War of the Worlds

“What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?” 

Henry David Thoreau, Familiar Letters (www.goodreads.com)

“The environment is everything that isn't me.” Albert Einstein (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/environment.html#aU1vuMG0WJzI2ag5.99)

I watched a very disturbing documentary on National Geographic yesterday on whaling. Harpoons should be banned along with their manufacturers! The injustice of the whole act made me frankly quiet sick, but it did get me thinking: isn’t it the case with everything we do against nature? Everything on NatGeo makes you wonder why we’re not doing more for our environment. A crew member on the Sea Shepherd (a boat trying to stop Japanese whalers) put it perfectly: “Money talks.” As long as there is profit to be made from ruining the planet, Mother Nature does not stand a chance.

“The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.” Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life, 1923 (http://www.quotegarden.com/environment.html)

This being said, the Earth is pretty old and probably has a few tricks up her sleeve. Once she decides to retaliate, we’re all done for. However, we’re a part of her as well and it’s pretty unfair to expect her to take out the garbage all the time (for those of you whose mums still clean your room…you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?)

The Scarlet Omen takes Anjeli Xavier on a journey to a mythical valley called The Valley of the Hornbills. There, readers will be confronted with the dangers of taking too much from the environment and giving back too little or sometimes nothing at all. I’ve tried to address how important it is to remember that the world is a sphere; that everything we do WILL come back to us and that our lives are all interconnected with nature. Now, I don’t want people thinking that I’m one of those hippie types (although I am a member of Greenpeace and do not find the word “tree-hugger” derogatory) but I really think that it’s important to mention our responsibility toward our planet once in a while—it does so much for us, so why do we abuse it so? Everything on our planet is helpless against our highly evolved brains; why not use a little of that God-given perk to do good?

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” –Mahatma Ghandi

Anyway, as you can see, that documentary kicked me out of my comfort zone into seeing some of the more important things going on around me. We’re swamped by life, running around doing what has to be done and ignoring what needs to be. My novels take up all my spare time and as a writer with a voice that people are now starting to listen to, I should make it my responsibility to remind people (I’m not saying that my WHOLE novel is going to revolve around that, so don’t shelve The Scarlet Omen away under Lifestyle and Garden Literature just yet) that it is OUR job to look out for our world…coz’ friendly aliens just don’t have the time to come and clean up our mess.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
Dr. Seuss (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dr_seuss.html#s0C2dymi2rIQFq17.99)