Insect is the word that comes to mind at times. Or maybe, a better word is virus.

To think how human beings have infested the planet, the way we grow in number, spread, destroy natural environment to create an unsustainable and artificial habitat and the way we are pushing the planet towards ultimate destruction, without having any control on it – mankind seems to be the disease that ails planet earth.

Was it supposed to be like this? Aren’t we all good people? Nice, kind at heart? Don’t we all crave for heroic deeds, to save the worlds? Don’t we love the movies where protagonists behave selflessly, sacrificing their own interest for the greater good? Do not we create beneficial laws, treaties and conventions to prevent the evil from taking over?

Why, why is it then that the combined effect of the existence of humankind is so putrid, so disastrous for the whole world? Why does it seem that the entire race is unable to prevent the earth from falling into an irreversible disaster?
Is it that all the good people are manipulated by some evil people? Does that argument stand after decades of knowing what is happening and in which direction we are headed?

Are we even aware of the evil that we constitute collectively, as a species? Are we comfortable with that?

What can we do, what is our duty as individuals once we become aware of the fact that the human race, collectively, has not behaved any better than a colony of viruses in the last couple of centuries of its existence?

And, being lawyers, can we answer what kind of laws could make a difference? Does this have anything to do with the laws or is there something more fundamental about this that laws can not reach?