Sunday Essays: Consciousness Shift - Mother Nature vs Human Nature

IF YOU happen to meet some eerie self-proclaimed prophets who utter warnings about the end of the world or by chance watch a film about the contentious 2012 phenomenon, your mind might play up and down about your very own life and death.

Is the end really near? Are we being punished? Or are we just paranoid?

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Recent catastrophes that have stricken different parts of the earth are neither a coincidence nor an accident.

The recent 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti, which claimed thousands of lives, injured countless and left many homeless have awakened a lot of countries worldwide to take precautionary actions to avoid the same massive destruction.

But when Mother Nature strikes, nobody is really a hundred percent safe.

And then, Chile drifts in to a similar scenario when an 8.8 magnitude hit the city of Concepcion killing and injuring hundreds.

The Chile Earthquake wasn't as devastating as compared to Haiti but both countries screamed for help as pleas for rescue rose from both survivors and those who struggled even up to their last breath.

The wrath of Mother Nature doesn't end there. We are confronted by the problem of climate change. Sea water levels threaten to rise and certain areas in the map will be totally wiped out. And we are not even threatened enough to take a leap of change.

Slowly but surely, Mother Nature comes in to our lives by bringing threats of total doom if we do not take action.

Our very own Davao City was hit by a 5.1 magnitude earthquake. There was too the tsunami warning because of the Chile quake. Luckily, the expected tsunami didn't develop as predicted and the warning was cancelled. Though we have different reactions about this, what really matters is that we become more vigilant.

This isn't really the Revelation or the end of the world. Even the famous 2012 trend is considered a hoax by scholars. We are just being slapped with the truth that we have abused our habitat and there are certain consequences that go with that.

The catastrophes call us as one so that we can be able to develop a 'global consciousness shift', not to warn us of our impending doom but to cultivate sympathy, unity and global change. Human Nature is no excuse. Mother Nature is still keeping an eye on us.

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Sunday Essays are articles written by 3rd Year Mass Communication students of the Ateneo de Davao University for their advanced journalism class.