July 2020
We should never forget that we are part of nature. Everything we do is an interaction with the natural world around us. We take and we give back. Every molecule of oxygen that we breathe has come from an organism that excretes it as a by-product. These are not only plants, but also algae such as seaweeds, which, incidentally, are not plants. They do not have a vascular system or roots. Also, there are photosynthetic bacteria and other planktonic organisms such as euglena and paramecium. The latter actually has a symbiotic relationship with a green alga that lives in its cytoplasm where it produces oxygen.
While we are on the subject of symbiosis, it is likely that each one of us has more bacterial cells in and on our bodies than human cells. We cannot live without them. However well we clean ourselves, they are still with us, actually looking after us in different ways. Good bacteria in our digestive systems are particularly important. Everything that dies becomes part of the planet’s soil, atmosphere and new life thanks to the amazing water and carbon cycle and the ecosystem services provided by mini beasts such as insects, molluscs, crustaceans and myriapods (millipedes and centipedes), annelid worms and of course, bacteria.
Ecosystem services come in so many other forms, such as pollination by insects of most of our edible fruit and vegetables. Fish to eat from the sea and other animals we use such as sheep, fowl and cattle. All our building materials all ultimately come from the ground, even those used in manufacturing cars. Our clothes are formed from plants and animals, or else from the ‘synthetic’ fibres manufactured from fossilised oil, which itself is a decay product from life that existed millions of years ago. Glass is sand, wood is trees, bricks are clay, screws and nails etcetera are metals refined by crushing and cooking rocks that contain them, allowing us to extract and make new useful things with them.
Having laboured the point, we must pay back nature’s bounty by preserving natural places for it in our world, both locally and globally. If we fail in that and exploit it too much, e.g. burning excess fossil fuel and destroying too much natural habitat, nature’s response is to follow the laws of physics and change many aspects of life as we know it.