Thoughts About a Fragile Planet – Our Only Home
After eight months of silence I will return to sharing my views on some aspects of our world and society. Attached are some thoughts on our fragile planet. First written 25 years ago it is more relevant than ever.
In the Beginning – God…..
God planted a Garden….
At the Center she planted the Tree of Life.
And then God planted the Tree of Conscience…..a tree that gives us knowledge of Good and Evil.
Mankind was instructed to eat of any fruit in the Garden – except from the Tree of Conscience.
If you eat of this fruit you will be doomed to die.
God placed us – a species with moral capability – in this Garden.
God placed us in a Garden – not a limitless Universe that can be exploited without consequence.
Rivers can run dry, mountains can erode, deserts can expand, water tables can drop, pristine air can turn to smog, glaciers can melt, life forms can become extinct. We can even alter the climate.
The human species has acquired the ability to change the planet and ultimately affect its ability to sustain us.
We have also probed the Universe to find the ultimate source of power – the atom. Like the Garden – it has the possibility of good and evil.
Every generation has accumulated the knowledge that is our heritage – but no generation until our own has had the ability to use this accumulated knowledge to determine whether the planet as we know and received it will continue to exist.
We have eaten of the forbidden fruit and now share in the creative process with God.
May we honor our creator by preserving and adding to the beauty of the Garden.
Art DeFehr
Artist – Nicolas Uriburu (1937-2016) of Argentina. Uriburu was an ecological pioneer and is known for his dramatic interventions on canvas and in real life on behalf of the environment. This includes coloring the Grand Canal in Venice, the Seine River and others with green dye to give him a platform for his statements. I met Uriburu in the 1980’s.
This painting hangs in my Winnipeg studio.
