I'm tired of forcing myself to take an interest in trivia. I don't want this to be a negative post. I don't feel in a 'flowing' mood, and no doubt there will be no elegant flow to what I have to say.
Look, it's over.
Forget your mortgage, forget your pension, forget saving up for your next car, forget living to see your grandchildren grow up, forget the dating game, forget plastic surgery, forget who's marrying who in Hollywood, forget it all…
Human civilisation is over.
I don't know if we deserve it or not, but we cannot deny, anyway, that we have been stupid enough to make it happen.
How stupid are we?
In the same few days we have the strongest rains ever recorded in Indian history, and no one on the news asks whether there's a connection to climate change. We have a freak hurricane in Birmingham, and no one asks whether it's to do with climate change.
Instead the television invites us to watch a group of tedious morons trying to grab the limelight in order to appease the eternal aching of their insipid little egos. We are promised a delightful modern fairy tale starring Hilary Duff. And when these emetic celebrities pass from our screens they are replaced by respectable leaders of men inviting us to support them in an endless war upon people we have never met. And between their speeches we are sold washing machines and cars and chocolate and toilet fresheners and all these other things that we need so much that its worth destroying the entire planet for.
By rights we should be ripping the heads off these various celebrities, politicians and advertising executives and puking down their execrable necks.
I suppose, instead, we shall be gathered around our televisions watching the tidal wave on the screens as it crashes through our windows. How's that for reality TV?
I've just got one thing to say – get out of the insurance business NOW. You're onto a loser.
I still think their is enough time to change things, the best start is to see what YOU can do! Opt-in for green energy (it isn’t even that expensive today) and cut down on the use of your car. I use mine almost never these days anymore.
Do you really need to use the car to get your grocery’s? Take the bike and improve your health and the health of the planet! Donate money to political and scientific organisations that try to change times. Do you really need a 4th generation Ipod or is the old one fine? Can’t you buy that new PDA from Ebay?
People, the future is in your hand this is the time to prove (to god if you believe in any or to yourself) that you’re worthy to live on this planet.
HI Q,
Another thing that might be due to global warming is earth quakes..
I was told there was another 4.6 on in Cairo on Sunday I didn’t hear anything about that on the news only from my contacts there.
Earthquakes are not a regular part of Cairo sats and now to have 2 in 3 years there is something to think about.
Humanity is like a puzzel .. if you remove the human element you have pureness and only natural occurances.
Interject humans and you have waste and an abundance of garbage .
the US is known for being a throw away society.. not only in trash but in relationships family and marriages.. people have become accustomed to throwing things away instead of fixing them.. this includes the broken child or adult.. Sad but true.
I hope your second part of your journey is full of brillant light and warm caring feelings.. which will lead you to much love.
Eve
On a pragmatic level, you’re right DC imo. But even if everyone does that kind of thing, Quentin may still be right. I think that’s what’s so scary, makes people feel helpless, paralyzes action, even the action you prescribe.
Quentin – I linked to your post from my blog with extended, convuluted comments if you’re interested. (Probably not much interest to many people.)
Or at least admitting to the problem would cost a bundle because then we would have to figure a way to clean up the mess we have made of things. By admitting that humans have royally screwed up the planet, knowing we don’t have anywhere else to go, would bring about mass hysteria. OK, maybe not mass hysteria… but I would guess there would be a lot of finger pointing and denials…until humans themselves suffer from mass extinction.
Thank you for your comment.
I hope that you are right and it’s not too late.
I believe you’re right about earthquakes.
I haven’t heard it discussed much generally, but the earthquake of December the 26th that killed so many thousands has been ascribed by some to global warming – apparently the Earth’s crust, like everything else – expands with heat, increasing the movement of tectonic plates.
Thanks. I’ve posted a brief comment.
Well, anyway, time will tell. I’m preparing for the second half of my life to be much more turbulent than the first. I’m not much of a ‘survivor’, but I can see things coming to that – tribalism, anarchy, a new dark age.
Re: We have a freak hurricane in Birmingham, and no one asks whether it’s to do with climate change.
I did! I, like you, hope that’s it’s not too late as well. I think that all that we can do is do our bit and hope that everyone starts to do his or hers also. I do really believe that people are starting to wake up to what’s happening – now if only the governments would as well… :-/
In a sense, I don’t think it would be so bad if only we could really square up to it and face the reality. What is important? Is it that we have multi-whisk electric blenders and plasma-screen TVs, or is it something else a little harder to name, but more sustainable?
I say this to myself, too. I know that I also have useless attachments.
Anyway, http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050802/344/foopf.html">here%27s further evidence of what I’m talking about.
I’m glad I’m not alone. I’m just trying to discover what’s really important in the time that’s left to us. It seems pretty certain that it’s not the stuff that is destroying our planet, and which we are bound to lose anyway – the stuff that is unsustainable. So what is it?
Clearly it must be something to do with human relationships, community, that kind of thing. Therefore I use the word ‘discover’, because, well, somehow I don’t think people are really very good at community. I must confess that I’m not. I try, but I still feel very much alone.
I think that’s really what religions start out as, in the few minutes before they become misinterpreted and corrupted – attempts at community and communion.
