Who could have imagined that in just 50yrs the planet would become so uninhabitable that mankind ceased to exist. The warnings were there 100yrs before: The End of The World is Nigh and Nostradamus so knowingly put his ideas into word. Yet we continued to deplete Mother Earth of her stocks and shares. We ended our own existence. October 21st 2059
In the famine of 1991 in Ethopia we witnessed deaths of an epic proportion. It echoed the untimely and awful devastation of the famine of 1980. I was quite young at the time and possibly ignorant of any reason for this unnatural disaster. I thought, "Maybe if they stopped having children....", and to a small degree this could be a good idea and one that should have been put into practice but then the whole human right act comes into play and the government (Menghistu regime) and that's not what I'm here to convey.....
The scientific explanation for the famine in 1984-5 is purely one of simple ecological logistics. The rain didn't fall and the rain didn't fall because of Global Dimming. The shift in the atmospheres natural balance disabled if you like, the yearly rainfall from the sea to the Ethiopian planes - in layman's terms many scientists believe the effect of Global Dimming caused a significant effect on the hydrological cycle. GD seemed to be the highly probable cause of the failure of the Sahel Monsoon that is the exact life force in Ethiopia, year oin and year out replenshing the land for new growth and humanity to continue. The failure of this brought about the disastrous drought in the 1980s. The energy that comes from the sunlight was being blocked by pollutants. We remember from school (if you went and I didn't - much) ; the sunlight heats the ocean and the particles rise and fall as rainfall. If the sunlight is blocked then the heat from the rays cannot pick up the escaped water particles and then there is no rain. The studies carried out in 2001 showed that our use of aerosols were cutting down the sunlight by use of this blocking mechanism therefore changing the hydrological cycle. This had a direct effect on Ethiopia (for example) and the famine came as a result. Did we killed all those men, women and children because we are obsessed with unnatural smells, aromas and white armpits? I have my own views and they support the Global Dimming phenomenon, you may disagree but the evidence whether flouted as flimsy or unsupported or not is there for us to see, the argument can only be contested for so long. The sheer volume of aerosol usage has changed the atmosphere so much so that it could become irreversible by the year 2060. Yes there are other factors that have contributed to GD but not on a scale as grandiose as the aerosol gases humans insist on using. To support my believe in the aerosol debate I might add that the decrease in GD was all too prevalent by the end of 1990 (we had been using less gases by this point and the Cleaner Air act came fiercly into force) Although there were many doubts to the full authenticity of these findings and many disagreed it, should be a defining moment in the history of the earth that has only just been recognised and received. As early as 1950 research showed that Global Dimming was taking effect but these findings were ignored and dismissed even up until the year 2001 several scientists were still trying hard to convince doubters and those who had no idea of what GD was - that this change was having an effect so apparent that it was unfathomable and confusing as to why people were still unaware of it. What did become apparent as early as the year 1945 was the decrease in natural sunlight. Reports in Ireland suggested that they 'lacked sun' and also in Japan and the Soviet the same findings became all too prevalent but again only in smaller scientific circles. Note that as I stated above the decrease came about in the late 1990s and co-incidentally these phenomenon of GD effects have not increased since(*note we are still adhering to advisory warnings about harmful aerosol gases)
Global Warming had already begun to effect the planet before the studies of Global Dimming took place and in fact scientists at the time thought that GW was the sole reason for the impending cataclysmic death of earth. But what GD brought to light was the conflict between the two effects and how that was to reduce the timescale earth had left to be saved. Global Warming was heating our atmosphere whilst Global Dimming was cooling it. The dilemma here is: While Global warming is heating the planet, Global dimming is cooling the planet, what greater evil is there. The findings were in 1974 that the use of aerosols or even sulphur could be used as an emergency aide to help reduce the effect of GW by use of utilising properties that can be found within the effects of GD. There are several reasons why this could be potentially catastrophic. GD as mentioned earlier causes changes in the rainfall patterns - famine would repeat, agriculture would suffer and rain forests would almost definitely fail. Use of sulphur would cause acid rain and humans would potentially be at harm from the black carbon. In the instance of aerosol usage (being effective at reducing the harmful effects of GW)it has a short lifetime. So all in all are we fucked? It seems not as bad it initially was founded to be although the are many effects of both GW and GD that can not be reversed - a time for change is most certainly upon us to secure a safer environment for our future families. I for one do not want to envisage my son's son's and daughters living for only a short period of time before being suffocated in an unbearable atmospheric shift.
