Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Red sky at night

Some days the world looks like a pretty grim place.

Your president seems to be breaking every promise he made prior to his election. Our new government (which calls itself a coalition but is in actual fact a Tory government throwing a few unimportant bones to the LibDems in return for their support) is slashing and burning its way through the Treasury office. And the poorest citizens will be the ones to suffer the most - as always. Make no mistake - when governments (all governments) talk of tax cuts what they really mean is we'll finance tax reduction for the rich by hammering the poor, the sick, the old and the disabled. (BTW - did you know that under Obama taxes are the lowest they've been since WW2??)

The world looks grim especially as you're walking back from watching the film H2Oil. Followed by a discussion about the Beaver Lake Cree people and their fight against tar sands exploitation.

And of course there's the disgraceful spectacle of a multi-national corporation (BP might have been British once but now they're about as British as the Golden Gate Bridge) faffing around doing its best not to fix what's rapidly turning into the worst ecological disaster on record.

Not to mention the fact that deforestation, pollution and exploitation sends into extinction one species of flora or fauna every day. (Over-fishing seems to indicate that the Blue-fin Tuna doesn't have much time).

It makes you wonder why humans think they're the pinnacle of evolution. It makes you wonder why you bother.

And then... then you get a sunset like the one we had tonight. It was another hot, sunny day with a gorgeous blue sky. Clouds started gathering towards evening (they've promised us some desperately-needed rain tonight). And as the sun went down the whole sky turned a rich, deep, fiery, red. With small patches of blue. Except where the grey cloud slashed ribbons through it. It looked like lava flowing into an ocean. It was absolutely magnificent. I wanted to just stand still and watch it until the light faded completely.

And I thought, "That's why you bother. Because in spite of the greed, the hatred, the violence, the destruction that humans cause this is still a breath-takingly beautiful planet in a spectacular universe. Because whatever we do to Mother earth she keeps going. And long after we've destroyed ourselves with our arrogance the planet will still be here and there will be life on it. And there will be sunsets like the one tonight.

And I came home with my spirits lightened.

Ze

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)