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CrumpleEarth.jpg

Posted by Highhat on April 22, 2010 - 20:11

Today is Earth Day. Yet another couple of hours.
I looked it up on Wikipedia but didn't read about it. Just saw,amoung others,this picture of the crumpled earth and thought about how we have a picture of the earth all dented and bashed around from years of excessive living in the western capitalist society. This is what we have learned and it is probaly quite right. The earth isn't as crumpled so that it should be thrown into the waste paper basket. Fortunately there is a lot of nature left although many places people are struggling to keep up with the fact that nature is unkind to them. This is the climate change which has mostly been brought on by the modern western civilisation. This has shown itself as a threat to more primitve infra structures where fetching water to live on often is a chore that takes a whole day and the rain forest is dwindling due to capitalist exploitation. We do not demand this but it is laid at our feet and if we have enough money we buy the bargain like when we put our telly in the electric socket the power station clock does another round. All in all a crumpled world one way or the other. We can uncrumple it but there will still be dents and bashes in it. The seas could be cleaner and the air too. Even the forests can grow again. Is this what we want for our children? I must say so.

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Comments

skinner_jennifer | September 19, 2010 - 16:39

Hi Pia,
I know they say it's never to late to do something
about all the earths problems, but sometimes I think
we have come so far, it's to late as far as I can
see, I think we have come to rely on things that we
managed without in the past. Like the computer, now
people don't write to each other anymore, they e-mail.
When I was young we had an old tin bath in the
kitchen, we would have one bath a week, on a sunday,
I would have the first bath, then my mum, then my dad,
all in the same water, then my mum would do all the
washing by hand on a monday, then that would be it
until the next week. We never had a fridge, just a
cold cupboard. So nobody today could live like that,
which I think is sad, still your story has alot to
say.
Jenny.

Highhat | September 19, 2010 - 17:11

I lived very humbly as well, as a child. I think we have to be humble but yes the future is now with all the modernities. When I went to High School I lived with a little kerosene stove, a loo in the back yard and only cold water in the tap, in an old old house (1769)- it was cold and I was often ill but you had to manage that way. It isn't that much easier for young people today because they just can't afford anything but accomodation is better with heating etc all the modern commodities. I don't think I would give away my computer and there's not a lot you can do about the capitalist society- we are all a bunch of consumers with a strange mentality. I try to keep my consumer spending at a minimum. I don't need that much. And yes it is a bit sad that we can't be a little more humble. I don't think it's too late to save the earth. Doctor's save people all the time from death and serious illness' so why can't the earth be saved?
pia ;)

Highhat | September 19, 2010 - 17:15

By the way Jenny- thanks a heap for reading this ;)
pia

skinner_jennifer | September 20, 2010 - 19:21

Thats okay pia, I enjoyed it.
Jenny.