Politicians hide themselves away

They only started the war

Why should they go out to fight?

They leave that role to the poor

— “War Pigs,” Black Sabbath

For the past 265 years, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the human collective has been terrorizing the only God we have ever known, seen, or touched.

The Natural World, the planetary system often referred to as Mother Nature, provides us with food, medicine, shelter, clean air to breathe, clean water to drink and irrigate crops, and beauty. This wonderful collection of animals, plants, insects, and microorganisms is declining because we treat Mother Nature like a never-ending buffet.

Mother Nature buttresses our society, our economy, our very existence. Her ocean, lakes, rivers, wetlands, forests, and soils nourish us, both physically and spiritually.

We depend on Her for countless free goods and services. People a lot smarter than I have estimated that Mother Nature provides benefits totaling $125 trillion year after year.

Our health, happiness, and well-being depend on Her benevolence. We reward Her kindness with brutality. We take Her for granted.

We overexploit Her generosity, by clear-cutting forests, overfishing the ocean, polluting lakes and rivers, filling wetlands, bulldozing green space, and extirpating species. Our selfishness makes Her sick, and creates massive health, social, and economic costs for ourselves, especially the poor, sick, malnourished, and marginalized among us.

Water is our lifeblood. Mother Nature’s waters cleanse and nourish everything we do. It connects us to all living creatures. We dismiss this relationship and actively poison it.

Healthy freshwater ecosystems — forests, watersheds, and wetlands — naturally clean pollution from water. Plants, soils, and microorganisms all play vital roles in straining toxins, at a cost far cheaper than building expensive water filtration infrastructure or, say, a multimillion-dollar ultraviolet light disinfection system to treat polluted stormwater runoff headed to Easton’s Beach in Newport, R.I.

The more biodiverse an ecosystem, the faster and more efficiently water is purified. Humans, sadly, batter biodiversity with reckless abandon.

About 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. The vast expanse of ocean contains nearly 97% of all the water on the planet. This singular ocean system — the planet’s heart and soul — should be respected, revered, and protected. It’s not.

Coral reefs are being bleached because we continue to relentlessly pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Seagrasses are threatened by coastal development and a rapidly growing human population. Mangroves are being lost to dredging, filling, diking, development, pollution from oil spills, and toxins from pesticides. Its water is acidifying.

While the collective we take the people who harvest our crops for granted and send many of them to concentration camps in Florida and around the world, we also treat the Natural World’s pollinators with similar disdain, killing them by our relentless spraying of poisons and destruction of habitat.

Even the people we poorly compensate and demonize because they don’t have the proper papers can’t pollinate every apple blossom in an orchard. That free service is provided by Mother Nature. Insects, birds, and bats pollinate the world’s plants, including much of human agriculture. Her gifts also pollinate crops consumed by livestock. It has been estimated that the global agricultural pollination services She provides are worth more than $215 billion annually.

Mother Nature operates the world’s largest pharmacy, providing humankind with a cornucopia of medicines — from aspirin, quinine, and morphine to numerous cancer and HIV-fighting drugs. Scientists recently discovered that honeybee venom and its active component, melittin, are toxic to a variety of cancer cells, including melanoma, lung, ovarian, pancreatic, and two types of breast cancer that are particularly difficult to treat.

Researchers have estimated that only about 1% of the world’s known species have been fully examined for their medicinal value. Unfortunately, we’re killing off life in coral reefs, deserts, rainforests, and peat swamps before we know what possible life-saving drugs they may contain.

If there’s another god or gods, then they created Mother Nature. No matter how She got here — evolution or intelligent design — it’s about time we stop our endless war on Her, and with each other.

Frank Carini can be reached at [email protected]. His opinions don’t reflect those of ecoRI News.