Dear Q.,
I am reminded of all the ‘doomsday’ scenarios of my childhood, teenage, youth, early twenties. I once saw an excellent film called “Dr Strangelove (Or How I learned To Stop Worrying and love the Bomb)”. At it said everything, in parody of things, as they were at that time. Of course the situation now is ‘worse’, in the sense that you describe. But I am not persuaded that we should all stand on the top of some high mountain, lifting our eyes to what we perceive as “our fate” and mutter “Bring it on”. We can change how we behave, to prevent, or alleviate, further degradation in our own, local environment(s0. We cannot change what our neighbours do without their assent to change. That is a reality that we should recognise.
It follows that if such neighbours are ‘colossal size’ countries, e.g. USA, India, China, Australia, with an economy and or a ‘growth’ in their industrial capacity -manufacturing and productive output- proportionate to their developing status (but in the case of the USA that ‘status’ is likely to be skewed by a significant ‘wastage’ factor), and if they also have large populations and there is no expected decline in population growth (birth rate)then those countries’ contribution (‘effect’) upon all their local environments and, by deduction, the global environment, will be a major contribution to what we already perceive to be happening now.
Do my thoughts, earlier, on the ‘doomsday scenario’, then and now, and my recognition that climate change and other ‘warning’ signs imply things are not so rosy suggest that there is no hope left? Of course not.
Unlike my dear friend Q. (who I have actually met) I think there are still many things we can do to ‘balance’ out what we have allowed to be done. How do we proceed then? It is obviously not in India or China’s interests to stop their accelerated industrial and economic growth, for they will simply argue that western countries have already had their ‘Industrial Revolution’ some centuries ago and that now it is India and China’s turn to to ‘leap forward’ and become prosperous. They are right, in simplistic terms.
What is not the same now, is that those western economies (USA, Europe) who ‘developed’ during the period (18th,19th,early 20th centuries) have not dropped out out of the competition. They (We) continue their ecomonic way of life but now the new ‘giants’ are taking part and attempting to ‘race ahead’ in their individual development(s).
I asked the question but do not have a complete answer (perhaps my answers are built on a false permise). We can continue -as UK is trying to do- to ‘grow’ our recycling initiatives. We can continue -as UK is trying to do- to look for alternative fuels, alternative energy sources. Some years ago “Salter’s ducks” were an experiment with wave-power. Currently there are initiatives to use wind-power through tall standing three bladed ‘windmills’. There are solar-powered artefacts (solar panels) already in production and the cost is falling, but for the average John Doe they are still relatively expensive to purchased and to install at the present time.
But now you spot the obvious flaws in my suggestions -my ‘answers’. None of these small, though important, contributions will do much to ‘save the planet. For that we have to look to what those countries whom I have mentioned are doing, and to persuade them, perhaps by appealing to their ‘self-interest’ that unless they become more efficient, e.g. diminish wastage, diminish carbon emissions and so on, their own future will be adversely affected because we are all tied into the same problem and climate change will bring -is bringing- change everywhere.
But now some of you may be about to ‘pounce’ on something else you feel I have overlooked? Well, I briefly mentioned the USA.
It would be churlish of me to criticise the USA simply because they are the largest economy on Earth, the most powerful nation that has ever arisen in history. That would be an ’emotional’ as well as ‘insensitive’ thing to do. It would also be illogical aas well as irrational, considering my own country’s past record (history of Empire) and past ‘domination’ of trade routes through unfair ‘one-way’ tariff systems.
I can say, as a fact, that the USA has played, still plays a leading role in the consumption of non-renewable resources. Since most of its own previously large reserves of fossil fuel (oil) have been exhausted by domestic consumption at an alarming rate it has looked elsewhere, notably Saudia Arabia who are one of its major suppliers. That it was able to find an alternative supply of that same fossil fuel, in another country, did not in any way diminish the huge demand from its own domestic consumers. To the rest of the world it has often appeared that the citizens of the USA have no real concept of the price of oil, since the price they have been paying at their gas-pumps is not a realistic one, in global terms. But, as I have implied, this is not a session for ‘USA bashing’ for many of us in the west (UK & Europe) -and now beginning to be in the east- have also been guilty of terrible wastage and gross overconsumption (the ‘throwaway society’).
I realise my over-length ‘essay’ has not answered these questions in full. That is beyond my purview. But I am as concerned as everyone else and I do not differ with the general worry and deep concern shown by my other Opera friends here. Where we differ, perhaps, is in our belief that there is still some hope remaining. I stand by that flag.
yours respectfully,
lokutu
HI Q,
If the news people reported correctly then it wouldn’t be news worthy would it?
I too feel as you do and us as the consumer of their news shows can demand more from them instead of accepting their offerings.
As it states in all the holy books.. these are signs of the times and futures of mankind.
As in the sci fi flicks. People only pay attention when there isn’t any more time to do anything about it.
We as a human race DO have time to demand and do something about the changes that are being made now.
What happned to GREEN PEACE? and other organizations that were suppose to help guide and protect our world?
Keep voicing your mind and sooner or later the word will get out and maybe the consiousness of humanity will awaken.
To our Future :cheers:
Thank you for posting.
Well, you know what was left at the bottom of Pandora’s box, anyway.