Sat at work and just checked my emails. Most days I have a mail from the Friends of the Earth, which even if I can't action directly, always make me think about the wider picture and consider my actions.
But the thing that has really stuck with me this morning was a comment made on Radio 4 while I was in the shower (please note I have a wind up radio for extra smugness!)
Palaeontologists suggested that all life on earth comes to an end as a result of climate change - too hot or too cold - either way no food! Hardly a new thought, but for some reason I have really dwelled on it today. My old geography teacher always used to point out there is alot of evidence to suggest that we are still coming out of the last Ice Age. So then comes the million dollar question which is by no way a new thought, do our actions as humans the blindest bit of difference? Perhaps this change in temperature is one if the earth natural cleansing cycles up there with plate tectonics and meteorology - (like the Principal - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis).
Looking at the situation like that it seems an uneven contest - weedy humans v the earth. Doesn't look good, does it? One example in England that springs to mind is where we have tried to preserve beeches to keep the tourism in small coastal towns. Groins are installed and the sand is trapped behind them. Well, for a while anyway. But longshire drift is still takes place and the sea will move the sand along the coast, grain by grain whether we like it or not. And for the time the sand is trapped at one beach another beach further along the coast is deprived of it. At a risk of sounding defeatist, are we just putting off the inevitable?
So with the 'we're all doomed' mindset, can we all have huge carbon footprints and stomp over the land and sea and probably space as well without giving a shit because it's all going to go up in smoke / get covered in ice anyway. Being nice to the earth is only putting it off the big freeze / scorch for a few years.
Or, looking at it from a slightly different perspective, does that mean there is the potential that fellow humans in years to come, will have to live on a planet that is a much tougher place than it is now, bith with few resources to cope. Less places where food can grow, less space to live because the population has exploded, more mouths to feed. Would are blasie actions be condemning future generations to a life of starvation and fuel deprivation?
But then perhaps we don't have to worry about that. It's not happeneing now. It's some time in the future. Besides, people have been banging on about it for years and quite frankly it's a right pain in the arse. We certainly won't be here to see it or experience it. Long gone by then, all of us. At the moment people from the over indulged West watch people in Africa suffer from both starvation and fuel deprivation and we're able to shut it out of our minds while it's happening now. While we are all alive and standing on the same earth. So, it's hardly a surprise to imagine that shutting future images of the earth when we're not even going to be here.
That one comment on the radio really made me stop and think. It doesn't seem to matter which way I look at it, we as humans have to be careful and mindful with the finite resources that are available to us. Even if the human race isn't going to be stopped in it's tracks by dramatic climate change, if we just use resources at a rate faster than they can be replenished, then we're on a sticky wicket. Am I being over dramatic? I don't think I am.
I can by no means live a completely sustainable life or be on the planet without making any impact at all, but I'm going to try a bit harder than I have been. Sometimes, when I'm feeling lazy - or skint, it's easy to let things slide, but everything I do havs an impact on someone somewhere and I don't want to forget that. I'm going to try and change one thing everyday and make a little difference. Even if it's only a slightly quirky one!
But the thing that has really stuck with me this morning was a comment made on Radio 4 while I was in the shower (please note I have a wind up radio for extra smugness!)
Palaeontologists suggested that all life on earth comes to an end as a result of climate change - too hot or too cold - either way no food! Hardly a new thought, but for some reason I have really dwelled on it today. My old geography teacher always used to point out there is alot of evidence to suggest that we are still coming out of the last Ice Age. So then comes the million dollar question which is by no way a new thought, do our actions as humans the blindest bit of difference? Perhaps this change in temperature is one if the earth natural cleansing cycles up there with plate tectonics and meteorology - (like the Principal - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis).
Looking at the situation like that it seems an uneven contest - weedy humans v the earth. Doesn't look good, does it? One example in England that springs to mind is where we have tried to preserve beeches to keep the tourism in small coastal towns. Groins are installed and the sand is trapped behind them. Well, for a while anyway. But longshire drift is still takes place and the sea will move the sand along the coast, grain by grain whether we like it or not. And for the time the sand is trapped at one beach another beach further along the coast is deprived of it. At a risk of sounding defeatist, are we just putting off the inevitable?
So with the 'we're all doomed' mindset, can we all have huge carbon footprints and stomp over the land and sea and probably space as well without giving a shit because it's all going to go up in smoke / get covered in ice anyway. Being nice to the earth is only putting it off the big freeze / scorch for a few years.
Or, looking at it from a slightly different perspective, does that mean there is the potential that fellow humans in years to come, will have to live on a planet that is a much tougher place than it is now, bith with few resources to cope. Less places where food can grow, less space to live because the population has exploded, more mouths to feed. Would are blasie actions be condemning future generations to a life of starvation and fuel deprivation?
But then perhaps we don't have to worry about that. It's not happeneing now. It's some time in the future. Besides, people have been banging on about it for years and quite frankly it's a right pain in the arse. We certainly won't be here to see it or experience it. Long gone by then, all of us. At the moment people from the over indulged West watch people in Africa suffer from both starvation and fuel deprivation and we're able to shut it out of our minds while it's happening now. While we are all alive and standing on the same earth. So, it's hardly a surprise to imagine that shutting future images of the earth when we're not even going to be here.
That one comment on the radio really made me stop and think. It doesn't seem to matter which way I look at it, we as humans have to be careful and mindful with the finite resources that are available to us. Even if the human race isn't going to be stopped in it's tracks by dramatic climate change, if we just use resources at a rate faster than they can be replenished, then we're on a sticky wicket. Am I being over dramatic? I don't think I am.
I can by no means live a completely sustainable life or be on the planet without making any impact at all, but I'm going to try a bit harder than I have been. Sometimes, when I'm feeling lazy - or skint, it's easy to let things slide, but everything I do havs an impact on someone somewhere and I don't want to forget that. I'm going to try and change one thing everyday and make a little difference. Even if it's only a slightly quirky one!
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