What is the value of life? (warning, pictures of where you food comes from within)
How do we judge the value on life? What determines the price of each life form? Who determines these costs and who is responsible for spending them?
Our world is changing faster than species can keep up. Plant and animals that have survived millions of years are now being wiped out. If not for the indirect influence of climate and habitat change caused by humanity, than directly by our selfish actions and our insatiable need for more.
There is a balance to be found and modern humanity has not found it. Many understand the importance of it, but there are countless others who live in the comforts of a modern world supplied with grocery stores and lumberyards that cannot even comprehend where their food, supplies, and even the very home they live in has come from.
For those who live on the cuffs of mass human civilization, we have seen the reality of human demand. It is our farmers and ranchers, our husbands and fathers that work with the earth to supply an ever growing need for more.
But there is not enough. More is wanted faster than it can be produced without harming the factory that produces it. Meat animals are crammed together in tight living quarters, never to see the sun or to take a single breath of fresh air. They walk knee deep in their own feces and chew at the dead carcases of their brothers and sisters left to decay at their feet.
Their meats flavor of their own waste, yet we are so accused to the taste, many turn a nose up to how fresh, wild raise meats coat the palate. They scream and point fingers of hatred at those who attempt to live life in a balanced and healthy way. Ignorant of what their own lives cost because they never have to see it.
The trees. There are some who can feel the soul within a tree. To know that this great, living creature is no mere plant. It is earth itself. Her life blood. Our existence relies heavily upon tress and what they do to our air, water, and climate. Their existence supplying our world with habitats that cannot be replaced by human zoos. We destroy them by the millions. Money fueling a desire for more as our numbers grow and grow, but our trees cannot grow fast enough.
Protesters illegally attempt to save the lives of these precious, irreplaceable entities. They tie themselves to the trees and stand in the way against production. Against money. Policeman spray non-violent, seated demonstrators directly in the eyes with pepper spray. Yet these heroes, while they scream in agony, do not abandon their posts.
These types of heroes span back many years through many battles and wars. They can be seen throughout history. In WWII, Vavilov Institute workers protected a seed bank from citizens who were raving mad with starvation. They protected the seeds because they knew it meant the future for humanity. They were irreplaceable stores of food. Four of the scientists died of starvation within feet of a mother-load of nutrients. They surrendered they lives for the future of our species. Yet, most of us know nothing about this bit of history and take for granted the many types of veggies and fruits we enjoy today that would not be here if it weren't for their heroic sacrifices.
We fight so adamantly to defend the lives of unborn humans. Some fight to end to destruction and starvation of humanity that lives and dies today. Yet, there are still fewer who stand to fight for the lives of billions of species across the world. Who understand that saving them means saving all of us.
They are heroes but we are told to view them as criminal because they illegally fight against money and production. What they are fighting for isn't just the trees and the animals. They are fighting for us.They understand something that blinds the masses.
Money is only useful when there is a resource to fuel it. Our entire existence relies on the health and proficiency of our world. You destroy her, you destroy your resources. Your money will be worthless then. Our existence will perish from the earth.
Perhaps that is for the best. The earth created us, a species capable of altering her very makeup. We have forever put our mark on the world. Even after we have long since passed, our time here will forever scar her oceans, mountains, and plains. It will be our own doing when we destroy ourselves. Greed and consumption and ignorance fueled by our true god fondly known as money and materialistic wealth.
So what is the value of life? Does that value outweigh the worth of that which we worship most of all? An undeniably influential god known by many names and idolized in many forms. Who decides what the value is to the human life? Is this value ultimately summed up by those who have the most faith in this god? Or is it the value we place on our sustainable existence and the planet that provides for us all?