By David Pisarra

I love gardening. I like getting my hands covered in dirt and muck, and making something beautiful grow out of ugliness. I love to plant bulbs, partly because I love to see them bloom, but also because by the time they bloom, I have long forgotten the aches and pains of digging trenches; the sore back from the long hours spent arranging what look like giant cloves of garlic, that will eventually become dark green leaves and solid reds and yellow and purples of the flowers. Then, I’ll be able to simply enjoy them.

That was until the world went warm. It used to be that one could plant bulbs in the fall and they would sprout the following spring. There would be a solid three months, at least, between the planting and the blooming. There would be rains and cold and blustery days that cried out for hot chocolate and homemade beef stew.

This year though, it seems that Mother Nature is playing a joke on us all. We’ve had hardly any rain, barely a cold snap and it has jumbled everyone’s schedule. From the bulbs I planted, there are now sprouting weak and unstable stalks. The cherry trees on the Mall in Washington D.C. are blooming months early, and every tree, plant and shrub is confused by the unseasonably warm weather.

Blue Mountain — the largest ski resort in Ontario, Canada — has had such a mild winter that it had to close for the first time ever. Each week, there is a new report about the glaciers melting, the polar bear habitat being eroded, the ice caps disappearing and the gulf stream shutting down and the effect it will have on Europe and the fisheries of the Bering Sea.

Hollywood is even getting in on the news, with the movie “Happy Feet,” the issue of over-fishing and its effects on the ecosystem was a kids movie with a message — we have a planet and we need to take care of it.

Researchers announced last month that the White Dolphin of China is now extinct. This the first large water mammal to go extinct since the Caribbean Monk Seal was over-fished to extinction in the ’50s.

I am bothered by many things in this world, most of which I can do little about but complain, bemoan and move on with my life. The fact that China has an inability to properly shepherd their country’s natural resources is well beyond my control. Same goes for the African and Asian continents and their overpopulation and disease-ridden states. Oh hell, the whole world is beyond my control except for my little plot of land that is owned mostly by the bank.

Former President Jimmy Carter wrote a book entitled “Our Endangered Values.” In it, he addresses the twin African problems of man’s impact on the environment and lack of health care. On the one hand, he explores the responsibility we have as humankind to protect our environment and sustain it. On the other hand, he explores the need for the people of Africa to learn basic hygiene to reduce the suffering from the many horrible diseases and conditions they are suffering from in that troubled part of the world.

Clearly, the former president is a man of intelligence and insight, yet nowhere in his book does he comprehensively resolve the problems. We have two issues. One, protect the environment to sustain life on this planet. Two, minimize the suffering of those people who are on it.

The sad reality is that we are taxing the systems of the planet beyond their capabilities to compensate. Nature has a way of keeping all things in balance, but man is skewing that balance through over-population. This is a result of birth rates, but also of advances in medicine. Yes, we have the capability to alleviate suffering, but we also have the ability to limit our reproduction. Socially, one is acceptable and one isn’t.

That is sad, and it is a mistake.

We should not be saving lives, if only so that they can continue to reproduce and not be self-sustaining. It is morally wrong for us to overburden a planet that has limited resources, out of some vain idea that all people should be allowed unlimited reproductive rights.

I think we should alleviate suffering, but I also think we should have a very strong message along with it about contraception.

The planet will survive. Mankind may not. We may reproduce ourselves right into extinction, and no one knows what else we’ll bring along for the ride, like the White Dolphin.

David Pisarra is a partner in the Santa Monica law firm of Pisarra & Grist. He can be reached at (310) 664-9969 or by e-mail at dpisarra@pisarra.com.