Respecting Life

In our materialist society, life is often disregarded.  We are entrenched in our own lives and care little about the life of anyone else.  This is a path of self destruction.  We should work at regarding all life.

In the recent tsunami tragedy in Japan we have seen over the internet some images of people and animals who became stranded and in need of rescue.  One particular heartbreaking image was of a dog trying to care for another dog.  Even in such touching scenes, I came across comments to the effect of "but its just a dog".  Tonight I heard reports of rescuers who have rescued a dog off a pile floating debris in the Pacific Ocean.  In other similar rescues, I've seen where some have questioned why were money and resources wasted on such a feat.  What is your life worth?  Is it worth going to work, eat, sleep day after day to one day die by any number of known diseases or any of the unknown diseases without a caring about another life form?  A character like Ebenezer Scrooge would think in such a way.  Someone who hoards money and resources for their own comfort would also think in such a way.  Some may think that rescuing an animal when humans are in danger is irresponsible.  This is not the case in rescuing efforts.  In rescuing efforts you rescue what you can when you find it because your racing against time.  There is an old spanish proverb that says a bird in hand is worth more than a thousand flying.  You cannot rescue what you cannot detect.  Why not spend some resources on rescuing life, any life, that is in danger?  Were only going to spend it on something else of lesser importance.


What does it say about us if we disregard life that needs help?  Astronomers, space explorers, and space biology scientists have not found conclusive evidence of life on any other planet than Earth.  There are also extinctions of species documented in our history.  Should we take for granted the life that surrounds us on our fair planet?  If there is life on other planets, of which I am hopeful, then we should consider how unique life on this planet is.  We have conquered the Earth.  We are its masters.  We have responsibility to the planet and all its life.  If they are extinguished we have no one to blame but ourselves.  This is our legacy from the great explorers and the technology innovators.  We can alter the weather, but like toddlers trying to be gentle we crush and bumble around having little control over our weight.  We also have learned to create environments like the International Space Station.  If we disregard life and our other responsibilities we are stupid.  We are stupid because we have let the very thing that allows us to live die.  We must regard life for the very simple reason that it helps our very existence.

Respecting life is more than just respecting life.  We eat an enormous amount of meat, beef in particular.  In a New York Times article, Mark Bittman describes how meat factories use many resources and are detrimental to the environment.  There is also a health concern with the eating of factory breed meat.  The Mayo Clinic's Dr. Martha Grogan notes that grass fed beef is leaner than the corn fed factory meat.  The reason why we have these factory style cattle farms is that they produce a lot of beef compared to traditional farming.  With the concern of cholesterol and fats giving us heart disease, the corn fed beef has a bad effect on human beings.  The reason for the need to that volume of beef is the demand for it from the public.  So the large demand of one food type makes for bad health and bad environment.  This is bad and its our fault.  We have to fix it.  If people stopped eating so much meat dinners and started to incorporate all vegetable meals, then the demand for meat will drop.  Then we could go for the more nutritional beef as a delicacy rather than as a staple.  One way I have been able to make easy vegan dishes is to substitute meat with some beans, it happens to be cheaper too.  Respect for cattle will result in respect for ourselves.  Its about resources and its about priorities.

In view of the bigger picture we really need to change our attitude towards animals and all life on Earth.  We are only flying through this space-time on a rock flying through the universe on an unknown trajectory.  Life, its all we got.  Let's respect it.