When the fuel that runs the industrial world kills nature, and humans are the plague.
Creative Voice
By Jacopo Murittu / Contributor
She’s Feeling Depressed
She was just trying to relax.
She was there, lying down.
Her mind wandering and thinking about a very important thing: lunch.
Eating was not so important for many, but for her, it was like a gift given by
nature that had to be honored day after day.
She was relaxing. She felt lulled by the waves. She watched what was happening around her and observed the animals underneath her.
A boat passed in the distance.
She heard a dull noise, so she turned around but didn’t notice anything weird; she knew that in the middle of the sea there weren’t many sources of noise. So, she probably just imagined it.
She went back to thinking about lunch and how happy she was at that moment. She would have relaxed a little more, and then she would have gone home. Besides, the family was waiting for her.
She saw a fish underneath her. So, she decided to take a last bath by diving. Maybe, if she had caught the fish, there would’ve been a real delicacy to take home.
She dived completely in search of that fish she had just spotted. As soon as her whole body was covered by the sea, a strange sensation pervaded her.
Suddenly, she felt heavier, her movements slowed down as if she were mired into the mud.
She felt that her limbs could not respond to the movements dictated by her brain.
Something bigger was towering over her. It seemed that the urge to re-emerge had left her.
In that moment, both the fish and the family were no longer so important. She thought of herself and nothing else.
It was like, all of a sudden, she was feeling depressed. One of the worst feelings one can have. Nothing made sense. Death would have been better.
She fought with all her might, but she felt some kind of higher strength telling her to let it go, and that there was no hope for anything in this world. Slowly, she still managed to reach the shore and lay down in the sun. She breathed heavily a couple of times, and then she passed out.
Shortly after, two guys passed by. And saw her. And one said to the other, “I can’t believe there has been another oil spill. This pollution… I’m feeling depressed.”
With a sad face and a tear on the cheek, the two guys checked if the poor seagull was still alive, but unfortunately there was nothing more to be done.
Who knows if her chicks, her family would have been fed by someone else.
Who knows how they would have reacted not seeing her return home.
The world is experiencing oil spills since the ‘70s.
Animals are not the only characters involved in this tragedy; there are hundreds of flora species that are going to die and irremediably disappear as a consequence of these type of events.
Often, people don’t pay attention to these incidents because they aren’t considered relevant, or they think that a similar situation could never affect them. Moreover, what’s worse is the fact that these events are considered just news; almost everybody tends to forget these nature’s damages as soon as the media stops talking about them, thinking that everything will be solved in the short run. However, this couldn’t be more wrong. As a matter of fact, nature doesn’t recover quickly. An affected region needs several years to recover.
Let’s discuss an issue that is often overlooked, in contrast to the raised awareness that our contemporary world needs oil to be productive. How, in your opinion, could both world economic necessities and nature preservation go along?
Why Am I Naked?
There is nothing better than getting tanned.
This was the philosophy his friends and him were following.
They were always there looking up at the clear sky and enjoying the warmth of the sun.
His arms stretched upwardly, slowly, but that made him feel alive.
It was as if the light gave him life. This was where he and his friends belonged. They belonged to that place as it belonged to them. Without their presence, it wouldn’t have meaning. It seemed like they were vitally connected.
He felt that he would never have the strength to leave everything, to change, to go away. On the other hand, the place itself was aware that, if he would go away, a lifetime would not be enough to recover from such absence.
In this way, they continued to live and keep living together year after year, aware of becoming stronger and bigger and aware that their presence would have brought only positive things.
One day he woke up and noticed that something was wrong.
Strange emotions began to overwhelm his mind. He couldn’t understand what was happening. It seemed that his friends had abandoned him all of a sudden. He found himself surrounded by complete nothingness.
He was so alone and lost that he began to feel naked, stripped of everything that was valuable to him.
Then, slowly, he felt like a force pulling him up, but it wasn’t something positive; on the contrary, he felt he was being torn apart.
In that moment, when all its roots were uprooted from the ground, the tree sadly asked to the ground, “Why am I naked?” It was at that moment that the ground, the place where all those trees lived, and, through their existence, allowed life, stopped being itself.
It was at that moment that the land became a simple place free to be exploited.
Its destiny became the growth of intensive farming. Of extensive agriculture.
Although he would have given birth to something else, he could not be happy because he was aware that the life it would have hosted would, in turn, be hopelessly exploited. The soil was aware that nature was now only a means and no longer a resource.
Even if climate change is almost a mainstream topic, it doesn’t stop people from acting in a certain way. As a matter of fact, those who are guilty of committing deforestation are not just private firms and multinational corporations, yet some politicians should be blamed for this too. For example, Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, seems to not just overlook this issue but to be in favor of deforestation.
Deforestation occurs; for the most part, to create intensive farming and massive crops. It is well known that trees contribute to life on earth. However, someone could debate saying that new life will be generated, yet he or she couldn’t be more wrong. As a matter of fact, it has been proved that there has been a huge decrease of the wildlife.
Deforestation leads not only to climate change and the decrease of wildlife. Unfortunately, it leads even to more catastrophic consequences that would be completely avoidable.
Do you think that there is the possibility of changing this path or we are doomed to a dystopian future?
Jacopo Murittu is a senior Political Science and International Affairs major and Communications minor from Florence. Contact him at jmurittu@johncabot.edu.
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