Life has gone through many changes since I last blogged (on Mwmyn's Makes) and so have my preoccupations. Now I no longer am busy making and selling bears, I have more time to think of other things, and I have been particularly exercised by the state of our society, the levels of poverty and deprivation, and the links of these to the appalling attitudes to our habitat and financial wealth that have become more and more toxic since my childhood.
We are lucky enough to live on the only planet that, as far as we know, supports and nurtures organic life. The diversity of that life, evolved over millenia, is mind boggling in its variety and beauty, from miniscule bacteria to to mighty whales and elephants - and yet we take it for granted. We treat this glorious wonder as it were no more than an ever renewing, limitless resource for us to plunder at will, without thought for the consequences. Any one who who has done basic physics will tell you that every action has it's equal, and opposite reaction - yet we behave as though physics will not fulfill this law with equal and opposite reactions to how behave, to the changes we make to the planet.
Clearly this is illogical (and extremely stupid) so we have built up an enormous debt of consequences over several centuries, and over the last century, in particular, that debt has increased exponentially as our technical and technological abilities have increased - but our consideration of consequences has not. This is a sword of Damocles that is already starting to fall, as can be seen in increasingly phenomenal weather events, resulting in droughts, wildfires, flooding and other destructive storms. The oceans and atmosphere are warming, changing living conditions for many life forms, to the point of extinction in many cases, and these events are building to a cascade of change that is probably already unstoppable.
Human beings became such a dominant species not because they are so clever/intelligent/strong, but because they adapt so quickly to changing circumstances - yet now we are unwilling, to a suicidal extent, to adapt to the changing state of our habitat (for which we are largely responsible) because we have become so selfish, greedy and, yes, stupid. Only those who can adapt rapidly, and survive with minimal technology, will survive the coming changes.
The vast cocktail of chemicals with which we have flooded the planet is having far reaching effects on everything, from the soil, water and plants, to all life forms' abilities to breed and perpetuate their species. We may have researched the effects of individual components of this cocktail - but we have absolutely no idea of their combined effects, let alone their long term consequences.
If we are to survive, we have to stop competing and start working together
