Think

So, I am on Facebook, just browsing the News Feed and my attention is drawn to a certain page: Trying to preserve nature is selfish. I think about this. It nagged the side of my brain for months and months and months and finally, today, I know what to say to someone if they ever try and tell me that trying to preserve nature is selfish.

What are we trying to do here by preserving, saving, stopping the ruin of nature, the beauty of the world? We are trying to keep it beautiful. Why? Maybe so that we can keep seeing it's wonders. If so, then yes, we are being selfish. BUT. But think, the earth is made of 75% of water. Only 1% is fresh water. That is the only type of water we can drink and the only type of water that deer, lions, giraffes, hippos, and many other animals can drink. In rivers (which is a source of fresh water) many populations of fish have created habitats along with other marine animals and plants. Birds' homes are in trees, squirrels'. When we TRASH the earth and do not clean up and allow global warming to take place, here's what happens:
1) When factories release toxic chemicals into rivers, when trash companies dump trash (which contains toxins) on banks of rivers, when hospitals put expired medications in rivers all these poisons and toxic chemicals are released into the water. We drink that water. What's the resolution? Make a filter to seperate toxins, poisons, and medications from the clean water. That's easy for us. But what can the fish do? The corals, seeweed, starfish, catfish? Nothing. The toxins go into their bodies and they are poisoned and they DIE. If we don't fix that, if we let millions, billions of marine animals and plants DIE so that our lives can be easier, isn't THAT selfish?
Then the river flows on and the toxins flow on with it and get to this forest. A herd of deer are thirsty so they drink the water... and the toxins. What happens? They die. Then lions eat the dear, hyenas eat the deer... and the toxins. What happens? They die. Vultures eat the remains... and the toxins. They die. Soon, these species, and many others in multiple food chains, will be endangered and/or extinct because these toxins will never stop coming because WE didn't clean them out... we didn't stop polluting the water. If we let millions of species of animals die and become extinct so that our lives can be easier, isn't THAT selfish?
2)This issue of Global Warming we're trying to solve.It melts icecaps, and raises the ocean water levels a LOT. Ice caps are at the north and south poles. There live: Polar bears, penguins, snow foxes, rabbits, sea lions, walruses, puffins, and MORE. All these species will become extinct because the poles are the only places which are cold enough to provide a habitat for them but their habitats will be destroyed because we don't want to try a litle harder and ride a bike, or walk, instead of driving a car. Because we don't want our lives to be tiring, and we don't want to work "hard". Isn't THAT selfish?
And when ocean levels do rise, a lot of land goes under water. WE can just move. But what about all the squirrels, rabbits, lizards, insects, snakes, mice, etc. whose habitats will be destroyed? Many of them will die because of Global Warming which was caused by us and we're not doing anything to stop it. Isn't THAT selfish?

So, the next time, before you say something like, "it's selfish to preserve nature", THINK. Think about all those animals that will almost literally drop dead at you feet because we did NOT preserve nature, because we did NOT take caution, because we did NOT stop pollution, because we wanted OUR lives to be EASY. Think about the TRILLIONS of animals that will die, whose species could be threatened, endangered, extinct because YOU wanted YOUR life to be easier. Think about THAT. Then tell me that I'm being selfish for trying to save their lives.