Protecting the Planet

Have you ever seen the sun set upon the sea,

the migrating birds fly in formation proud?

Have you ever seen the mighty forest and heard the birds sing clear and loud?

Have you seen the flowers in the meadows and the fields that provide the nectar for the bee, That gives the honey in the hive hanging from the tree?

Have you ever seen the dolphins race across the ocean wave,

The mighty whales that swim the oceans strong and brave?

A breathless sight of beauty you will ever see

If we will just allow them to live and to be.

We inhabit a most amazing planet filled with life forms and hundreds of thousands of amazing creatures, animals, birds, insects, and fish. In the natural world, the living forests and plants and oceans make up a living, evolving integrated planet with us humans. We the creatures that have a developed brain, conscientious, knowing and with awareness of self and all that is around us in the environment. have the responsibility to preserve it.

We are the ones that can admire, appreciate, and wonder at the beauty of the environment and the universe. We are the thinking consciousness of the universe. We can know good and bad and we have unique free will to choose one or the other. That is what makes us human and different from other creatures we share life with on this climate-sensitive planet.

We humans are changing it dramatically by the lifestyles that we have chosen and the industrial machines and methods we have created to maintain that lifestyle. Our way of living together, travelling, warming and cooling ourselves, producing our food and disposing off the material we manufacture is affecting the environment and the planet itself.

We humans are industrious, inventive, creative, intelligent, kindly, loving creatures to each other and the ecology and environment but many of us are also something else. Many of our species have chosen to act on their lower, thoughtless basic instincts to possess, control, dominate and subjugate others to achieve and satisfy desires and appetites. They impact the human environment. They act with violence and other negative impulses born perhaps from childhood neglect, abuse, deprivation or the evil example of other influencers. They act in anger with violence against the human environment, the human community, inflicting hurt and pain on others.

Some become intoxicated with power and destructive tendencies over their communities. They persecute and kill those that refuse to be subjugated, dominated and abused. These are the tyrants and dictators, and not only do they kill and maim and destroy those who do not approve of them, they attack the environment. Their self-serving policies expand industrial exploitation of the environment and exploit the natural resources. Their goal is to increase their personal wealth and political power and so all creatures, the environment and the planet greatly suffer. They are the humans that allow big and small corporations to destroy the forests and the oceans and create a destructive industrial juggernaut that leaves disorganized citizens divided and powerless.

We must not be silenced or intimidated. We must stand for the earth, act to stop the destruction on a political scale, on a community level and in our personal capacity. When people unite and speak with one voice, they have power to change the world and corrupt politicians unless they are shot and massacred. The environmental destruction by industry that is causing climate change by high levels of CO2 emissions has to be challenged .They cause climate fluctuations that damage sustainable food production and the natural world. Politicians in conspiracy with the industrial leaders, driven by greed, these mighty money moguls, are foremost in destroying the planet.

Australia is an example of government policy supporting the coal extraction industry. It is the biggest exporter of coal in the world. The emissions of the coal they export is equal to 3.3 percent of global emissions. Added to domestically-produced emissions of CO2, then Australia contributes 4.8 percent of world emissions and is a major contributor to dangerous climate change. If we add the emissions for natural gas exports, it is even a bigger footprint and a bigger responsibility. The super cold snap in Australia of late is a direct result of climate change, it seems.

The Australian political industrial complex has to be held accountable and drastically change direction to protect the environment. That is a decision that only the Australian people can make by voting into power a green, environmental-friendly government. Australia is now the sixth biggest polluter of the environment after China, the United States, Russia, India and Indonesia. Australia and all the high CO2 emissions producing countries should choose to obey the principle, “Do no Harm.” However, since basic instincts of greed, money and power are dominating the ruling elites and political establishments of these countries, there is no place for principles of caring and compassion for the people and the planet.

There is good news however. The global awareness of the damage and negative effects of climate change has business and industry concerned and committed to change. A survey by Deloitte in recent months shows that 80 percent of business and corporate executives have expressed serious concern about the impact of climate change and are planning to take mitigating action to address it. But will they?

The Climate Check Report surveyed 750 executives last January and February 2021 and found that 30 percent of them said that climate change is affecting their businesses causing a scarcity of resources and supply chain problems. Self-interest may bring concern for the environment. Political awareness building and peaceful social activism is having a positive effect. School children in Australia have taken to the streets to protest against coal production. Greta Thunberg is leading a global movement to stop industry burning fossil fuels and to build renewable energy sources. Now 18 years old, she blasts the empty promises of world leaders who promise much but do nothing positive but allow the destruction of the Amazon rain forests.