In the UK (closer to home - you may sit up and realise) by the year (fore casted by) 2059 the temperature will have risen by a massive 10degrees. No! Put away your sunblock and lock away your silly smiles. This is not going to be a Factor30 sunshine kind of heat rise or heatwave, this is potentially catastrophic. The rise in temperature will destabilise 10,000billion tons of methane gas which is stored naturally under the sea bed..this my friends is 8 times stronger than the co2 released now. By this point it will be too late. We could not inhabit a country under these conditions and if you think how the temperature increase will affect the cooler countries how will it affect the warmer climes of the Mediterranean, the equator. These temperatures will occur and for the first time in almost 4billion years.
Along with this there will be an increase of natural disasters like monsoons, volcanic eruptions, typhoons, tornadoes and perilous weather all across the globe.
You can't imagine good ol' Blighty to be part of this scenario? Its impossible believe but it is inevitable.
Changes made to how we burn our fossil fuels can be implemented - cleaner ways to burn these naturals fuel will make a significant difference to the future of our planet. As far as GW is concerned the many ways we have utilised already have made small differences to the planet and her state but they have to be continous and more stringent.
Pollution is the cause of GW so reducing harmful gases can be a guarantee in securing a world that can be for the most part habitable.
Global warming is simply the increase in temperature of the planets climate (1c in the last 100yrs) Some argue that the planet's climate is increasing on its own and when I was 12yrs old I believed the earth was in a cycle - not from any of our wrongdoings but that she would eventually revert to a mass of burning properties, rather like a ball of fire of biblical proprtions. This I endeavoured was the full- cycle of how earth would naturally end and then a re-birth would come about. How naive I was is not in question but how apt that I become so very interested in the cycle of earth, tampered with by us or not - that cycle seems to have some findings in real science.
There are several factors relating to Global Warming. The Greenhouse (Gas) Effect is the most common known and it seems potentially disasterous. The Greenhouse Gasses have increased the earths temperature by simply trapping energy in the atmosphere...sounds romantic eh?
The effects of GW (which is the average increase in temp across the world) causes changes in the earths climate - the earth has had an average climate or controlled by and large until the effects of Global Warming and of GGs. The changes have and will continue to alter these long-term weather patterns.
A warmer Earth may lead to changes in rainfall patterns, a rise in sea level, and a wide range of impacts on plants, wildlife, and our selfish selves. When scientists talk about the issue of climate change, their concern is about global warming caused by our activities on this planet.
Back before the Industrial Revolution which was about 200 years ago - we used very little fossil fuels, releasing minor gases into the atmosphere but we advanced and began to use machinery that utilised fossil fuels and also the need for timber created deforestation and the climate began to change as a direct result of this as burning these fuels created the Greenhouse effect.
This part I state in simplistic terms so the reader can understand that only very small and fundamental changes around you can make a difference.
Reduce the amount of electricity you use.
Recycle (the methane given off into the atmosphere is a contributary factor in GGs)
Simple use of gardening areas for the growth of your own food.
Less petrol consumption or use LPG
All of these simple and easily followed plans can ensure that something is left of our planet for our future families. This is about doing your part...the scientists can help governments and agencies do theirs. For now at least some notice is being taken - this is the real deal. our planet is our home. Our planet is where we survive, live, enjoy......
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
The One Stop Shop
I lost somebody...they are physically missing. I was left to deal with the fact that there would be no finding and no search party because I know the body is found but the person will not. I know where I can go and visit. Where I can talk aloud and have thoughts about and projected to this person. The person I lost is no longer here and exists solely in my mind although my memories and in tangible form - photos, writings, letters and cards. Nevertheless I have no idea of where they really are.
