March 5th - What's There To Worry About Then?

Most days I come across something which makes me think ‘The World’s Gone Mad’ (WGM for short!) and I only have to watch tele or read the papers to sometimes feel we are surrounded by war and strife, misery and mahem. OK people say 'it's always been like that' but, come on, aren't we supposed to be doing better in the 21st Century?  If I’m to understand something of the way forward, I need to get hold of just what it is about life at the start of the third millenium that’s really that bad for so many people:

Life on Planet Earth is interesting and challenging.  Those who know about these things think the future is worrying … frightening …  terrifying even.

What’s there to be worried about?   Well, for starters  …

Human population when my father was born in 1900 was1.6bn, when I was born it was 2bn and last week, as I write, dear old Mother Earth was being asked to support nigh on 7bn people.

Many people think population explosion is our No 1 problem

And then there’s climate change.  If, as predicted, sea levels rise due to melting ice, island peoples and those living in the Asian river deltas  drown in their millions and the lives of those living on low lying lands including cities like New York and London are massively disrupted. Extreme weather events – aren’t we seeing those already? - will create water shortage and starvation for hundreds of millions of people

Sounds to me like this could be joint No 1 worry!

We are using up the natural resources of that planet pretty quickly.  We dig holes, drill for oil, cut down trees, extract minerals and rock and sand -  friend in Australia tells me that country will soon look like a golf course because of quarrying for resources to feed China’s industrialisation -  and then we fill holes with our rubbish and contaminate the land with toxic waste.  There are massive islands of plastic garbage in the North Pacific Ocean. Oil, on which the entire edifice of many people’s luxurious material lifestyle depends, is running out. 

A child can see that there is a limit to how long this attack on the planet can continue.

There’s still more to worry about yet, but I’ll stop for breath …