was doing just fine before the advent of modern industry and technological society. Save the planet really means Stop the humans from destroying the planet because we are only saving the planet from ourselves. Living our urban, fast-paced and machine-based lives, very few of us have time, energy or ability to keep gardens, raise livestock, hunt for our sustenance or otherwise live in any kind of experiential symbiosis with the planet. We live in suburban and citified concrete jungles where the animals have become cars, and the trees and forests are now banks, department stores and high rise apartment complexes.Because we have created our own processed environment of roads, cars, industry, buildings, malls, homes an endless urban sprawl that houses an endless supply of manmade things because we live in a world designed by capitalism, a world of incessant advertising, sales and the desperate, frantic pursuit of material things of production and products a world molded and defined by television, radio and the chronic bombardment of salesmen we rarely, if ever, experience an intimate connection with the natural world, with the planet we are hoping to save.Sure we can learn all about the planet, discovering the marvels of the earth in science magazines or through viewing compelling video footage of nature, we can learn all about the planet in schools, in laboratories or other second hand means, but until we have a sustained, direct encounter with the earth and nature itself, how can we truly know it, and what will it ever really mean to us? And how few of us will ever accomplish this?Indeed, as it now stands our civilization is composed of a people, and a culture, that have moved out of nature into man-created worlds based upon the destruction of nature and they call this evolution. Ultimately, its up to us to change the story, to write a new script, to realize who we are, what we have become, and to simply wake up to the realizatio n of how we want our lives, and the life of our entire planet, to unfold So think about it, and let your thoughts permeate all that you do, for the existence of yourself and every other being around you may depend upon it.Its both funny and sad that as soon as people leave their familiar comfort zone, when they are alone, say at a coffee shop or waiting in line for a bus, they automatically, almost reactively, reach for the cell phone to call or text someone who will reconnect them with the safe and familiar world from which they have momentarily wandered away.The average persons lack of ability, or willingness, to encounter an unknown situation or territory reveals their lack of tolerance for being alone, as well as their lack of curiosity or propensity to simply notice and appreciate their surroundings as if their bodily senses had been nullified into a potential danger zone in which their very stability of self would quickly fragment should they let go a little, observe and pot entially interact with the unfolding world around them.Yes, weve learned to live in little bubbles of safety which cut us off from our fellow-humans we no longer live in the actual world, but in our own self-created worlds, via the latest form of technology. I suspect that our modern sense of security has been entrained to operate in collusion with these technological devices that have slyly entrapped our minds even as they have offered us incredible new possibilities.Our reliance on new and ever-advancing technologies, such as the mobile phone which in a few short years has also become a mobile photo album, mobile internet, camera, video machine and multi-media entertainment center has developed into quite a habit, an unconscious addiction that is shaping the very nature of our personalities, both personal and collective, and even, God forbid, our souls. What need have we, the general public, for an imagination when so many limitlessly stimulating devices are available in our wo rld?Who needs an inner world at all when the outer world of our own creations has become so evocative, so seducing, so ever-demanding, evasive and totalitarian? We are continually inundated with advertisements and societal pressures to acquire new technological distractions and modes of external stimulus. Living under such conditions, how is it possible for us to maintain or cultivate much of an inner world, or a soul, whatsoever?The underlying message of our media is commercial in enforcing the demands of commerce upon us, we are defined primarily as consumers, persuaded not to think for ourselves, but to join in the latest collective frenzy of technological adventures that continually reinterpret the purpose of our lives. This never ending flood of media proclamations, while appearing as a material liberation, serves as a psychological oppression of the individual soul. Capitalism sells new versions of reality that may have nothing to do with ones own true needs or sensibilities. However, it is the advertisers job to convince us otherwise.So far they are doing a pretty good job The natural world, the earth itself the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and value in the self-hypnotized, narcissistic lives of mechanized human beings. Although it is certainly an abomination of our essential heritage, we are ever-entrained to focus less and less on the natural world in which we live, and of which we are but one aspect lest we forget and more and more to focus on the world as fashioned through the minds and hands of men.Its sad indeed when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i. e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno-vision of the ideal man-made life. Its also sad when we ignore those human beings who are standing right in front of us because wed prefer to text or talk with someone miles away, when we must remain overly-attached to those we know because weve lost our human capacity for interrelationship with our expanded world of fellow citizens who we now dismiss as strangers.Our advance in technology has engendered a compensating inversion in our capacity for compassion and community which is to say, the further we develop our technology, the less we appear to maintain the qualities of a loving, caring and attentive human society. Being aware in the mystery of the present