What do you think of the world we live in?

[Jill]

Our Creative Cafe theme this week is 'The world we live in' . Looking at members lovely pictures of our world in the Spotlight slideshow we can be forgiven for thinking nothing is wrong. From beautiful sunsets over the sea to forests, deserts and mountains we see a variety of magnificant places on our planet, the Earth.

But what do YOU think of the world we live in? Are the pictures deceptively beautiful? Do they hide sinister truths about global warming and destruction of natural habitats? Or are reports of the world in crisis exaggerated? Are the pictures in our Spotlight proof that the world we live in is still sustainable and healthy enough?

Will be interested to hear your opinions.

[Tina Donovan]

This is an interesting discussion and one that deserves attention. So here goes.

The world we live in depends on the perspective viewed. What context one is looking at. The world as we know it is Earth. And Earth itself is the most beautiful, wonderful, most amazing thing we are experiencing. The way it sustains itself. The way it changes and that no 2 days are the same regardless of the 24 hour clock. Never in a lifetime can we begin to see these all of those wonderful magnificent phenomenons that occur all around the globe. Earth is the sublime. From the colours of the days and seasons to the elements of the earth. Absolute awe that one can see Earth as a paradise, as Eden in itself. Something we all take for granted but are not always aware of our actions when caught up in the day to day living as a human being. Especially as the world we live in is at a fast pace. What's the hurry?
Maybe nothing is wrong! Maybe there are things about the Earth we have not yet experienced that has come to light? We as humans have only been around for a short while in comparison to the Earth's existence itself. After all it is a living and breathing entity just as we humans and other creatures are living and breathing entities. But then other issues come to light and to the surface that reminds us of our mortality and of our being on Earth. And luckily as humans we have and are equipped with the intelligence to know what is right and what is wrong, what is and what isn't ok with the world. All of which arise due to our very actions on a daily basis. Our intelligence in this world may also be our downfall. What we are doing to the Earth by acting like a rash all over it will eventually take its toll if left undealt with. Just as we become diseased we inflict disease on the Earth too. A bit like a plague of locusts who devour everything we lay our eyes, minds and ideas on.

Sometimes the most beautiful thing can also be the most deadliest. Or it can hide some very sinister aspects. Like the pictures in the slideshow or a memory that we have of a particular landscape may hide sinister truths and if they do then it gives us that chance to preserve the harmless beauty we take for granted. They say beauty is skin deep but real beauty is at the core of any given thing we see that we love and find beautiful. We have the capabilities to keep the status quo of Earth's natural beauty.

So polluting all manner of water ways, destroying forests, depleting other forms of resources beyond repair, burning up the air and atmospehere etc. becomes ugly. It all eventually becomes mud. Like a palette of paint where all of the colours have been mixed in to make a sludgy colour everything then becomes one but in a way that loses its absolute purity. To retain pure colour one must keep the palette clean.Colours that are seperate are appreciated for their own value and purity. And when rivers are polluted with contaminants then you lose the purity of the water and ugliness occurs resulting in wildlife being harmed and water systems reaching the human food chain. We are poisoning ourselves and maybe are too stupid to stop the resulting chaos.

Although the Earth is beautiful it does hide some ugly truths that cause the greatest of untold crisis...namely humanitarian. The beautiful sunsets do not tell you that a nation is starving. The sublime experience of being up in a mountain does not tell you that children are being exploited below. Or that the natural awe of say Niagara Falls or the Aurora Borealis is crying out about other humanitarian abuses. There is something so separate with the 2. It is like the Earth is the most perfect Paradise and that the human race is hell on Earth. And yet both have their flip sides like a coin or a record. In order to understand and know beauty you also need ugliness...but only to a certain extent because ugliness is a source of pain for humans to have to reside with. (By this I do not mean that someone is ugly. I mean the atrocities that humans endure.)

