Pay the price

So, apparently it’s ‘blog action day’ all over the world on 15th October, an effort inspired by climate change campaigners to raise awareness of the ‘alleged’ impending doom befalling our supposedly stricken planet. I have to say, straight off the bat, I’ve long considered humans to be the worst disease this planet has to combat, so I’m tempted to view this whole climate change battle as more of a, ‘shit, what’s gonna happen to us’ debate really, while having the opinion that anything which wipes out the human race would, on the whole, be better for all other living creatures residing here.

The situation the human race now finds itself in is entirely man made, and while we’d all like to be able to point the finger, screaming with some kind of righteous indignation at the corporate super powers of industry, like British Petroleum, Tesco’s, Mac Donalds, Aviation industries, or even Starbucks, we conveniently neglect to mention that they’re all operated by human beings in the very ‘dog eat dog’ world of business.

So let’s consider that perhaps the millions of farm reared cattle can actually fart us out of existence, or that the billions of cars, trains, planes, motor bikes, and power stations will poison our air, land, and seas, so that the jet streams can then deliver these deadly toxins around the planet, or the Gulf stream ceases to flow, bringing on another ice age, maybe the opposite and global warming baking half of us to death in waves of ‘nucleur summers’. This planet has already had the global warming and ice age scenarios, before even we came along, and there’s a reasonable chance they’ll happen again, with or without our assistance.

One of the biggest problems we as a race have had to confront has been as a direct result of our so called ‘progress’. Going from a nomadic existence, where you lived off an area without decimating it, moving on to greener pastures, and allowing that area to recover, to a heavily populated city/town society based around industry and mass production to satiate all the needs of that ever increasing population.

Somewhere down the line it might occur to enough governments to send out the message not to have so many bloody children, and that some places on this planet were never supposed to have been populated in the first place. You can bet your boots that the nomadic African tribes, pre European interference, wouldn’t be hanging around during drought times, or floods. Much like the American plains Indians knew when to move on, and where best to go, before they were all but wiped out by the plague of Europeans ‘settling’ with their own style of population, shortly followed by industry. And think about the kind of people most likely to succeed in industry, opportunist, cut throat, self serving, and mainly avaricious

I don’t consider myself to be the problem, but I can’t escape the fact that, as a human being, I’m at least a part of it, so ought to try in my own way to limit what damage I do during my time here. And if that alone was the message for others, to just ‘do what you can’, then those that follow that way of thinking could at least sleep with a slightly easier conscience, whether it made a difference or not.

As it happens I have a ‘rant’ I’d written about this subject a few years back, so here it is below:-

Pay the price (written 02-11-2K)

Global warming’s cast its vote
So ditch the car and get a boat
Heed the warnings, read the signs
Of Mother earths new worry lines

Petty quarrels, status quo
You just won’t let your comforts go
Mudslides, floods, trees on the line
See it now, things aint just fine

Cars and chimneys billow smoke
And make this ailing planet choke
Then think about when we’re not here
As earth recovers year by year

From the human made disease
Which poisons air, and land, and seas
We’re the ones earth doesn’t need
Our self indulgent endless greed

We’ve turned into a selfish race
The natives now all but replaced
Once knew nomads how to live
And how much Mother earth could give

Take for need and not for greed
Reap then sow another seed
We’ve had our time but if we’ve failed
Get ready next to learn to SAIL