We Didn't Get The Message

In college decades ago I remember seeing a clear five gallon glass jug in the biology lab. It was filled with water, had a layer of soil on the bottom, aquatic plants rooted in soil, snails milling about, and some guppies. The jug was plugged with a cork and sealed with paraffin. It was described as an enclosed ecosystem where plants produced oxygen for the fish which produced carbon dioxide for the plants which produced organic matter for the snails which fertilized the whole works. The guppies fed on algae that naturally developed when the system was exposed to light, and the fish reproduced at a rate balanced by available space and food supply. We were told such a sealed ecosystem could go uninterrupted for years as long as adequate light was provided.

It was Biology 101, a basic introduction to living systems, and the sealed jug demonstrated our planet as the sealed sphere it is. Life as we know it can exist only as long as there is harmony and balance among all components of the ecosystem.

We didn't get the message.
We didn't realize
That our innovation and industry
Might ultimately wreck our lives.

We didn't get the message.
We learned the carbon cycle but paid it little care,
And mined and burned the ancient fuels
And pumped them in the air.

We didn't get the message.
We had lives we needed to live
And kids to feed
And gadgets to buy
And fields to seed,
And livestock to tend
And planes to catch
And a country to defend,
And chemicals to spray
And deals to close
And a thousand distractions every day.

We didn't get the message.
We had appointments to meet
And grass to mow
And deadlines to beat,
And homes to remodel
And email to check
And no time to dawdle!
We had trips to take
And teams to cheer
And promotions to make.

We didn't see it coming,
Though some among us did,
But fearful of their bank accounts
They kept the message hid.

We didn't get the message
Now the system’s out of whack
And we’ll face the consequence
Of our intellectual lack.