its the end if the world...

[timelady]

well, (at least as REM says), as we know it...

I was reading an article on despondency in the current world climate...
www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1837808,00.html

It sums up what I have been wondering lately. Its f*cked. No, the world is completely doomed.

Wars everywhere. Children dying and starving still, in 2006. Most of the world is malnourished. Malnourished by not enough food, malnourished by too much food, and mostly the wrong foods.

And the biggest one of all, global warming. This is no regional thing we can tut tut on the evening news. We are all getting hotter summers. Drier winters. Here in Australia, we have debates about drinking filtered sewage water, because dams are so low.

I look at my children, and I wonder, do I look at you as agents of hope, or as doomed to suffer the end results of our hubris?

Do I despair? Do I think the world is always on the brink of one crisis or another, and go with that? Do I get angry?

Sure, we recycle. We try to use fewer resources. Given enough money, we would be living in a self sufficient house with large rain water tanks, hybrid solar/wind power, composting toilet, and permaculture garden. But we aren't. We are struggling in the burbs, like so many. Doing what little we can. I used to ride everywhere. In a bad car accident, I cannot ride anymore. So back in the car. Public transport where I can, but it isn't always practical. Or available.

What to do. What to think. Hope or despair, will it make any difference when faced with global issues?

[modeski]

Hey, sorry I missed this post, TL. I do share a lot of your despondency, but I also (somewhat naively) have a significant degree of hope. This is really geeky, but I like to couch a lot of today's events in a Star Wars context.

Haha, yes, I know. Shut up.

No really, the way I see it is that we're fighting a battle of sorts. We're the rebels, holed up on the ice world of Hoth, with scant resoures but a lot of clever and dedicated people. The enemy can either be personalised (Bush, Howard, "terrists", etc) but the main arch enemy of progress ignorance.

Individually, we may not be able to do much, but collectively the difference we can make is amazing. Environment-wise, I do my bit - recyclying, using low-energy bulbs, using the car sparingly and relying on public transport as much as possible. I am a stickler for turning the TV off properly, not just putting it on standby. Things like that individually might not mean much, but I'm only one of millions who are doing the same thing.

People power should not be underestimated. I know we are in dark times, democratically speaking, but the last 20 or 30 years during which things have declined are a small blip in the face of history. I think we're still young enough to be able to witness a real, positive change in the way our world is governed.

Overall we cannot give up the fight. There's no greater power than people power.

[Naselus]

A lovely sentiment, Mod. Unfortunately, we're all doomed and we're quite powerless to do anything about it. The systems of power are all carefully balanced to ensure that thinking for the future is discarded in favour of the present at any cost; governments think in terms of decades rather than generations. No-one cares what's left for the kids, as long as today's adults are happy. Even if you aim thirty years down the line, you're still only looking at where we'll be when I'm 50. I'd reckon if I have any kids, they'll only just have reached voting age. Not that anyone really gives a damn about the youth vote anyway; not until they're 25-30.

Let's be honest. The sixties failed. Everyone who struggled against 'the establishment' has either switched sides or given up. The Rolling Stones visit downing street; the sex pistols get medals from the Queen. Most of the other rebels either killed themselves or died trying. The hippies and the punks grew up, discovered greed in the eighties, and sold their souls to Thatcher and Reagan's 'new right'.

Think about what you're saying, Mod. Things haven't declined in the last thirty years, they were never any better anyway. Thirty years ago Nixon was bugging his democratic rivals and unions were crippling Britain. Forty years ago Kennedies were being shot for not being right-wing enough. Fifty years ago life was crap but everyone was just glad not being in the soviet union gulags. Sixty years ago it was even worse, but at least you'd survived the War. Seventy years? Hitler, Stalin, the depression...

It never changes. We spend our entire lives being told to fear global warming, or the commies, or Bird Flu, or 'Terrists', or paedophiles, or football hooligans, or teenagers, or hoodies or any other damned thing. Meanwhile our governing bodies spend their entire time exacerbating the threats, taking the commie on, pumping the environment full of shit, fighting the terrorists on their home ground (ha!), or giving ASBO's to fourteen year olds for being wankers. All fourteen year olds are wankers, it's got shit all to do with wearing a hood.

I could go on. It's all a terrible grind of endless bullshit without an end, and it's not going to get better or worse, it's just going to muddle along, with every threat being supposedly greater than the last. But personally I don't bother worrying about it; I'd rather be happy than right any day.

[modeski]

And are you?

[sorry, had to quote that lol]

[Naselus]

[sigh]. alright, you win.
"No. That's where it all falls down."