It's Okay

Where simplicity gets more self-deceiving
is when we believe that living 
at nearer subsistence levels,
compared with those around us,
is somehow 'preserving the planet'
when it it is still dying all around us. 

 

The Royal Prerogative

King Cnut was famous for setting his throne
upon the beach and bidding the tide 'retreat!'
Which of course it didn't, the event was passed off
as him proving the limits of his, and all kings, powers.

Fast forward a thousand years
and in the wealthy West
many more than before
live like the kings of old
but we have forgotten the lesson
of humility in the face of the elements
Cnut's eventide experiment exemplified,
as we stoke up further global warming,
by using up the earths resources
and have a media that we exhaust
when we don't listen to as it tells us
to live better within our limitations.

Farming Today

When the rain washes away accounts of 'our success' today
then there will be nobody to know what humans thought
and tried to do to tame a planet that was beyond taming.

Farmers, Hunters,

zookeepers and naturalists etc
all act like they are God's Gift
to a planet that is shrinking and in pain.
The rest of us look on
at our self appointed experts
not knowing who - or what -
to be appalled at most, ourselves
for accepting our representatives?
Or those who claim to represent us?

The Pyrrhic Triumph Of Technology

Humans are the agents of global warming.

We shrank the ozone layer  
because we thought the planet
was a rocket with a destination,
rather than a place for ourselves
and other creatures to be left to be.

Since then the market has moved on
from burning all the fossil fuels
that can be found at the right price
and with cheap labour.
But still it wants to help;
with the increased heat
coming through the gap in the ozone,
and before all life becomes extinct,
human beings are being cajoled
to see in the future with solar panels.

Markets have always been about managing myopia.  

They Don't Like It Up 'Em

Only recently did I realise that A. I. means
both Artificial Insemination, an activity
that farmers and vets do regularly with cows
to get them to bear milk for our consumption,
and Artificial Intelligence.

Humans often express the fear
that they might create a technology
that proves more intelligent
than are prepared to credit.
Humans are also highly blind
to the discomfort they force
on animals who, if they let them live,
force into sequential pregnancies.

How much do we fear
that the technology that comforts us
will ultimately do to us
what we force cows to do?

From Me-Generation To i-phone

we mine ourselves and scarce rare earth elements
to be distracted by the latest technology
as we trash 99.9% of the ecology
that 'less developed' creatures
far more sustainably share.

What is the result? 'Detached modern living'.

When Is The Next Extinction?

Technology frets and fiddles
at programming human want,
however contrarily humans think.

 
Meanwhile we burn the worlds' resources
at ever faster rates, aspiring to 'ensure diversity,
well beyond ourselves', when we can't see that far.

Apart from the speed at which it is happening, 
the world has seen it all before
-in the previous five extinctions.