Ending Our Nuclear Nightmare, David Krieger: The Abolition of Nuclear Weapons is Our Responsibility, Not a Burden to Pass on to Our Children and Grandchildren

The Earth seen from Apollo 17. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by  David Krieger, Yes! magazine: http://www.yesmagazine.org

Fairy tales often begin with the words, “Once upon a time …”. For example, “Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess …”. In a fairy tale, the hero, perhaps a handsome prince, may kill the dragon and rescue the princess, and they “live happily ever after.”

I want to suggest a fairy tale in which there is a beautiful planet and the heroes and heroines who save it are us. So, here is a fairy tale about saving a planet in distress. Our challenge is to bring this fairy tale to life.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful and pristine planet. It was the third planet in a remote solar system in a vast galaxy of stars. While it might have seemed like an ordinary planet, if anything, rather on the small side, it was far from ordinary. It was, in fact, a very special planet, for it had just the right climate and temperature to support life.

On this planet there were oceans and continents and mountains and rivers, and they teemed with life. There were broad plains with grasses that rippled in the winds; hillsides covered with wildflowers; trees that spread their branches and bore fruits. And there were animals of every shape and kind: fish that swam, birds that flew, and animals that hopped and jumped and ran.

This planet had sunrises and sunsets and a night sky filled with twinkling stars. Compared with the harsh, lifeless planets that filled the solar system, it was a paradise.

 

And into this paradise came a featherless bi-ped capable of knowing. He called himself man, and he called the paradise he inhabited Earth. He devised stories about his own creation, stories that helped to explain the mystery of being - the mystery of something emerging from nothing.

Man was clever and he created tools that gave him power over other creatures, even though he was not as strong or fast or agile as they were. He created powerful gods in his own image and then had those imaginary creatures bestow upon him dominion over all that swam and flew and ran. Man took charge of the planet.

Man's most recent creation story, the science-based creation story, is that the universe grew from a "Big Bang" some 15 billion years ago, and it has been expanding ever since. Earth was created 4.5 billion years ago and a half-billion years later simple forms of life emerged on Earth.

Early forms of man in this creation story came into existence only a few million years ago and more modern forms of man only some 50,000 years ago. Only in the past eight to ten thousand years have human civilizations emerged.

To read further, go to: http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/ending-our-nuclear-nightmare?utm_source=wkly20120420&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=titleKrieger