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An evil plot to pollute the world

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Let’s imagine we live in a beautiful world without pollution, with plenty of fruit to eat and clean running water in beautiful streams. Everyone is happy in this beautiful place. Now, enter an evil mastermind who wants to ruin everything. What plans could he hatch to pollute the world and ruin it? Well, pretty much what humans have been doing for the last 100 years would work. Sounds like a plot for a 007 movie, and it would be amusing if it didn’t feel so true.

The plot to pollute the world

The evil mastermind hatched a plot to pollute the world. He wanted to bring the world to an end and have everyone else in the world help him do it without knowing. His first plan was to dig up enormous amounts of coal from under the ground and start burning it in large furnaces all over the world, and have people pay for it! He started industrial and technological revolutions and convinced people that all this new technology will make their lives easier (it won’t! – he loves it when he can fool people). The real reason he wants them to desire new technology is because it requires extra energy and they’ll need more and more coal-fired power plants.

Next he invents the “steam” engine. This is brilliant marketing because “steam” sounds clean but, in reality, this is an engine that burns more coal. In every possible situation, people all over the world are now wanting steam engines so they can be part of the industrial and technological revolution. More and more coal is being burnt and the skies are getting more polluted. [Read more…] about An evil plot to pollute the world

The Natural World is Disappearing

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I saw this article in the news recently and it caused me to pause and take stock. The article was in The Guardian and it was called “Our natural world is disappearing before our eyes. We have to save it.” by George Monbiot. Some of the comments in the article that had the most impact on me were;

  • natural world is disappearingThe swift decline of the swift (down 25% in five years)
  • I have lived long enough to witness the vanishing of wild mammals, butterflies, mayflies, songbirds and fish that I once feared my grandchildren would not experience: it has all happened faster than even the pessimists predicted.
  • The cause of this acceleration is no mystery. The United Nations reports that our use of natural resources has tripled in 40 years.
  • The great expansion of mining, logging, meat production and industrial fishing is cleansing the planet of its wild places and natural wonders.
  • What economists proclaim as progress, ecologists recognise as ruin.
  • the rush to carve up the last intact forests; the vanishing of coral reefs, glaciers and sea ice; the shrinkage of lakes, the drainage of wetlands. The living world is dying of consumption.
  • We have a fatal weakness: a failure to perceive incremental change.
  • Watching the cutters being driven at great speed across the field, he realised that any remaining wildlife would be shredded… he went to investigate, he found her fawn, its legs amputated.
  • The merger between Bayer and Monsanto brings together the manufacturer of the world’s most lethal pesticides with the manufacturer of the world’s most lethal herbicides.
  • We forget even our own histories.

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