By: Jorge Arturo Zarate Vite
Since the first year AD, Man and Nature have been living together for 2022 years. Like a couple, they now agree, now disagree; they have been through crises and enjoyed their moments of success and happiness.
Sometimes, it seemed they were out to destroy each other. Man went to extremes, destroying green space as they wished, polluting water bodies, or exploit raw materials to excess, resulting in the extinction of animal species.
Nature in turn countered with natural phenomena: earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, whirlpools, volcanic eruptions, heat waves, global warming, forest fires and global pandemics, which claimed tens of thousands of lives. Nature’s counterattacks are indeed fatal blows.
That being said, they still live together on the same planet, their common home. So, in this way they lived for centuries, year in, year out; they could not divorce and had nowhere else to go. They should be tolerant and friendly towards each other instead of hurting each other.
The history of the coexistence of Man and Nature is by no means devoid of merit; sometimes reconciliation and protection is the theme. Man planted millions of trees, formulated laws to protect the ecological environment, and made efforts to reduce and control the emissions of pollutants, greenhouse gases and toxic wastes.
Nature reciprocated, providing Man with a paradise to live and food to eat. All is calm and pacific, no more crustal movement to shake cities, and lava and smoke no longer shoot out of the volcanic cones.
Those days of peace, happiness and harmonious coexistence are proof of their mutual respect. Instead of hurting each other, they unite for the common well-being.
However, there is still some way to go before perfect harmony and absolute respect can be restored in the world.
The way between Man and Nature is just like a couple in a marriage, conflicts, quarrels, diseases, sad sobs, happy laughter, children born, worrying climate change, environmental pollution and death are all inevitable.
Neither of them had signed up for this relationship nor vowed to “support each other in bad times as well as in good, live together until death do us part” under the witness of a judge or minister.
Most men neither abide by the rules nor value the coexistence with Nature. We did not pay due respect to it, nor did we give a thought to the kind of caring that Nature needs.
Unchecked ambition leads to blindness. Empty and meaningless, such ambition ignores the deterioration of the relationship. Accumulated and lying in wait, the deterioration will eventually do harm to both Man and Nature.
Fortunately, efforts to promote mutual understanding between them have never stopped. Man began to attach more importance to producing products that are recyclable and degradable and caring about whether the energy used is clean and pollution-free, such as solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy and hydropower.
Generally speaking (to avoid being too conclusive), the rupture of the relationship between the two is often initiated by Man, because Nature seems to react only in the face of invasion and material damage.
Obviously, we treated Man and Nature as two individuals in this article, like the husband and wife in a marriage.
And just like in a family, no one can stay aloof. There are some undisciplined members who wantonly destroy the ecological balance and disturb the nature. All these ignorant people can do is being cynical and spit at the sky.
Fortunately, the governments and people of some countries, as well as international organizations, are making efforts to curb or even reverse the deterioration of the relationship between Man and Nature. They set a deadline for achieving new climate goals. For example, some cities and countries only use electric vehicles and replace plastic bags with those made of eco-friendly materials.
Man paid attention to and went all out to develop inorganic waste, because it can be reused by society through transformation, thus posing no effect or harm to Nature. Always bear this in mind: Man and Nature live on the same planet.
Given Man and Nature have been together for millions of years, presumably, their union must have been ideal.
In reallife marriage of Man, however, if relationship is broken or cannot be reconciled, the couple may divorce and go their separate ways.
But Man and Nature cannot just walk away from their “marriage”.
Therefore, Man should make a special effort to achieve the balance between the two, aiming for the best possible state even if a perfect state is impossible to reach, because Nature only obeys Newton’s law: each force exerted will produce a reaction force accordingly.
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Jorge Arturo Zarate Vite, member of CLUB PRIMERA PLANA of Mexico
The author contributed this article to Belt and Road Journalists Network .The views do not necessarily reflect those of Belt and Road Journalists Network.