Variety is the spice of life, is it not? Why then are we so intent on destroying variety and diversity in all its forms in life?
Lets start with biodiversity. According to the wonderful film ‘Need to Grow’ we have just 50 years of tillable soil left on our planet. 50 years! Our soil is turning to dust! Now I know perhaps that doesn’t sound so bad. How harmful can dust be, right?
Why soil matters
Dust is effectively dead soil and without the organisms and bacteria and their diversity which bring the soil to life, we cannot grow crops, we cannot feed ourselves, and…. well, I don’t need to tell you what that means. And we are the ones that have killed this soil, with the overuse of pesticides and herbicides that kill the very organisms that we need to keep our soil and ourselves healthy.
Diversity and our health
It may surprise you to know that we have more bacteria cells in our body than human cells. Which begs this question: why are we so intent on killing them? These bacteria perform essential tasks to keep us healthy, producing vitamins, communicating with our immune system, and helping fight off infection. But the key again here is diversity. One of the reasons that food allergies have become so common is that people are simply eating the same foods day in and day out. In China they are developing allergies to rice, in the UK to wheat, and in the US to corn. It’s mono-crop farming, so it’s mono-crop eating, and your body literally gets sick of eating the same stuff all the time.
Let me ask you: how many different species of vegetables do you eat in a year? 15? 25? 30? Your ancestors could add 2 zeros to that figure, eating 150, 200, 300 diverse species. We are killing and destroying the very plant and animal diversity that we need to keep us healthy. David Attenborough tells us in his wonderful recent documentary ‘Life on our planet’ that we have lost a staggering 60% of our plant and animal species in the last 50 years or less. But we are so disconnected from this fact. This isn’t just a tragic loss for the animal and plant kingdom. This has a direct result on our health as humans.
Where is this taking us?
As we have already seen with the bacteria we host, we are part of nature and nature is part of us. We have seen this stronger than ever in this current pandemic, but it doesn’t ever seem to sink in. Humans still seem as obsessed as ever to dominate, overpower, and kill nature… much like like other cultures and races. Instead of celebrating cultural diversity and embracing or even rejoicing in our differences, systemic racism is rife. Governments deport the very diversity that makes countries like the UK and the US great.
Even opinions have become polarised. Media and algorithms have manipulated us into a situation where there is no diversity in opinion or argument anymore. Gone is the middle-ground and any kind of openness to another’s viewpoint. I would like to leave you with the idea that variety is indeed the spice of life, but I would go further and suggest that diversity is the key to life and without it (whether that be in bacteria, soil, opinion or culture) life in its truest form will cease to exist.
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