Climate Change

It’s hot and getting hotter

And there’s little we can do

As our ecosystems totter

And we sit at home and stew

Do we rage against the greed

That has delivered us this mess 

Or should we consider what we need

And tone down our own excess

As one of 7 billion

Is there really any point

To curb our wicked ways

While the others trash the joint

The problem with this thinking

Is that no one takes a stand

But we can slow the global sinking

If we work hard hand in hand

Behave not as others do

But as you wish they would

It is not what you can do

But about what we all could 

What does it really mean to be stewards of the world? Spare a thought for the animals living with consequences of our actions and you may get an inkling. I recently had a discussion about this with a religious friend with a human-centric point of view.  He truly believed that the planet and its resources were created and gifted to us by God.  He felt that we must be grateful for our gifts and be responsible stewards but humans should and must come first. He was not overly worried about climate change. 

The problem with this thinking is how much can we take?  Obviously there comes a point where the natural systems that sustain us will collapse if we take too much. This is the point which we go beyond at our peril. It unfortunately looks like we have reached this point even if we are not quite at the point of no return. What does it take to shake people out of their complacency? Even the news that 93% of the Great Barrier Reef is bleached is of not real concern to most people, or the collapse of world fisheries, or the global loss of biodiversity. They simply don't get it. They don't understand that the collapse of the natural world heralds our own demise. We can still retreat from the precipice but there are few signs of it happening. It's time we took this seriously.