moment, tolerating the unknown, and tolerating states of non-stimulation is the first phase in moving towards a more attuned state of openness and potential interaction with the actual, non-virtual, world around us.However, we have been so conditioned by a perpetual bombardment of electronic stimuli radio, television, computers, video games, mobile phones/entertainment centers, etc that it has become difficult, albeit unappealing, for us to re-focus our attention on our actual physical, natural environment. A parallel outcome of our dese nsitization to the physical, natural world in which we live, is the subsequent degradation of our ecology, which entails our lack of emphasis or awareness on its living/breathing/fragile/organic nature.The danger of this, as many of us recognize, is potentially catastrophic as we create and live in an increasingly human-made and virtual reality wherein we believe we are safer, happier, more satisfied, etc we also increasingly ignore the actual and natural reality in which we are encompassed, and risk the extinction of the environment through the excessive pollution, raiding and deforestation of the planet that we have witnessed since the rise of the industrial-technological age.The degradation of the natural world is problematic in many ways. Firstly, it appears to be morally and ethically wrong at least to those of us whose ethics and morals outweigh our imperialistic drives to destructively impact the earth, its ecosystems, i. e. rivers, oceans and forests, as well as animals, plants, trees, etc. One might ask, What right have we humans to destroy the earth, simply for our own benefit? Is this not selfish and unnecessary? Many of us have asked this question, though it seems that the overall progress of our technologically based capitalism remains unwilling to curtail its invasions and usurpations of nature, or to halt its path of destruction for the sake of morals or ethics. Where the dollar bill is concerned, questions of right and wrong become thin and ineffectual, nearly meaningless. Secondly, the degradation of the natural environment is increasingly affecting the balance of the planet itself, which in turn contaminates our own quality of life.For a thorough overview of how human technology is damaging the planet, one has only to search through a plethora of books, TV specials, or movies on this topic (i. e. An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore). I will here mention only a few ways in which planetary degradation affects human life. In a recent trip to L ima, Peru I learned that Peruvians predominantly drive older used cars, from the 80s or 70s, which emit high levels of visible exhaust fumes making the air both toxic and putrid to breathe.Driving around town there is often no escape from these fumes which pour out of the car just in front of you. The situation is just as bad in many other developing third world countries around the globe. Even here in the United States, where we have increasingly stricter emissions controls on our vehicles, the air quality in some cities is very poor, and on certain days people are advised to avoid going out of doors, or allowing their children to play outside at all.In many countries, air pollution is severe and debilitating, and only getting worse. In addition to increasing the risk of respiratory disease, the eroding of the ozone layer has also increased the risk of skin cancer, and its become customary to slather on gobs of sunscreen lotion before going outside on a sunny day for any length of time. Industrial pollution has made our water supplies dirty, so they are zapped with chlorine, making our water not really enjoyable, or many would say, healthy to drink.As for our food, as genetic engineering takes hold, what we eat becomes increasingly tasteless and less nutritious. Although these are only a very few examples of the many problems made by technology, there is no denying that the degradation of the natural world leads to our own degradation. The third major impact of the degradation of nature is spiritual. As we become less attuned to the world of nature, which is gradually breaking down, our inherent connection to the earth dissipates.We become less the caretakers of the earth, or participants in Her splendor of glory, and moreover the survivors of a man-made holocaust inflicted upon nature. We rationalize our disconnect from nature those of us who are aware of it with the heralding of a new age of technological transcendence. In comparison with all our own amaz ing discoveries, inventions and developments, we cannot believe that the earth is all that important. How can a handful of dirt compare to the glory of an I-phone?Our attitudes reveal a consensual belief that we are superior to and above the earth as also evidenced by our scientific investigations into creating hospitable conditions on other planets, as well as expanded, city-size space stations in which we could begin to populate the greater universe, where we would, even more so, live in human-made, virtual reality realms. The bigger question is whether our spirits can survive or thrive in states of stark disconnection from the earth, our origin and planetary source of beingThis sort of fantastic and futuristic evolution is in line with our reigning religion of Christianity, in which our sinful earthbound lives are to be potentially transformed through belief in Christ, when, upon the moment of our death, we are to ascend high into the heavens, into a cloud-like dimension above and beyond all the messy entanglements of this planet earth. With such a cosmo-vision, such a context of the goal of life, its no wonder the sanctity of the earth has lost its power to impel our actions.It seems only the portended threat of our own extinction will suffice to encourage us to behave differently. For if we are only to inhabit this earth for such a brief span of time until our transcendence into a perfect eternity in another dimension then whats the big deal if we just abuse Her until were gone, because in the grand scheme of things She doesnt matter much anyways. Christianity also teaches that, of all the creatures and life-forms upon this planet, only human beings have souls that can be saved, and thus make the transmigration beyond a mortal d