Rosher.Net

I was moved today, a couple of days after Earth Day, to read two news articles on the same news web site… They weren’t the main news story of the day. That was saved up for crisis talks about that most imaginary of substances, money, and the way in which those whose lives are bound up in the securing of ever more amounts of unfulfilled, unfulfillable promises to pay the bearer… are circling around the truth that it isn’t actually real.

No, the two stories that caught my attention were; a. the UK’s chief scientist has stated without any hint of ambiguity that we are faced with chaotic weather conditions, floods, droughts, storms (and the consequent food shortages) for at least the next twenty five years, no matter what we do now (and we’re not doing anything), and b. an article about species extinction and whether it is such a bad thing after all.

Interestingly, the chief scientist was only able, apparently, to make such a stark prediction of the likely events in our near future on the eve of his retirement from the post of chief scientist. Presumably, like most people nowadays, his most strongly felt and professionally validated opinions were kept under cover by his superiors, in this case our miserable excuse of a government.

Interestingly too, the extinction article that was so sanguine about the loss of the tortoise, the tiger or the trilobite cleverly avoided the questionable sustainability of homo superior (oh, definitely a misnomer if ever there was one… let’s rename ourselves homo calamitas). Our future is no more secure now than the dinosaur – which lasted a whole lot longer than we have in any case.

Even in our deepest understanding of the universe, and of our planetary ecology, we seem unable to manage within our scientific and care-less philosophy… we are, in the UK, on the edge of massive energy shortage. You could almost consider it a planned strategy… the crisis that’s now on our very doorstep will rebalance our society. I’m generally speaking in terms of the UK, but there’s no separation… and all the leaders of the world are perhaps involved. Certainly all the peoples of the planet.

It would be wrong, dishonourable and petty not to accept my own input into the cauldron of chaos we are so casually brewing. I’m more likely to travel using petrochemical fuel than wheatabix. But in a world where the moves and shakers, the decision makers, choose not to insist on sensible carbon controls it is hard to find the enthusiasm for hair shirt environmentalism. So, yes, mea culpa etiam.

We are the children on Mother Earth, and sometimes children don’t listen to their mums; no matter how hard she tries to explain, we keep doing the naughty thing. And then mummy has to spank. It’s going to smart this time. The naughty step isn’t an option.