May 2020
First, there was Al Gore's prescient film, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Then there were scientific warnings from around the globe. Then there were scientific facts. Now the most respected scientists on Earth give us 10-12 years. Either humanity does the near-impossible--correct all these wanton, ecological errors or all life on Earth perishes.
So what is the metaphor? Ecology is but a metaphor for all other existential threats facing Earth. Imminent nuclear holocaust, for example.
What we don't yet see is something John Donne saw several centuries ago: No man is an island. I would add, No island is an island. We are all connected. We are all one. We shall either sink as one, or die as one. There are now over 200 nations on Earth now, but these political boundaries are illusory. The waves and winds that become hurricanes, the air that we all breathe--all are oblivious to "borders." And now the pandemic.
What one human being does deleteriously inelectually affects the rest of us, just as John Donne portended. Why not reverse this catastrophic pattern? Why not turn it around 180 degrees? Why not create Peace on Earth forever instead of War on Earth forever?
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
So what is the metaphor? Ecology is but a metaphor for all other existential threats facing Earth. Imminent nuclear holocaust, for example.
What we don't yet see is something John Donne saw several centuries ago: No man is an island. I would add, No island is an island. We are all connected. We are all one. We shall either sink as one, or die as one. There are now over 200 nations on Earth now, but these political boundaries are illusory. The waves and winds that become hurricanes, the air that we all breathe--all are oblivious to "borders." And now the pandemic.
What one human being does deleteriously inelectually affects the rest of us, just as John Donne portended. Why not reverse this catastrophic pattern? Why not turn it around 180 degrees? Why not create Peace on Earth forever instead of War on Earth forever?
Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks
A graduate of Andover and Columbia College, Columbia University, Tod Howard Hawks has been a poet, a novelist, and a human-rights advocate his entire adult life.
