Whilst I’m here, locked away from the outside world, I’m reading. And thinking. Not very deeply, obviously.
Today I was reading about Nature, the power of Nature, how Nature has a way of putting things right.
We see the waters clearing in Venice, we hear of dolphins being seen in harbours they usually avoid, we hear of otters playing on riverbanks. Man has stepped back and nature has moved in to take his place.
I have no problem with any of this. Yes, if man steps aside, Nature will fill the void.
I then read how Nature is currently warning us to live differently.
We have Climate Change – what used to be Global Warming.
There have been bush fires in Australia, swarms of locusts in Africa, the virus…
Is it the end of the World as we know it?
Is Nature now saying that man needs to step aside and let Nature rule?
Well, let’s set the record straight:
There has always been climate change – why else did the River Thames regularly freeze over in the 1600s?
There have always been bush fires. When I was young, I was told that it was nature’s way of regenerating itself, that fire was a good thing.
There have always been swarms of locusts, there have always been viruses.
Now all of these things have hit us at virtually the same time and in quite a severe way. But is this really Nature warning us to stop living the way we do?
All I can say here is: we shouldn’t personify Nature. Nature doesn’t make a decision and then act upon it. Nature isn’t human.
Nature just ‘is’. Maybe it reacts to external influences, but it can’t make a decision to warn or punish mankind.
What Nature can do, is make us think.
Think about how we live, think about what we do, think about the problems that we face.
Currently, Climate Change seems to be everybody’s favourite crusade, followed by what we eat.
Personally, I don’t think that either of these ‘crusades’ is our biggest problem. Nor even our second biggest problem.
As I said, I’ve had time to think.
Personally, I think that our biggest problem is that there are too many people in the World, considering the resources the World has to offer. What you can do about that I just don’t know.
In 1900 there were 1.6 billion people on earth, and by 1950 there were 2.5 billion. By 2000, there were 6.1 billion, and today there are 7.7 billion.
You see the issue?
Our second biggest problem is the sea, which covers 70% of our planet.
Over-fishing, pollution, plastic, destruction of habitat… if we destroy the sea, we destroy everything.
It’s only my belief, but I think that these are the issues we should be concentrating on – over-population and the seas.
I know that a lot of these things are inter-related, but we need to simplify to move forward, otherwise the task becomes too big.
So what can we do to help?
Go green? Go Vegan? Go celibate? Live in a World controlled by lockdowns and governmental controls, a World with closed borders? Throw globalisation out of the window?
Again, I have no answer, although I wouldn’t want to live in a world where any of the above was enforceable.
No, I think we must all just show a little bit of consideration, for ourselves, for others, and for the world we live in.
We need to think about the things we do and the impact those actions may have and act accordingly, otherwise our time on this planet may be shorter than we expect.
Nature will be here forever – I’m not so sure we will be.
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