I can pen phrases and wax lyrical about how I felt at the time, how I felt immediately after and my feelings right now this minute but words can never convey the true depth of the loss, the sense of confusion and total lack of acknowledgement for the obvious truth. I was staggered in thought for some time afterwards until I came to realise that death is so very, very personal, not to mention absolute shit. We find ourselves understanding or misunderstanding it in a truly selfish way - in that we can only feel how we feel and this is the personalisation of death. For me I could not accept the truth for a long time - I found that I could appear as though I was accepting that this person was gone and the grief I displayed outwardly was the common garden kind. I cried, I cried every single day, all day for a very long time. I felt unbelievably drained and tired of wanting something I couldn't have and looked visibly sad, stricken and in shock but inside I thought that the person would come back. I don't know in which way, shape or form but that they would return and all the pain would go. This then transgressed into - they would come back but tell me they had to go again and now I believe in whatever eases the pain, whatever suits me because it still hurts so much.
A hit and miss position in our society that can relieve the damage of the death of someone we cared deeply for is the belief in the afterlife. It eases us, makes the long, long path of grieving bearable. We can tolerate the loss eventually by imagining some kind of higher place, a higher state that our loved ones have journeyed to after they died. Its convenient to have this idea and develop it into whatever scenario we personally take comfort from. Some people talk of heaven - where lifetimes are seconds and the lights are comforting all enveloping and euphoric. Other visions are of a Utopia where life is as it on earth but devoid of destructive emotion and all the things we have here on earth that bind us to be materialistic, its classless up there and everybody is accepting.
The body we lost, the warm alive body - the one that hugged us, made us feel wanted, needed and loved. The body that annoyed us and we stormed out, that made us cry and then made it better. The body that gave itself to us for own life is dust - we know this but have convinced ourselves that this is irrelevant - in actual fact dismissed the comfort of the skin and bones person because now we believe that the celestial being, the spirit is and was more important.
Convenience is something that we can cut and paste for our own ends - use at will and make us feel the way we want.
I do believe in something other than "Right that's it! Death is the end my friend" and I'm yet to determine how much of that belief is because I want to see my loved one again, want to be comforted by the prospect that are happy.
I have several doubts though and this materialises when I'm doing things that I know that the person wouldn't approve of. Things that the person would find horrid - and they are not watching me then! Oh no! They must be watching someone else or maybe doing something else?
I can find no proof of an afterlife - If I could I would be Rich!!Rich! I say Rich! But there is none.
Unless of course all the ghost, spirit, poltergeist sightings are true? And here I am so blatantly ignorant of the lack of proof because again - it would bring me hurt, harm and pain if I were to find no evidence. Convenience.
Of course it is unimaginably hard to accept that the spark has gone and this person you admired, respected and felt close to is now nothing but a pile of dust. And I point the accusatory finger at no-one..I too am a product of believing something of which I have no real proof but maybe the proof is the comfort, maybe that's the afterlife? We are sending our adored ones bodies into a self-initiated playground of hope and happiness...is it our uncompromising belief in the next stage of life that can give them and us the afterlife itself?
I do often wonder: Why do we put the bodies of our loved ones into the cold, hard unforgiving ground?
For most people an occurring nightmare ensues....the vision, the image of this person buried deep in the ground in a box, penned in and left to the mercy of the underground inhabitants - creatures that through evolution have found themselves to be in the earth for their survival and not placed there under a ceremonious hour for the purpose of saying This Is The End of My Life. For me this hour of lowering my loved one into this deep chasm of nothing but soil and living matter caused horrific thoughts of guilt and voyeuristic night images. My imagination increased threefold (and only really at night) by the sheer disbelief that we had lowered our person into something nobody in life would choose to go into. And therein lies my cultivated belief in 'There has to be something more than this'.