If we want to continue to admire the forests, the dolphins, the birds and creatures of the planet, we have to preserve and protect it with all our strength. 

 

The Virus that Rules the World

The human species thinks that it the smartest that ever evolved on this planet. We think we are smarter and more powerful than all other species. Have we now met our match by non-living entities, pathogens no less? They need a host to replicate and so they invade the cells of plants, animals and humans. Once inside the cell, the virus will devastate the organism and it is a fight to the death or to survive. There are more than a quadrillion viruses on this planet, more than all the billions of stars in the universe. So we are outnumbered in this battle against the killer virus.   

The Covid-19, as we call it and its variants, is an almost invisible species of virus that has invaded our society, infected our bodies, devastated families, brought much human suffering and loss having taken 2.32 million lives and crippled our entire economy. One hundred six million people have been infected and most are grievously sick, according to the Johns Hopkins University. The infections and death still continue as you read this. There is no known effective medication for Covid-19. 
 
One year ago, this great shock hit our once impervious and proud world and what a humiliation that was to the human species. Not only did we humans not understand how to protect and cure ourselves, but millions of people still go about in gross ignorance of the danger and ignore the protective measures, such as masks, distancing and lockdowns, needed to protect ourselves and our neighbors to stop the virus from spreading. Many humans still lack respect for this deadly killer virus and they are giving it free rein to replicate and kill more people. Hospitals in many countries are overwhelmed.    
 
A small number of virologists, scientists who study the nature of a virus, have come to the rescue in super quick time to invent vaccines. Many were already halfway there, having worked on developing a vaccine for previous relatives to Covid-19. After the last pandemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that was first identified at the end of February 2003 during an outbreak that emerged in China and spread to four other countries, research continued expecting the next mutation.
 
It seems that many governments and societies have ignored the dangers poised. It has now been established by the latest investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO) that the virus passed from animal to animal and to humans. It is established that it first emerged at the Wuhan wet food market where exotic animals were kept and slaughtered for food and that is where it made its transition to humans.
 
Bats and pangolins are potential candidates for transmission. Cats and minks are also likely carriers. The traders in illegal capture and sale of wild animals are to blame above all as the source of this and secondly, the buyers of such wild animals and the government officials who allowed it to thrive. The empty belief that animal parts are effective traditional medicine just has to change. The demand of rhino horn is insatiable, it seems, and has devastated the rhino populations and one species is now extinct.
 
That invasion of the natural world by us humans to plunder, devastate and laid waste the natural worlds is at the root of the problem. Scientists and researchers know that the destruction of the rain forests everywhere make animals live in closer proximity to humans and infections is likely. The HIV and Ebola were suggested as having come from humans eating “bush meat,’ that is, monkeys and forest pigs, perhaps.
 
The rain forest destruction is also eliminating thousands of other species. We are a very violent and destructive species to walk this planet to the point that the human species, us with the big developed brains and so called intelligence, are acting in a very unintelligent way.
 
Destroying the Amazon rain forest to replace it with pasture for 200 million cattle to supply beef for the western world, cattle-ranching has taken over 75 percent of all destroyed forest in the Amazon. Incursion of outsiders into the forest lands of the indigenous people has brought death and sickness to them. They are in a dire state with the Covid-19 for which they have no resistance. The indigenous people face extinction.   
 
Climate change by global warming and an excess of CO2 and methane in the environment is one more self-destructive behaviour of the human species. We are living in such an extravagant way that we are stupidly destroying and damaging the environment that we actually depend on to continue healthy living. There are about 989.03 million head of cattle in the world, as of last 2019. That is a reduction from over one billion cattle in 2014. Yet the methane gas they produce contributes greatly to global warming.
 
So, people are eating less beef perhaps and hopefully that trend will continue with a corresponding reduction in people dying from cholesterol-driven heart attacks. Eating more plant-based foods such as vegetables and fruit is the healthy and more natural friendly way to live. 
 
The truth of that dangerous impact of global warming is coming home to us now as some nations are buried in excessive snow storms while in other regions of the planet forests are burning and killing millions of animals. The oceans are acidified, crops wither and die because of droughts and yet in other parts of the world crops are destroyed and hundreds of animals and people are drown in massive floods and landslides.
 
What a challenge we face, we need to change faster, to adapt and turn more quickly to non-fossil fuels, use renewable sources for electric power, drive electric cars, practice recycling on a massive scale and elimination of plastic. Eating plant-based food is something we can start with and go on from there. The vaccine has brought hope for survival for millions and may we learn important lessons on how to change our lifestyle. Live with respect for the natural world and the creatures of the earth. I suggest we give the viruses a pass.