Merely a Strand

[The many underlined links in this post will give further insight.

Thanks to Uplift for the graphic and the additional information] 

Decades ago, when I first began learning about the ongoing destruction and looming decimation of the rain forests, my concern mainly focused on the plant and animal life being obliterated. 

In more recent years, study after study has shown that rain forests hold dozens upon dozens of plants which prove to be beneficial, and even curative, to humans. In fact, more than 1/4 of all medicines we use come from rain forests.

One of the newer scientific discoveries is that "...a weed traditional healers in the Amazon have used for hundreds of years ... has the power to stop [a particular infection in mice]." Of course, the next step will be human trials. 

Actually, these discoveries are not surprising to me. I have long believed that there is a cure in the natural world for every ailment we humans have. We are, wondrously and amazingly, part of a vibrant living network (really no better and no worse, no lower and no higher, than the worm making its way through my garden soil). 

If more humans realized this I am fairly certain we would not be quite so blasé about spraying, dripping and otherwise applying poisons to unwanted "weeds," stepping on a spider or killing a snake or mosquito. Yes, yes, yes, we can get them out of our lawns and homes, off of our skin, away from our food, but it does not have to be done with poisons or the heel of a garden boot. 

Stephen Hawking rightly observed that "greed and stupidity...  will cause the end of the human race." We humans are merely a strand in the web of life; possibly necessary for some biochemical process, maybe even vital (oh the ego!), but probably not. If we continue to destroy, we teeter closer and closer to the edge and will soon self-destruct.  

We are all connected. 

To each other, biologically. 

To the earth, chemically. 

~Neil deGrasse Tysonn