I CONCLUDED A LONG TIME AGO that anything that is widespread in a population has a root cause. It must be that way.

We killed 60 million people in World War II. America started two useless devasting wars in the second half of the 20th century. The middle range of estimates of total deaths is about 2.5 million including civilians. America, the peace loving country started both wars for no good reason. They are still not over and continue to claim deaths in Afganistan and Syria.

On the other hand, there are more legal economic crimes than there are of any other kind.

DOES IT MATTER TO ANYONE that children are dying from lack of medical care while Mit Romney installs an elevator for his car. Or that the owner of a $27 million yacht redoes the master suite before it is ever used. The aesthetics are not quite right. Walmart hires "contractors" or rather employees that work just a little less than full time at minimum wage so no benefits need be paid. Mothers work three jobs to make ends meet. And we pay taxes to give food stamps to these mothers.

According to Forbes Magazine, as of August 2017 the net worth of the Walmart family was over $145 billion which is approximately equal to the total net worth of the bottom 42% of American families.

THERE IS A FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION in the so called American free market economy of what fairness or justice should be. In the absence of taxes, unions, or regulations anyone is free to make as much as they can, so a few bright ideas and intense pressure on its suppliers gives Walmart and many other companies and individuals a method of unbalancing the distribution of wealth.

So what does this have to do with the Earth?

The absence of soul in relation to the Earth is shown in several ways. If you discover something valuable (coal, oil, etc.) either on your property or on public property that is not regulated you are free to ravage the Earth in any way you wish, make as much money as you can, pay your workers as little as you can (often minimum wage) and become very rich, while the net worth of your workers does not change, and the ravaged Earth can stay ravaged. You may have no safety regulations for your workers or ignore at will those that are in place. In West Virginia not long ago 27 minors died. The owner disregarded regulations and got off scott free.

Or oceans are fished out and polluted. Every minute, one garbage truck worth of plastic is dumped into the ocean. Yearly, a colossal 1.4 billion pounds of trash ends up in our oceans. Of this waste, much of it is plastic.

Something fundamental is wrong here, but it is impossible to say what except that it is "human nature." It reminds me a bit of what trible life might have been like. In the absence of a genetic connection we assume an enemy. Quality of life improves for the rich and the rest be damned and the Earth be damned. And we never tried on the other person/s shoes.

IN THE UNITED STATES as the rich have acquired more wealth they have also acquired more infuence over government to the point that President Trump can dismantle environmental requlations and the Earth be damned. And if what is taken from the Earth is burnable, the Earth can be used to cook itself.

And the president can take healthcare away from poor children to reduce taxes on billionaires.

Conervatives have created a belief that government is inherently bad yet Abraham Lincoln prayed at Gettesburg that our government of the people by the people and for the people not perish from this Earth.

SO EVOLUTION GAVE US NO INHERENT LOVE FOR THE EARTH or oceans, or anything natural, including our parents and siblings, although many of us who do not profit from it feel anger at the damage done. Great and small acquisitions of no real value depleat the Earth becuse something is missing in our souls. I am not lacking for anyting but my computer 10-12 hours per day, and I don't play computer games.

What put us here mystifies me. If your answer is "god" you have just given me the name of an answer, not the answer.

We cherish life and fear its end but do mass killings for no reason. Persons different from us, from another "tribe" are to be feared and are not of the same "value" as we. In the second Iraq war Donad Rumsfild and Dick Chaney simply wanted to demonstrate "shock and awe" and as far as I can tell no other reason. The result has become one of the great calamities of history.

So why were we given this Earth. Science can answer far more than any religion beginning with the Grand Singularity, yet cannot answer the question "why?"

Part of the answer is that others are completions of ourselves. The ability to talk, listen, understand, share, help, get help or just to enjoy life together is a mystery of incalculabe value. And we share some similarities in our relationship with the Earth.

It feeds us, warms us, cools us, gives us room to live and is of sublime beauty that nourishes our sours in ways we do not understand, except for me it seems that everything is a metaphor.

But we treat it like a robot servant that we can discaard at will, and pick a new one up at the local "Robuts are Us." Except that we cannot anyone longer. We haven't cleaned up after ourselves, replanted the over picked orchards and gardens and sucked it dry of this virtually boundless store of energy. We hever think about how we might replenish it or find a way of useing less.

And for reasons I cannot comprehend, we did not early on establish a replenishment and maintance program as we do for ourselves and or homes. It is likely that we will pay the price.

Most likely they own stock in fossil fuel companies, if they don't own the companies themselves.

We are now in a place where it will be all for naught, because if it is not given back and we don't get off our assess in a hurry, there will be no liveable Earth for golf courses, yachts or 5 acre zoning.

I am in my own way spirtually inclined and wonder what God is really like, if there is one. Or who or what created the Universe.

I think "god" is the name we give to the explanations for things we don't really understand. Twenty-five children killed and it was God's will. He was trying to teach us something.