The Self Renewing Lust For Precious Metals

Is part of us, part of how we measure time.
Scientists know little about how many lived,
and how they died, as the ages of stone, 
Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic,
became the age of bronze, then of iron.

In the ages of stone there were no empires,
so mathematics was not required.  

But historians of more recent times 
can measure how valuable a metal was
by the numbers of humans that died
in the pursuit of metals like gold.

Europeans plundered South America,
and mis-described the tribes they met,
who were peaceful in themselves.
When the Europeans invaded,
looking for gold to take away,
the made the forced conversion
of the native tribes 
to Christianity 'their lasting gift',

The invaders thought nothing
of the diseases they carried,
to which natives had no resistance.

So many natives died
from the diseases the invaders
did not know they carried 
as much as they did not know
they had a resistance to,
that one has to wonder
what the gold was worth,
in the numbers of germs
and the numbers of deaths. 

The invaders credited the natives
dying in vast numbers to God,
for their previous unbelief.

I wonder which destructive sea deity
scientists and corporations will credit today,
with the death of previously unknown,
and unrecorded marine life,
as a result  of so called 'deep sea mining'
destroying their habitats,
seeking metals so rare that there
are barely any there to be had?