War on Terror or War on Terra?

Aion-Uranus and Tellus with four children, perhaps the personified seasons, mosaic from a Roman villa in Sentinum, 200-250 CE, Munich Glyptothek

The war is really against Terra

The so-called "War on Terror" that we keep hearing about in the media would be more aptly named the War on Terra because there are constant attacks on all parts of the environment and Terra is another name for Mother Earth.

According to Wikipedia: "Terra Mater or Tellus was a goddess personifying the Earth in Roman mythology. The names Terra Mater and Tellus Mater both mean "Mother Earth" in Latin; Mater is an honorific title also bestowed on other goddesses."

Just think about how many forms of destruction to natural habitats and the flora and fauna you can think of!

Habitat destruction

There is an ongoing attack against the forests, the countryside, the oceans and the air. Trees are being felled, the land is being given increasingly over to mono-culture genetically-engineered crops, the waterways, wetlands and oceans are being polluted and so is the very air we breathe.

Animals and plants are becoming extinct daily with many species not even yet known destroyed before they have been discovered. Destroy a rain-forest or a coral reef and many species dependent on these habitats are gone, and some for ever if these places were their only habitats.

In the UK, once common animals and plants are now becoming rare or endangered. It is shocking to think that the European Eel that I used to see in their millions as elvers climbing up river weirs are now vastly down in numbers.

Once-common moths like the Garden Tiger Moth are vanishing fast. The Common Lizard isn't common any more, and even the Starling that used to form flocks that blackened the skies is way down in its numbers.

Many butterflies that were commonly seen are becoming scarce. The wild flower meadows and food plants of many species have disappeared from the countryside and so too have gone all the insects that depended on them.

And that is just the UK. This pattern is emerging all over the world. There is what has rightly been called a "mass extinction underway" (see link in links section below to see how really serious this is).

The Great Extinction

Imagine what it would be like if there were no song-birds! This terrible scenario was predicted by Rachel Carson in her book Silent Spring but it is becoming a reality.

Honeybees are dying off from what has been termed "Colony Collapse Disorder." Many people feel that pesticides are to blame.

In America, the once commonly seen Monarch Butterfly is vanishing fast too. It is known that pollen from genetically engineered crops created by Monsanto are killing caterpillars of this beautiful insect. The pollen is blown onto the MIlkweed food plants of the Monarch caterpillars and they die after eating the leaves.

The oceans are being filled with plastic and it is killing turtles, sea birds and whales that swallow this rubbish. Of the 22 species of albatross, 18 are now seriously endangered, and most of these birds have eaten plastic they mistook for sea creatures.

Large jungle animals such as the Tiger, and Great Apes like the Gorilla and the Orangutan are also disappearing fast. Habitat destruction is killing off animals and plants worldwide.

The oceans are being over-trawled by fishing boats that throw away a lot of the unwanted catch and rip up the sea-beds as they work. Acidification of the water is killing off species fast. "Dead zones" are becoming more and more common in the once teeming seas.

And if all of that wasn't bad enough we have now got the BP oil spill catastrophe that has killed most of the life in the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes that border it, as well as bringing ruin to the once-thriving fishing communities there.

Meanwhile the media bombards us with news stories about police hunting for "terrorists" and more and more laws and regulations are drafted to "increase security" because of the "War on Terror" that politicians parrot!

How many terrorists do they actually ever catch? Who are the real terrorists?

Isn't there a very real  war against our Mother Earth and her children?

Copyright © 2012 Steve Andrews. All Rights Reserved.

War on Terra links

·        Mass Extinction Underway | Biodiversity Crisis | Global Species Loss