The war on the environment

Nick Wright, Humorist

Since the dawn of time, man has had an innate hatred of his environment. It comes as no surprise that almost every major set of mythologies has a cataclysmic story on just what a bitch Mother Nature can be. Usually these myths came in the form of a flood.  Whether the Biblical flood, the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, or the Hindu myth of Manu, the story usually inherently contains the same moral that Nature is an unstoppable she-devil, and man would be best served to respect her.

But Man is a proud animal. Understandably, he did not want to be subservient to some largely incomprehensible force that had the audacity to place itself above him. And so we began a righteous crusade to bend nature to our will, creating waterwheels and windmills, ploughing the earth and subjugating animals for our own purposes to make tasty, tasty food. Admirable as the attempts of our ancestors were, however, they were inherently flawed. All of these attempts to dominate still depended deeply on man in some way or another respecting the so-called ‘natural order.’

We, dear friends, do not have to do any such thing. We live in an enlightened age, one of technology, increased urbanization, global trade, and rampant consumerism. Through these things, we have finally obtained the tools to defeat our greatest historical enemy: Nature.

Upon looking out the window this Christmas and seeing the lush green lawn of my parents’ house, it occurred to me that not only do we have a fighting chance against our earth, but that we are actually winning the battle. Here in the West, the narrative of the ‘cold long depressing winter which must be endured’ will soon be a thing of the past! While the liberal-spin media has constantly chastised our dire need for bigger and less efficient cars and houses built further and further away from our workplaces, these very things are in the process of creating exactly what we of that more refined class have always wanted: a land of perpetual summer.

The results of the ongoing campaign against Nature are visible not only on the homefront, but worldwide as well. The rainforests of South America were formerly home to some of the most poisonous, shiftiest animals in the world.  But soon, instead of a smelly, overgrown, unfriendly landscape, we will have acre upon acre of productive farmland with which to feed our unquenchable hunger for meat.

By destroying the current state of nature, we will also be able to truly bring the rest of the world into the twenty-first century. There are many people around the world who still live trapped in barbaric cultures and ways of life, fishing, farming by hand, and living without many of the modern necessities which by now they should most definitely have been provided.

Those economically draining cultures will be those affected most by our current climate harmonization project. In true neoliberal fashion they will be forced to either adapt or perish, creating either newer, modernized economies for us to trade with (or cautionary tales about what happens when you don’t jump on the bandwagon and get horny for Industry).

It is true that we are still working out the kinks in the great environmental readjustment process. Crippling snowstorms, hurricanes, droughts, and floods, not just abroad but here in the civilized world, have seemingly been on the rise. Do not fear! These are simply the death rattles of a nearly-defeated enemy, the unpleasant collateral damage of a great war almost won.

Soon, if we continue our current habits, we will have a world free of not only the more unpleasant aspects of the natural world, but also of millions of the global poor, who it seems do nothing but drain our hard earned money in foreign aid and bum us out in the form of world vision commercials while we are trying to watch television in peace. I see no possible way in which man’s complete dominance over nature at this point could not come to pass.