Its a tradition we have abode by for centuries. In fact evidence of the one of the first earth burials took place over 35,000 years ago but further evidence suggests that there may have been earlier burials in which humans were deposited deep in the ground, buried almost 14feet below the surface. Whether the same rituals or ones we use and adhere to now were used I could find no evidence of. But then the church and its belief systems came much after that. Of course its a natural progression of nature some would argue. To put back into the earth what was taken from it and to view the idea of human burial on those grounds alone I'm forced to agree but why the ceremony? And therein lies the question in two parts: Do we carry out the church service, the rituals of throwing earth onto the coffin, the prayers and the collective of mourners graveside to appease ourselves from the actual fact that we have put our sacred families, friends, lovers and children into essentially what is a pit in the ground? I can only comment on my understanding of why I found comfort from this and again it easier to accept when all around there are others accepting. The burden of my own grief was lifted when I saw other's in as much pain as I. And the overwhelming and untimely feeling of pride that so many came to this ritual for my loved one.
Secondly do we then relieve ourselves from undiluted grief by believing in life after death?
From my own point of view I'm staggered. If a body were to raise up from the ground (the celestial kind) and float, transgress or rise smiling and comforted to heaven in whichever spiritual form then why bury? Why not offer to the gods another way? Again from only a very personal stance I felt the body we buried was much too good for the ground. I felt like we had done an injustice because the ground wasn't good enough. I don't know how I feel now on the burial issue. I do know I don't care where I am placed as long as whomever loved me and I them still thought of me as I was before I died but its hard to take your own advice.....
Apparently burial is abstract thinking. To me it is a need now inbuilt in us to to get a handle on death. All of the things we do each day involve a time served or honoured ritual.
We had a heavy night on the beer last night and woke up feeling like a back end of a lorry smash so we have a cup of something hot, a brew. We may have a fry up - big Ole' greasy sausages and a runny egg and almost vomit at the thought or the infamous hair of the dog. We split from our lovers, wives, husbands and then then play songs that remind us of them and you think to yourself, "Why does this song have to play now?" as you're sitting in the traffic trying to get a grip on whats happening to your heart and head. You think about the times you had together and relate a song to it - the one that happens to be playing! Some even go down the old 'getting even', custom, the cutting of suits or discarding everything they own that was shared - the ritual of wiping the slate clean. The erasing of a person you no longer have in your life...daily rituals seem to serve a need within us, keep us sane maybe because after all what would we do if somebody took all of our customs/rituals away? But this has no bearing on the afterlife as a concept but only an indication as to why we do what we do to make ourselves feel the precise way we want to.
Some customs and rituals (ideas of convenience if you ask me) seem to be essential for mankind to co-habit, live simplistically or just to be akin to one another and the ritual of burial, I believe is one.
The concept of believing in the afterlife is not a ritual or a custom yet it is a deep set view in most religions - yet where certain rites of passage are expected it still manages to be a personal choice. Christian faith tells us that our souls are converted into angels as we ascend to heaven but then the conflicting interest I have is that how can one choose whether our soul is converted or not as the same religion quotes: God made angels before the onset of civilisation and saints are the product of Gods followers who have taken his word as prayer and final. How very apt that the option of being a God fearing citizen can lead us into something more pleasurable than an orgasm and twice as nice as a big, fat cream cake or a prime steak with a beautiful woman and a tankard of the best ale. It does derive from religion in part but also esotericisim and from a metaphysical view and we have given it names; the Hereafter, Life after death and of course the Afterlife. It is without concrete proof we toy with the idea but then we have no proof of a god, of any god - that again is something that is personal and only relevant to those of us who have need for it in our lives but millions upon millions of humans worship a god of some kind. Follow the book (s) and adhere to particular way of life as set out in their personal religious choice. I do not have too much interest in different belief systems but if I were asked to choose a set from a religious angle then I would opt for a sprinkling of Paganism and a touch of Mr Buddha but then is that because as a reformed 'bad girl' I can now look towards a hereafter that is good and pure as opposed to one I may have had if I was still the devil on my own shoulder? The word I have utilised so much springs to my occasionally random mind; convenient! We as a whole can choose which belief shop we buy from like purchasing a frock or a bowler hat because we have the choice to tailor ourselves to whatever nicely fitting concern-relieving antidote we want. I have no interest further than this as I said the proof may make me or break me on the actual truth. But the afterlife is not a collective as religion is: it is purely something we endeavour to look to for simple comfort in our grief.
When I die I will return as an eagle............
