TT #6 – HOW TO SAVE THE PLANET

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What’s on today: A post inspired by the Thursday Thirteen meme. Everything you wanted to know about saving the planet. Click Eye On the World for my current affairs.
YOU KNOW IT’S THE WRITE WAY

INTRODUCTION

Well, it’s THursday THirteen time again, and for this week’s episode, I thought I’d look at environmentalism, and see what steps we really need to take to save the planet. After all, the subject is in a muddle at times.
My answers may surprise you – they may even be wrong. But I hope it adds to the debate, and gives a few ideas about the way forward. Provided, that is, you think there IS an environmental problem. I do.

COUNTDOWN

13. See your future as a countdown. After all, with all the pollution, climate change and general detritus, the clock’s ticking.

12. Forget the doomsters who say it’s all gonna end in disaster. If the news is too bleak, people turn off – after all, what can YOU do?

11. Forget banning things, like cars, fun, etc. Those who demand such a thing usually have a political agenda above their environmentalism.

10. Play the eco-game as much as you can – recycle, save energy, etc. It makes you feel good. But don’t believe business and politicians are serious here. This is just cosmetics to make you think they’re interested.

9. No, to really save the planet, you’ve got to go out of environmentalism and understand the ’system’ that’s doing all the damage.

8. So what is that ’system’? Most think it’s capitalism, but it isn’t. True capitalism is a fair way of life. The problem is a multi-national run consumer society. This is empire-building, and you, and nature, are suffering because of it.

7. The ’system’ is said to not be an ideology. Don’t believe it. It is. It’s an ideology creating a few mega-organisations, and billions of serfs. That’s you, guys.

6. To save the planet, start with the politicians. All major political parties are funded by Big Biz, so they always put Big Biz before nature, and also before you!

5. Start mass movements to demand Independent politicians, divorced from Big Biz. Start local, and build up to national. Make it a media issue that we don’t need – don’t want! – political parties any more.

4. Understand that Big Biz only exists because of big ’systems’. Fossil fuels need big systems to maintain them, and only big Big Biz can afford this. The ’system’ therefore guarantees they will never be challenged.

3. They CAN be challenged. Encourage a new breed of entrepreneur who’s prepared to look at tech that’s been on the drawing board for decades, but is ignored because it doesn’t need big systems.

2. This tech includes better means of harnessing wind, solar and hydro power; innovative battery storage of electricity; cermanic engine tech for a new breed of aircraft; ground effect vessels that skim across water as fast as a plane; and eco-cars that can perform as well as present models.

1. All the above tech is eco-friendly, and does not need big systems, so Big Biz will be destroyed, replaced by a new system of smaller businesses which, as well as anything else, would be more accountable to you. And you’d live in an eco-friendly world whilst still having a car, travel, utilities and a capitalist system.
But would a new breed of politician and entrepreneur save the planet? Well, forget about saving the planet. The planet will always survive until the sun has burnt its last. We’re the thing at risk?

© Anthony North, April 2008

SAVE ME, PLEASE

Save me please, I’ve got a disease,
I think it’s called Man;
I am an animal, and we all have to scramble,
from our habitat so you can have Spam;
You destroy our calm, so you can farm,
and your denials are all flim flam;
You come and poach, and hunters you coach,
and with your rifle you go ‘bang!’
You really should stop, for nature will top
your efforts when it goes ‘wham’;
And then we’ll have fun, ‘cos we’ll have won,
and you won’t have time to say ‘damn’!

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

A PERFORMANCE

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What’s on today: A story, poem and essay inspired by a Three Word Wednesday prompt. Have you had a go yet? Click Eye On the World for my current affairs.
YOU KNOW IT’S THE WRITE WAY

A PERFORMANCE

The old actor felt funny stood on a stage after so long. At first, he felt nervous, but soon his confidence returned and his voice boomed around the theatre.
It was as good as ever, his lines perfect, his acting masterful. He wished it would never end. He was born for this, and knew he was nothing without a performance to give, an audience to applaud.

Would the critics love me still? He thought.

The spectator stood in the aisle, looking up to the stage, his face a picture of amazement. He, too, had not been in this theatre for such a long time. And as he stood there he could only remember the good times, the inspiration that this actor gave him in his youth, implanting, in his mind, the idea that he, too, would be a great actor. And indeed, he was.
But soon he realized it was time to go, time to move on, the memories of this old, now closed and ramshackle theatre fading.
The old actor sensed this end to the performance, and at first did not realize he was just a memory, having died many decades ago.
With this realization he was sad, but as he disappeared and returned to the memory of the spectator, he realized that he was no longer merely dead, but in his remembrance, immortal.

© Anthony North, April 2008

FOREVER COLOSSEUM

I stand before the lion, the crowd does cheer,
he charges straight towards me, I use my spear;
What spectacular theatre, as the blood does flow,
but I missed, it’s mine, and the trumpets blow;
My life was worth nothing, I was just a slave,
isn’t it funny how people behave?
The Colloseum is gone, consigned to the past,
but the persecution of many, it does last,
so remember the Colloseum when you think you know best,
‘cos history proves
you’re no better than the rest

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

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THE MEMORY THING

One of the central elements of our humanity is our ability to remember. Through memory we access an unlimited theatre of thoughts and experience from our unconscious. But why do we have a memory, and how does it work?
It’s a funny thing, is memory. In many ways I think it is peculiarly human, in that we have a conscious and unconscious mind. Most animals are thought to work through instinct, as if controlled at a species level.
The thing that separates us from the animals is our technology, and to become the technologist, we needed the ability to remove thoughts from our conscious in order to concentrate on a task in hand, thus needing a memory store we call the unconscious.
We couldn’t ‘be’ without this, for it seems that when we sense the world, everything that can be sensed enters the unconscious. In other words, we see, hear, smell and feel everything. It is this factor that, I’m sure, lies behind much of what we call the paranormal.
But if we ‘remembered’ all of this all of the time, we would suffer information overload, making it impossible for us to concentrate. Hence, we have a ‘filter’ which selects only the information we want at that particular time.
Perhaps this is why different people have very selective views of what they experience, even their beliefs being based upon this selectiveness. Maybe if this ‘mechanism’ was better understood, we would learn to understand, and tolerate, others more.

© Anthony North, April 2008