My take on this post is:

The Earth is a living, sentient being, who provides the right conditions for life for all of us that live on this planet.

We have used and abused our home and our mother(as it were)over the centuries, more so in the last one hundred years.

The majority are basically takers, parasites,polluters of the natural world.

The animals have suffered and still do at our hands. WE are supposed to be their caretakers, their examples. If you believe some metaphysical, philosophical thoughts that the next stage in the evolution for animals is to become as humans, then I see that we have not been mentoring our students very well at all, teaching them and treating them in exceedingly bad ways.

I don't think any gorilla is going to be picking up a machine gun in the near future.
Look into the eyes of your pet dog and see what it is giving out, I think you would see love there and devotion, no matter what you do to it.

2012 is not that far away, it is not too late also for people to wake up and look at how they are treating not just the animals and the Earth, but how they image and see each other.

The alarm clock went off some time ago, but did you GET UP - or put it on snooze