I can pen phrases and wax lyrical about how I felt at the time, how I felt immediately after and my feelings right now this minute but words can never convey the true depth of the loss, the sense of confusion and total lack of acknowledgement for the obvious truth. I was staggered in thought for some time afterwards until I came to realise that death is so very, very personal, not to mention absolute shit. We find ourselves understanding or misunderstanding it in a truly selfish way - in that we can only feel how we feel and this is the personalisation of death. For me I could not accept the truth for a long time - I found that I could appear as though I was accepting that this person was gone and the grief I displayed outwardly was the common garden kind. I cried, I cried every single day, all day for a very long time. I felt unbelievably drained and tired of wanting something I couldn't have and looked visibly sad, stricken and in shock but inside I thought that the person would come back. I don't know in which way, shape or form but that they would return and all the pain would go. This then transgressed into - they would come back but tell me they had to go again and now I believe in whatever eases the pain, whatever suits me because it still hurts so much.
A hit and miss position in our society that can relieve the damage of the death of someone we cared deeply for is the belief in the afterlife. It eases us, makes the long, long path of grieving bearable. We can tolerate the loss eventually by imagining some kind of higher place, a higher state that our loved ones have journeyed to after they died. Its convenient to have this idea and develop it into whatever scenario we personally take comfort from. Some people talk of heaven - where lifetimes are seconds and the lights are comforting all enveloping and euphoric. Other visions are of a Utopia where life is as it on earth but devoid of destructive emotion and all the things we have here on earth that bind us to be materialistic, its classless up there and everybody is accepting.
The body we lost, the warm alive body - the one that hugged us, made us feel wanted, needed and loved. The body that annoyed us and we stormed out, that made us cry and then made it better. The body that gave itself to us for own life is dust - we know this but have convinced ourselves that this is irrelevant - in actual fact dismissed the comfort of the skin and bones person because now we believe that the celestial being, the spirit is and was more important.
Convenience is something that we can cut and paste for our own ends - use at will and make us feel the way we want.
I do believe in something other than "Right that's it! Death is the end my friend" and I'm yet to determine how much of that belief is because I want to see my loved one again, want to be comforted by the prospect that are happy.
I have several doubts though and this materialises when I'm doing things that I know that the person wouldn't approve of. Things that the person would find horrid - and they are not watching me then! Oh no! They must be watching someone else or maybe doing something else?
I can find no proof of an afterlife - If I could I would be Rich!!Rich! I say Rich! But there is none.
Unless of course all the ghost, spirit, poltergeist sightings are true? And here I am so blatantly ignorant of the lack of proof because again - it would bring me hurt, harm and pain if I were to find no evidence. Convenience.
Of course it is unimaginably hard to accept that the spark has gone and this person you admired, respected and felt close to is now nothing but a pile of dust. And I point the accusatory finger at no-one..I too am a product of believing something of which I have no real proof but maybe the proof is the comfort, maybe that's the afterlife? We are sending our adored ones bodies into a self-initiated playground of hope and happiness...is it our uncompromising belief in the next stage of life that can give them and us the afterlife itself?
I do often wonder: Why do we put the bodies of our loved ones into the cold, hard unforgiving ground?
For most people an occurring nightmare ensues....the vision, the image of this person buried deep in the ground in a box, penned in and left to the mercy of the underground inhabitants - creatures that through evolution have found themselves to be in the earth for their survival and not placed there under a ceremonious hour for the purpose of saying This Is The End of My Life. For me this hour of lowering my loved one into this deep chasm of nothing but soil and living matter caused horrific thoughts of guilt and voyeuristic night images. My imagination increased threefold (and only really at night) by the sheer disbelief that we had lowered our person into something nobody in life would choose to go into. And therein lies my cultivated belief in 'There has to be something more than this'.
