June 2010: This month's thought is written by Marv Lyons as a Letter to the Editor related to the Time Magazine Article The Battle for Global Health: Hope in the long battle against malaria, published in the June 21st, 2010 issue.

Letter to the Editor.

Global Health, Global Aid, Compassionate Philanthropists...All laudable.

All very well and good. The results of the Malaria "plague" are deeply distressing. Stumbling politicos and greed are also distressing.

But: Bigger Picture Please.

What is (Mother) Nature's functional reason for Malaria? What is the net result of its presence here in Eden? And AIDS?

All the other diseases we battle vigorously and compassionately? When we win, what do we win?

Within our closed global life support system, disease functions as a balancing force to keep populations under control. The primary reason for ALL global environmental, even social problems is OVER POPULATION.

Keeping more babies healthy and alive is, on the surface, very laudable. Our hearts are moved by the wonderfully human emotion of empathy. But what of the next phase? How do we keep them healthy? What do they have to eat? Where do they live? What of their many children? We do have a very short attention span and don't think of the results of noble causes.

I am not demeaning compassion. But. My compassion is tempered by asking the next questions. And here at home, particularly here in San Diego, companies are working will all due speed to eliminate ALL diseases. What good is immortality on a world barren of resources that have been exploited mindlessly?

What is the result? A dying planet. Simple. By ignoring and interfering with Nature's delicately balanced Systems, which have been evolving for billions of years, we have thrown them out of balance and place a dire threat on our own future.

A small issue, multiplied by 7 Billion (people) has a major impact on the limits of Earth's Life Support System.

If we are to survive as a species, which is in question, we must learn to understand natural systems and work in harmony with them. We must learn also to balance the sweet emotion of compassion with the cool wisdom of an aged (4.5 Billion years) and supremely wise Mother Earth... or goddess GAIA, if you prefer.

To a wise and evolved human species, living and thriving in harmony with each other and the living Earth.

Marv Lyons

If you have a story, thought, or picture worth to be considered as story, thought or picture of the month, please feel free to inform me about it by sending an e-mail to hpplag@unr.edu.