The Earth is Our Planet, but We Don't Own It!

Are we not a product of our environment? I don't think so. The environment sustains our lives. Do we sustain it? No. Why are we so destructive? We can't be a product of this planet, which is taking care of us, providing us with air, water and ground to walk on, while we destroy it. But hey, let's not forget that we are connected to this planet the same way the ecosystems on the Earth are connected. This connection is a big thing that many of us neglect.

To make a system works, it has to have all its bolts and nuts tighten up and in working condition. Well, looking at the malfunctioning of the Earth's system we can certainly say that some parts are not functioning properly. The nature is a perfect system though, where nothing is coincidental and energy is never lost, or energy is neither created nor lost as the law of conservation of energy states. So, where should we look for the problem? I think that the problematic component is bulging, growing bigger and out of control. It's us, the ever demanding never satisfied and constantly increasing human population.

We are wasteful creatures. We have been exploiting and abusing our planet to the maximum without thinking of the consequences. We keep using the non-renewable recourses of the planet without slowing down, because we are too self-absorbed and we think that we are the most important inhabitants of the Earth. Yet the idea that we are destroying the environment is somehow unacceptable for us, or for our governments.

However, can we ignore the signs? Can we ignore what happened in Haiti last year and what's happened in Japan this month? We can't. And I hope we won't. Thousands of people died in the largest in Japan's history earthquake, for just a few hours. Updated to magnitude 9.0, this earthquake is the fourth largest in the world since 1900. This earthquake has moved Honshu, the largest island of Japan, 2.4 m east and shifted the Earth off its rotational axis almost 10 cm.

Our planet needs rest and it will get it. The Earth is a living, breathing organism that can't go forever being exploited. We mine its resources; utilize them in some ways that make us think that we are the most intelligent creatures, while in the same time, by doing this, we don't see that we are destroying our home – the planet Earth. We have lost the connection with this planet, just like we have lost the connection between each other, hidden behind our laptops, iPhones and iPads. We've lost it because we take it for granted. The Earth is only one though, and if we don't save it, if we don't start taking better care of it, we are already witnessing what will happen.