The End of Yet Another Golden Age? opus 440
| 9 October 2024 0930 Hours | | Evolution, Biology, Climate, Diet, Farming, Food |
We humans have lived through a climate golden age.
With our ever greater success in most things,
We increasingly traverse the world,
Slowly carrying viruses and bacteria with us.
With the human population-increase throughout the planet,
There accompanies an increase
In ever-more confined protein sources to feed us:
Feedlots for cattle, tiny coops for multiple chickens--
Our gallinaceous protein source--,
Ever-more fish farms, confining magnificent salmon.
These confined populations,
Ranging from humans, to our 'fellow-food creatures'.
Exasperates the increased possibilities of transmissionable disease:
Look at bird flu just now in our dairy cattle herds--
Milk still drinkable, yet affecting the caretakers.
Henry Ford's production line increased efficiency,
But that crowding was with the joining of metal and fabrics--
Crowding life with ever-more 'food producers' is not the same.
Some of the oldest forms of life--bacteria and virus--
Are constantly mutating, waiting for a new source of life-support.
(Remember, virus are part of our ancestry and DNA!)
This is the wonder and power of evolution through natural selection--
The thing called life, maintaining a hold on life,
In an ever-changing environment requiring constant adaptation.