A Journal Entry

I read a section of the Thirty Year Plan called, Compassion by Marc Bekoff.  This section starts out by describing a situation in which a disabled elephant was cared for by her friends, instead of just abandoning her.  I think that as humans, we have lost our touch of compassion.  It seems like with the advancement of technology, our ability to stay in touch with our feelings, personalities, and judgment of what is right has diminished.  We have become so dependent on technology that we are no longer focused on helping others, having face to face relationships with others, or caring for others.  This section also talks about how our impact on the environment has been so great partly due to the fact that we have lost compassion.  We are so focused on ourselves and our ability to survive and live the most advanced lives, that not only have we lost compassion for others, but we have lost compassion for animals and the environment.  We are a little bit selfish to just invade their habitats to better lives for ourselves.  We are the most powerful species on the Earth, and to take advantage of all of the other living things is unfair.  It is as if we believe that we can survive without anything else.  This is completely false, though.  In ecology class, we learned that the balance and functionality of the Earth depends on everything and everyone.  If one species is in excess or there are too few of a specific species, the balance of the whole Earth is affected.  We need to realize that we are not the only living things on Earth, but if we continue in the way that we are, then we will be the only living things on Earth.  And in that case, we will not be able to survive because, as I said before, we depend (more than we realize), on other species in order to live.  We are driving the planet to extinction.