Looking For Hope

Chapter 18: Solving a Strife at the Interplanetary Council Meeting

A month or so after the students went on a kayaking adventure, jumped from a water tower, and camped out on the beach, Deandra received a letter from the interplanetary council stating that her dad was now officially ready to challenge her in the interplanetary court to settle their strife about Deandra's refusal to be the next CEO for the Milton family's mining company. The letter also stated that Deandra would be allowed to bring people who could support her position as long as they would also be able to present empirical evidences along with their speeches.

The day of the trial, the young woman brought Ayumi, the students, and Lee with her to the location of the meeting, which was in Brown Aspen City, the capital of Red Sycamore, approximately an hour away from the Golden Valley village. In the room, there were four judges from three different planets of the Indigo Inferno solar system: one was a representative of Red Sycamore, one was a representative of Black Elm, one was a representative of the Red Sycamore-owned side of Silver Pine, and the last was a representative of the Black Elm-owned side of Silver Pine. All of them had sworn to take neutral position in Deandra's case.

Moira had volunteered to become the first speaker to present her support of Deandra and her opposition of Mr. Milton's anthropocentric philosophy. Nervous but firm in her believe that Deandra was on the right side and thus deserved to be helped, Moira gave the following speech despite feeling that her heart was about to be ripped out of her chest the entire time:

"Your Honors, I stand here as an ecocentrist and a xenobiology major with a minor in biochemistry. My education thus far has made me an informed citizen, a critically thinking scholar, and above all a human who knows her role in preserving the environment. I strongly oppose speciesism and human chauvinism. Non-human animals are not supposed to only be a means to human ends! Why are we focusing on ourselves to the detriment of other beings? Why do we always regard humankind as the central and most important element of existence? I demand interspecies justice! What Mr. Milton and his company are doing will no doubt bring about the extinction of the Gaburs and the birdwing butterflies, both native to Golden Valley, a village to which Mr. Milton plans to have his mining company relocate. I can't just sit back and watch this unfolds. We have moral obligation to save the Gaburs and the birdwings."

The judges whispered among themselves before allowing Mr. Milton to debate Moira.

"Naïve child, are you a misantrophe? Do you hate humans that much to oppose something that will be financially good to Golden Valley? We do need to mine Pronas and Quenax, otherwise how else are we going to fuel our space crafts? Also, stop using those tiny winged elephants as an excuse to stop me from relocating my company. The Gaburs shouldn't even exist in the first place, they're hybrid species made by scientists who played God. Since they wouldn't exist without the intervention of those foolish scientists, why should we protect them?" Mr. Milton retorted, laughing boisterously in his certainty that he had Moira cornered and scared.

"I never hate humans, sir!" Moira yelled. "I am a human myself! All I said was that your human interests come at the exclusion and the expense of the Gaburs. Your interest in Pronas and Quenax is valid, but is that really the only way to fuel our space crafts? Are there no alternatives? We need an altruistic win-win solution. I believe in the integration of the triple bottom line: people, planet, and prosperity. None of those three basic building blocks of economy should be regarded as more important than the other." Moira finished her argument.

The freshmen cheered while Mr. Milton was seething and the judges called for order. Up next was Ayumi, she had volunteered to speak about her people's beliefs and stance about mining.

"Honored judges, the Little Trees tribe of the Golden Valley village has always revered the nature and we appreciate it by believing that everything has a soul. We also believe that if we ever let our greed hurt another being, be it animal or human, we will be forever stuck in a circle of suffering, an endless cycle of death and rebirth, and be barred from going to nirvana. We are all interconnected, all entities are sacred, and the universe hangs in a fragile balance. Humans should not try to conquer nature. What Mr. Milton and his company have planned will turn my homeland into a waste land and I don't want that! No Little Trees in their right mind want that." Ayumi bowed to the judges and was ready to leave the podium but one of the judges had a question, so she was called back to the podium for further questioning.