The world we live in is sustainable in some areas and not in others.Unfortunately due to the nature of deforestation not much life can be supported. Again it is down to the intelligence of the human race living and breathing in harmony with the Earth itself. Some parts are unhealthy. Namely water. Seas, rivers, ponds, lakes, reservoirs. These all have some form of human ill i.e. toxic waste from industrial plants to pharmaceutical residues leaching into water systems and intensive farming and illegal dumping. It all becomes a cycle of contamination. To say that reports of the world in crisis is exaggerated is an easy way out of taking responsibility for ones own actions. Would we treat our family in the same way we treat the planet? Reports are alerts to situations that are in effect reminding us of threats to our lives, our existence on Earth. Treating it with love and kindness and beholding the natural beauty that envelopes us everyday of our waking lives will help maintain and preserve the very ground that feeds us in order to survive. But not in a way where hurt is inflicted onto others. So where there is ecstacy...there is also agony.

the end.

Being us is hard work.

[Jill]

Hi Tina

You have covered a lot of ground in this thoughtful comment.

I remember one lovely May morning sitting out on the balcony where I lived lookig down on the stream and trees. There were birds and butterflies and everything made it seem like a perfect day. I thought then that if I didn't know already of all the troubles in the world I wouldn't believe there were any because everything seemed so lovely. Now we have to look at lovely scenery and think the beauty may be only skin deep and underneath are the lurking poisons and polutions we have put into the world. Not just that we have made a world in which many of the people don't have the resources to enjoy what is beautiful and are condemned to live in poverty and hardship.

It is a huge SHAME we are in this position in the world we live in.

Bye for Now
Jill

[Tina Donovan]

Yes and I trhink we are in the age of awakenment too. Although much of the damage is done by the way we mix the iingredients of Earth's resources it is better to wake up now and realise the mistakes that have been made and change the way we live. You have some very interesting quotes at the top of the page and I read them with interest. It is something that has been voiced by various people on behalf of how we feel.
I am still amazed at how we have all the amazing nooks and crannies on this planet. I think the ugliest scariest place as a human for me is the deep sea. It is so dark down in those depths and who knows what creatures lurk that we haven't seen on nature programmes.
My mind boggles at all of this.

see ya
love and peace from Tina.

[Azzami Bell]

THAT’S LIFE

Earth is luckily the right size to orbit within the Sun’s lifezone. Near enough to maintain average temperatures that support life, whereas Mars & Venus are at the extremes of the lifezone and have extreme conditions so cannot support life.

It formed 4.5billion years ago, and is made of every one of the Minerals, the Chemicals, the Gasses and all but a few of all the Particles we know. All were present when Dinosaurs lived, and all were present before that.

Several Meteorites, Ice Ages and any amount of Global Warming have not stopped life from re-developing. In relative terms, the rebirths of life Homo sapiens find itself a part of, is by no means exceptional. From one-celled Amoeba to the single genus of living Sponge found to sprawl over 500 miles in area! From the Orchid that, like an actress from a bawdy farce, perfectly mimics the female bee sex organs to boring Bamboo, all life as we know it came about in a few million years and regardless of any human activity will do so again.

Describing Earth as the ‘Third Rock from the Sun’ is, I feel, a tad disingenuous, perhaps Eric Idle put it more succinctly…

Galaxy Song
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs. Brown,
And things seem hard or tough,
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft,
And you feel that you've had quite eno-o-o-o-o-ough...

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour,
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the "Milky Way".

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side.
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick,
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide.
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point.
We go 'round every two hundred million years,
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

[liowkc]

Very nice poem; I especially like the last part though I do not believe the existence of ET. Also even we are small and insignificant in the overalls scheme of things, we are important to our family and friends.

[liowkc]

For me, I am optimistic that the world we live in will improve over time despite the current problems. With human ingenuity and creativity, I think our future is bright.

[Jill]

It's a Monty Python song of course. And here it is!

[Margaret Hamilton of Slackstitches]

I do not think the reports of crisis are exagerated.
A couple of years ago I finally crashed off the hamster wheel which has become accepted as life. The majority of people seem to have a preconceived idea that whatever they want they are entitled to. If they don't start out thinking this way, they soon get caught up in it through their work colleagues.
Everything revolves around the credit card and instant access, meals, childcare, holiday, gifts. Because everone is chasing their debt they have no time to stop, look, listen and think about what is happening to families, culture, nieghbourhood or planet.
While out walking the dog I see young parents racing around in cars, dropping off the children at school before speeding off to work, shop whatever. What is wrong with this? NO-ONE in the village lives more than 5 minutes walk from the school. On bin day I see young families bins overflowing with cheap items bought only the other week and which were imported from the other side of the world. The fashion changed at the weekend.
We have a recycling system here for paper, card, tins, glass, foodstuffs but through either laziness or lack of beleivability the uptake is not as high as it should be.
Now I am not a misery guts. I would not like to see everyone go back to the days of have not. But do we all really believe that we should all be in the high income bracket? Does the health status not indicate that we are overindulging in eating, labour saving devvices and skimping on the things that improve our mental wellbeing?
I believe moderation in everything could help sustain our environment and improve our mental and physical wellbeing.

