I took a trip recently with my better half, Julia, to the Natural History Museum in Philadelphia. It was her class trip and she didn't want to suffer death by boredom alone so I decided to keep her company. Little did I know, that trip changed my life.
- We started out in the Dinosaur hall. I think I was way more excited to be there the children around me.
Imagine if we somehow never found any fossils, we would have never known about our past, and worst; still think that the earth was created 6000 years ago.
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| Just to give a scale. A T-Rex can literally swallow you whole |
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| Imagine seeing this when you're swimming. |
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| Mr Moose |
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| Discovery |
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| I feel bad for these guys, forever stuck with a bad hair cut |
My favorite exhibit to see was the Butterfly exhibit. We walked around in the sanctuary with butterflies fluttering around us. It was extremely hot and humid but I didn't mind it at all. I was more impressed with the beauty of these creatures. They were quite photogenic too I gotta say, so enjoy the many...many photos I took of them.
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| Some butterfly romance for ya |
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| A beautiful Diamond Back Terrapin |
This is the tragic stories of the Passenger Pigeons and the Giant Moa
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| Julia standing next to the giant Moa |
This is a very sad story. Some how it had affected me more than I thought it would. I felt angry when I saw this, mostly angry at the human race. Most of these magnificent creatures died and their species extinct because of human presence. They NO LONGER EXIST because of us. It reminded me of the recent news less than a month ago of the death of the last living Giant Pinta Island Tortoise. It hits home for me. We just lost another species. Another one added to the extinct animals list and no one cared. It wasn't headline news, maybe a little section on the 6th page.
It shows something about us. It shows that we as a species have gotten our priorities wrong. We are the only species to be blessed with the great gift of intelligence, but we have squandered it on wars and expansion. We think the Earth is a free for all buffet and the bigger gun we have the more we can take. My rant might sound idealistic and cliche' but maybe that's the problem. People might think its idealistic and think "yeah, but that's the way things are" with maybe a couple seconds of sympathy and then move on with there lives. That's why things never change and most of the time gets worst.
Carl Sagan once said that for the first time in our existence, the human race has the power and technologies advanced enough to determine our fate. We can choose to destroy ourselves and the planet with it, or we can protect and preserve the only home we have, our little pale blue dot.
A great philosopher named Stan Lee once said: "With great power comes great responsibility." We as human beings, with our awesome power of intelligence and technologies, are the Guardians of the Earth. We have to use our power to protect these defenseless species and preserve our planet, because if we destroy our planet, we have no where else to go. If you have read this far, thank you, and I have one final question for you: You have the greatest power on earth, will you use it for good or for evil?