Its a tradition we have abode by for centuries. In fact evidence of the one of the first earth burials took place over 35,000 years ago but further evidence suggests that there may have been earlier burials in which humans were deposited deep in the ground, buried almost 14feet below the surface. Whether the same rituals or ones we use and adhere to now were used I could find no evidence of. But then the church and its belief systems came much after that. Of course its a natural progression of nature some would argue. To put back into the earth what was taken from it and to view the idea of human burial on those grounds alone I'm forced to agree but why the ceremony? And therein lies the question in two parts: Do we carry out the church service, the rituals of throwing earth onto the coffin, the prayers and the collective of mourners graveside to appease ourselves from the actual fact that we have put our sacred families, friends, lovers and children into essentially what is a pit in the ground? I can only comment on my understanding of why I found comfort from this and again it easier to accept when all around there are others accepting. The burden of my own grief was lifted when I saw other's in as much pain as I. And the overwhelming and untimely feeling of pride that so many came to this ritual for my loved one.
Secondly do we then relieve ourselves from undiluted grief by believing in life after death?
From my own point of view I'm staggered. If a body were to raise up from the ground (the celestial kind) and float, transgress or rise smiling and comforted to heaven in whichever spiritual form then why bury? Why not offer to the gods another way? Again from only a very personal stance I felt the body we buried was much too good for the ground. I felt like we had done an injustice because the ground wasn't good enough. I don't know how I feel now on the burial issue. I do know I don't care where I am placed as long as whomever loved me and I them still thought of me as I was before I died but its hard to take your own advice.....
Apparently burial is abstract thinking. To me it is a need now inbuilt in us to to get a handle on death. All of the things we do each day involve a time served or honoured ritual.
We had a heavy night on the beer last night and woke up feeling like a back end of a lorry smash so we have a cup of something hot, a brew. We may have a fry up - big Ole' greasy sausages and a runny egg and almost vomit at the thought or the infamous hair of the dog. We split from our lovers, wives, husbands and then then play songs that remind us of them and you think to yourself, "Why does this song have to play now?" as you're sitting in the traffic trying to get a grip on whats happening to your heart and head. You think about the times you had together and relate a song to it - the one that happens to be playing! Some even go down the old 'getting even', custom, the cutting of suits or discarding everything they own that was shared - the ritual of wiping the slate clean. The erasing of a person you no longer have in your life...daily rituals seem to serve a need within us, keep us sane maybe because after all what would we do if somebody took all of our customs/rituals away? But this has no bearing on the afterlife as a concept but only an indication as to why we do what we do to make ourselves feel the precise way we want to.
Some customs and rituals (ideas of convenience if you ask me) seem to be essential for mankind to co-habit, live simplistically or just to be akin to one another and the ritual of burial, I believe is one.
The concept of believing in the afterlife is not a ritual or a custom yet it is a deep set view in most religions - yet where certain rites of passage are expected it still manages to be a personal choice. Christian faith tells us that our souls are converted into angels as we ascend to heaven but then the conflicting interest I have is that how can one choose whether our soul is converted or not as the same religion quotes: God made angels before the onset of civilisation and saints are the product of Gods followers who have taken his word as prayer and final. How very apt that the option of being a God fearing citizen can lead us into something more pleasurable than an orgasm and twice as nice as a big, fat cream cake or a prime steak with a beautiful woman and a tankard of the best ale. It does derive from religion in part but also esotericisim and from a metaphysical view and we have given it names; the Hereafter, Life after death and of course the Afterlife. It is without concrete proof we toy with the idea but then we have no proof of a god, of any god - that again is something that is personal and only relevant to those of us who have need for it in our lives but millions upon millions of humans worship a god of some kind. Follow the book (s) and adhere to particular way of life as set out in their personal religious choice. I do not have too much interest in different belief systems but if I were asked to choose a set from a religious angle then I would opt for a sprinkling of Paganism and a touch of Mr Buddha but then is that because as a reformed 'bad girl' I can now look towards a hereafter that is good and pure as opposed to one I may have had if I was still the devil on my own shoulder? The word I have utilised so much springs to my occasionally random mind; convenient! We as a whole can choose which belief shop we buy from like purchasing a frock or a bowler hat because we have the choice to tailor ourselves to whatever nicely fitting concern-relieving antidote we want. I have no interest further than this as I said the proof may make me or break me on the actual truth. But the afterlife is not a collective as religion is: it is purely something we endeavour to look to for simple comfort in our grief.
When I die I will return as an eagle............
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)