WWND?

What would nature do (WWND)? Exactly.

If nature were a human, walking among us, I'm pretty sure she'd have had a heart attack, stroke or aneurysm... many times over, by now.

I saw an interesting t-shirt today that asked this question of me as I waited at a street crossing in the CBD today and began to read the essay-like print that comprised majority of the design of the garment. It got me thinking.

The filth of not only Victoria's, but Australia's and of course, the world's cities is mind-boggling. The pollution of water and air is rife, the way we treat nature is appauling and the amount of waste we produce, both in terms of intangible (air) and tangible (garbage) is phenomenal, and increases to rise at an equally as phenomenal rate.

For example, an estimate from 2003/04 suggested that there are approximately 458 landfill sites around the continent of Australia. These in turn yearly together accept over 20, 779, 345 tonnes of garbage yearly. Wow.

A fact sheet produced in 2009 by the Clean Up Australia organisation states that over 30% of the rubbish collected around Australia over the past ten years is plastic waste. While we cannot identify that percentage down to an exact number, you can imagine that number increasing exponentially over the same amount of time.

While organisations like Clean Up, CSIRO, AusAID, etc. etc. the list really does go on, do exist for the betterment of nature and all it encompasses, the truth is, from this humble person's perspective that we have, do and will continue to destroy nature slowly until that fateful heart attack, stroke or aneurysm does happen and we immediately regret our moves.

There was a line from a move recently released featuring Keanu Reaves entitled The Day The Earth Stood Still, "Only on the precipice do we evolve." This could not be more accurate. Isn't it so that on the brink of extinction in the past, things have changed, whether it be as a result of some inherently able, yet intrinsically hidden ability to force attributes worthy of bringing about salvation coming out, or whether it be from sheer necessity?

I believe this of humanity. Not to say that there will be some massive orb descending upon Earth to fortell the imminent destruction that we are no doubt greatly contributing to, but I think that on the precipice of extinction and self-inflicted destruction will humanity and all its 'leaders' evolve, change and reinvent the codes of conduct for existence.

Let's hope anyway.

Hang-in there nature!