Yesterday’s Live Earth concerts aimed at raising awareness of the impending environmental crisis were seen by some 2 billion people around the planet.
There is near unanimity amongst leading scientists that the future of the world hangs in the balance unless mankind starts to take action now. There has recently been major and growing publicity over the issue and few of the people that matter can plead ignorance after yesterday’s concerts.
And yet still cynicism / doubts remain:
- Is there really a crisis or is it being exaggerated. If we don nothing it’ll just go away / come to nothing – a bit like the millennium bug that was supposed to crash the worlds computers at midnight on Jan 31st 1999…
- It’s simply a bandwagon for power-hungry politicos to jump on, let’s not fuel their ego trips…
- Maybe there’s a crisis, but I’ll be long dead and gone by the time the sh!t hits the fan…
- Maybe there’s a crisis, but it’s the megacorporations causing it, recycling my garbage ain’t gonna make much difference…
- Live Earth is just a gimmick – the music was good but how much pollution did it cost shipping in all those artists & fans and powering all the sound systems, lighting…
All valid arguments of course. But the facts are:
- Planet earth is a marvellous creation – perhaps not the only life supporting planet in the cosmos, but the only one we’ve so far found despite all our high-powered technology…
- The way everything all fits together to support life is little short of miraculous. Isn’t that worth making some sacrifice to keep…
- Maybe we can’t save the planet on our own, bt if we each do our bit, that’s a lot of individuals contributing to one gynormous group effort…
- Through lobbying and simply in the choices we make in spending our money even the little people (or enough of them together) can influence the megacorporations…
At a time when we seem more at conflict than ever, doesn’t it give us a chance to show the benefits of working together for a common purpose.
Are we Kiling Mother Earth?
Have no fear for atomic energy, cause none of them can stop the time Bob Marley.
A few days ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (consisting of top scientists) concluded it is very likely that human activity is causing global warming. Among its predictions are temprature rises between 1.8 and 4 degrees C and a rise of sea levels of 28-43cm.
Similar findings were reported by Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK government toward the end of 2006.
The evidence is unequivocal. If we continue as we are going, we are undoubtedly damaging and will ultimately destroy the planet we call home.
But should we care? Human existence is shortlived. It’s likely that most of those reading these words will have passed on before their worst effects are realized.
The physical universe, including planet earth, was manifested by Spirit for the purpose of providing a theater for us to experience the adventure of incarnation. In so doing we have been granted free will, for that is the only way we could benefit from our time in flesh.
The future of the planet is truly in our hands. If we fail to act then we sign our own extinction warrant. All would not be lost, for Spirit would go on and we would surely become manifest elsewhere.
But given that we have the awareness of what is happening, and the capacity to do something about it, to fail to act is to retard our evolution.
The problem is that real action must take place at group level. Individuals may play their part, but unless we do so as one such isolated attempts are unlikely to have much effect. Perhaps the real challenge of the environment is whether we can put aside individuality and re-discover our belonging to the one-ness that is Spirit.