Charon's Landing Read Online Free PDF Page B

the issue, he felt he had to present a voice of reason, if only to this audience.
    “We fight nature as surely as she fights us. For every foot of ground we gain, she takes back two. Ask the survivors of the Kobe earthquake about it sometime. I’m sorry if you still don’t realize that all life is a struggle. From the time of our crushing births until our last gasping breaths, we fight for what we want. Some of it may come easy and some may come hard or not at all, but we continue to fight. The nature you are so willing to defend has forced us to evolve that way.
    “Your way of thinking is so self-indulgent and self-centered that it’s laughable. It must be nice to be so comfortable that you can afford to be guilty about that comfort. Ask a miner in Africa if he cares that what he’s doing might affect the world for his children and he’ll tell you that if he didn’t do it, he wouldn’t have any children.
    “Every animal extracts a price from nature for its existence, but it’s only humans who have an inbred sense of guilt for it. To disconnect man from the nature that created him is egotistical to the point of hubris. Evolution is the most awesome force ever to exist. Right now we are at the top of its chain, but like the dinosaurs, we aren’t meant to stay there forever. When nature no longer believes that the big brain of
Homo sapiens
is the key to survival on the planet, she’ll do away with us. It’s been tried before. Cholera, tuberculosis, and the plague nearly wiped us out, but we adapted, changed our behavior, stopped living in the filth that bred such diseases. Today, what is AIDS teaching us? In what evolutionary direction will this modern killer push us? Nature is producing viruses faster than we’re able to cure them. This is a direct competition between our brains and natural selection. By denying us our right to use our minds and to use the resources we are able to exploit, you’re trying to stop the natural progression of our species. And you accuse me of going against nature’s wishes. I advise you to take a good look at evolution and tell me who is more in concert with nature, a person who is working with natural evolution or someone who is denying that its forces continue today. Do you think a locust swarm is concerned with the destruction it leaves behind? Why do humans, the most intelligent species ever to exist, try to deny what is natural to every other creature on the planet?”
    “Are you saying we are nothing more than an insect infestation?”
    “To the earth and on the geologic scale in which it exists, yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. I deal with a time line that stretches billions of years while you limit yourself to your own insignificant life span. To the planet, we are one in a long line of dominant creatures and we will be usurped.” Mercer paused and shifted tack.
    “I don’t deny that man has the responsibility to husband nature’s resources, to protect them for our future, but that does not mean that we must stop using them altogether, which I suppose is the goal of your organization. PEAL and other environmental groups see every issue as a double-sided coin, black or white, right or wrong, exploit or protect. But there’s a third side of the coin, its thin edge that we call compromise. I may not like it and you may not like it, but that’s the way it is.
    “As we speak, the most controversial compromise in environmental history is being played out in northern Alaska. For the sake of a few thousand square acres of land, the United States may free itself from the smog that has choked our cities for generations and end our dependence on fossil fuels forever. Is the price high? Absolutely. I’ve seen the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. It’s one of the most spectacular places on the planet. But if its use means that future generations won’t have to live with acid rain or high levels of carbon monoxide or gaping holes in the ozone layer, then I believe it’s