[Azzami Bell]

Hi,
I'll agree that Humans are in a pickle one way or another. The thought of a Carbon-based lifeform -us, living on a Carbon-based Planet -Earth, within a Carbon-based Universe making one particular Carbon form -Diamond it's ideal treasure explains a lot!
Perhaps if Monroe should have sung; "Kindness is the rarest thing..." instead of; "Diamonds are a moron's friend..." we'd have a lot less 'navel-gazing' and materialism, and a lot more to live for.

At one point in Louis Carroll's tale Alice meets the Red Queen, everybody is running as fast as they can.When Alice asks why, she's told; "You have to run as fast as you can just to stand still".
Starting out in life, wether in an boriginal group such as the African Masaii tribe or theYamamani of Amazonia, (Recently pestered by Sting for publicity purposes) or the 'ultra-now' Beckham lifestyle, we all know there's a lot to do in creating the 'nest'.

A friend on low income refused the offer of a freezer and waited for a fridge, I asked why. Several jobs in catering had taught him to
Shop for fresh,
Buy best,
Waste less,
No freezer,
No supermarkets,
No junk food,
Good compost,
Minimal waste,
Healthier,
Happier,
and wealthier in real terms.

"Oh"! i said.

Here in Brighton, UK. refuse is run by an international bunch of financiers who've over-filled all the available land-fill sites while immorally building a lethal 'Waste- burner plant' in the heart of a community!

Soon after the re-cycle box we fill with glass & paper is collected its contents become an internationally tradeable commodity!

Ever wondered why UK has freighters delivering a staggering 400,000,000 containers in 2006? Its all our waste sent back from 're-cycling' in China!
This particular nonsense is a huge waste of technology,
it causes Environmental Damage,
It Pollutes,
its a Fatcat's dream -Huge Salaries for Unemployeable Scumbags!
Call me simple but I know there's Waste and there's WASTE!

Human stupidity is Infinite. Add Greed and Power...

I believe that from Earth's point of view Humans are 'Mostly Harmless' to quote Douglas Adams. Mount St. Helens, Skamania County, Washington, USA in a few days spewed more harmfull polutants into the World's Atmosphere than 60 years of Motoring, Flying & Fossil Fuel usage! There isn't a home anywhere on the globe without a particle of Dust directly from St. Helen!

Remember, before there were Humans there was Cold, and before that there was Fire, and b4 that there was cold and...

Short of us creating our own 'Black Hole' and disappearing down it, we're but a hiccup in one of Earth's life cycles.

[Jill]

Hi

You seem to be arguing the case for we humans have messed everything up and for the planet messes up climate wise anyway over time anyway whatever we do. Can both be true I wonder?

Bye for Now

Jill

[Azzami Bell]

I'm saying that it doesn't matter much how stupid humans get, Earth itself also pollutes, and occasionally at a vastly superior rate to humans. In 1883, the Volcano at Krakatoa collapsed. A 'bomb' 13,000 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb, sent so much dust into the atmosphere London recorded orange skies for 9 months after! It was the loudest sound ever recorded and was heard in Austrailia and the west coast of USA. Several giant tsunami reshapped thousands of miles of coastline!
And yet, life carries on...

A few temporary blemishes on Earth's outer skin, wether natural on man made, like zits, will vanish in a nano-second of Earth-time.

[Rodney Yates]

Sorry, i find this disarmingly naive. the Earth has its own capacity to heal itself. What we do to it, as if we were aliens, when we are right there in the equation - is to be instrumental in our own destruction, along with organic species that are co-terminal with our survival. whatever else you conceive of about the Planet, you will find it impossible to conceive of without you in the equation, with your perceptions and vulnerabilties. Take yourself out, and there really is nothing conceivable left!!!