Looks like another great summer day, shaping up to be a hot one. Clayton Clark bush-hogged the cleared portion of the 50 acres yesterday; the grass was waist high and the squaw bush was beginning to take over. I'm not sure if I'll ever use the cleared pasture land but for now, I might as well keep it tamed just in case we choose to get a couple cows or a horse one day. Seems like it's time to cut the lawn again and clean out the chicken coop and goat stall; sort of never ending chores on a wee farm.
As stated in the previous blog, this is a continuation of The Legacy, a book I read by David Suzuki, an internationally renowned geneticist and environmentalist. The world has come to a critical crossroads and a serious crisis prevails. Suzuki states: "In 1992, 1,700 senior scientists from 71 countries, including 104 Nobel Prize winners (more than half of all the laureates at the time), signed a document called "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity." They proclaimed, "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished." I find these words extremely chilling and it makes me afraid of what lies ahead in the not too distant future if we don't drastically mend our ways immediately. And what I find extremely alarming is that the media, politicians and corporations don't seem to give a damn since they've placed a dollar value on everything. Instead of ecology, which should be the basis and the most important ingredient in the pot, the gravy to their way of thinking is the economy - shame on them.
Our very existence depends on clean air, water and healthy forests if we, as a supposedly intelligent species are to survive. John Fowles (writer) wrote: It is not Christ that is crucified now, it is the tree itself, and on the bitter gallows of human greed and stupidity. Only suicidal morons, in a world already choking with death, would destroy the best natural air conditioner creation affords. Trees, I think, because they appear to be countless are being logged improperly; clear-cutting and especially without planting new and a similar variety of trees in their place is not taking place; the practise completely asinine. We need the forests; besides giving homes to countless other species living within them, they purify our air and produce oxygen, inhibit erosion and help maintain the fresh water as well. Large expanses of greenbelts are needed, without them we will die. So much of our becoming more and more fragile existence depends on pollination and the bee populations are dwindling at an alarming rate. So much depends upon our natural habitat for our survival and for the life of me, it's beyond my comprehension, why leaders like Steven Harper turn their backs on conservation and allow the poisonous practices of big business to have their way - doesn't he have a family and care about their survival?
Instead of bull-headedly bucking Nature and attempting to wrestle her to our understanding as to how the world should be, we should be in sync and realize that the resources she has are far more important than the crap we manufacture for our own pleasures. Like every living creature on this planet, we need healthy nourishment - instead of behaving like we've been lead to believe for generations that money is our basic necessity and the more we have the better off we will be, what good is it if we don't have our health and watch our children die because we've allowed the water and air to be poisoned, the land and forests devastated? Wouldn't it be far better if our legacy to them, instead of a big fancy mansion and a bag full of cash, we left them a better world to live in?
I have to admit, and probably like many others who have similar thoughts to men like David Suzuki and others, I neither fully practise nor teach my children the values I sometimes write about. Of course some of the reasoning behind why I don't discuss these issues with Sarah's kids is because how do you get something across to a teenage girl that applies about a pound of make-up to her face while continually texting and a pre-teen who believes the world revolves around the likes of Justin Bieber; the media and the Internet have far more power than parents and isn't that a bloody shame? I've also noticed when topics such as the one I'm writing about now, when they're brought up in conversation, I'm often looked upon as a cynic, a Mr. Doom and Gloom. In my own little world, this wee bubble that I co-exist in with family, neighbours and friends, I don't have much hope in anything changing to preserve and nourish the immediate surrounding area and if in only a space of a few square miles on this planet, if it is not tended to in a responsible manner by us, what are the chances for the remainder of the planet?
To be continued - Cheers, eh!
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