Living & Working Universe

Living & Working Universe Climate Statement

Only by reviewing and changing traditional beliefs that have created global warming can we arrive at an effective solution. After a 20 year sabbatical I have arrived at the realisation that whilst our technological achievements over just the last 50 years have been stratospheric, our ability to get on with each other has not improved for thousands of years - this is the primary reason for global warming in my opinion. Look at out traditional beliefs and see where they keep returning us: We believe it is our right to take from this planet whatever, whenever and however we choose, without any thought or responsibility for managing what we are doing – and still continues today in spite of accelerating climate change. We are seeing increasing droughts and drying up of riverbeds, as well as flooding from whatever causes and rising temperatures. All of these changes in environmental balance directly affect our water supplies and seriously hinder food production, leading to our increasing inability to feed ourselves. We are now further increasing this dangerous situation as we begin to our use our food stocks for ethanol production to propel our transport. If we now place in this equation our belief in financial management and the law of supply and demand to regulate what we use, then a growing shortage of food means ever increasing prices. This in turn will see an increasing number of people unable to feed themselves as basic life sustaining nourishment is taken beyond their financial capabilities. We are already beginning to see the price of basic foodstuffs rise to feed the growing demand for ethanol. Rising grain prices directly affect the prices of our other food sources such as meat and eggs, where up to a 20% increase in prices has occurred over just the last 12 months in China alone – and theirs is quite a large population! As this problem escalates our traditional political institutions will need to be seen to be doing something, and so we lapse into blame as one race accuses another of hoarding. The application of "labels" begins as hatred is stirred up between supposedly differing groups, be they racial, religious or any other ethnic grouping. And so we deteriorate into conflict, further expanding the threat to our existence as a civilisation through the powerful weapons we have now developed, and our inability to manage them effectively because of the ancient beliefs we still hold about each other and our surroundings. The most powerful nation may come out on top by annihilating everyone else - but as global war escalates, who can say with any degree of certainty that they too will not blow themselves off the face of this beautiful planet, given the nature of modern terrorist warfare and the inability to determine who is the "enemy"? I do not believe I am exaggerating anything within this scenario, but simply applying the effects of our traditional and limiting beliefs to the growing problem we are creating, and which they can only fuel rather than resolve. By challenging what we believe, and in so doing changing our relationship with each other and our surroundings, I believe it is possible to create the opportunity for a huge evolutionary leap forward as a species. We are at a unique moment in time in our history and embedded within this era are the ingredients for either our destruction or survival – the choice is ours.