EDITOR – This is written as a kind of catharsis to help me get my head round what we have done to bring the world crashing round our feet. The lockdown has given too much time for thinking – and brooding. It was triggered by Trump’s recent attempts to singlehandedly start another world war with his accusations against China. And he blunders on with reelction in mind, drinking disinfectant , malaria pills for the virus conspiracy theories. If he had been in power then would he have tried to sue Africa for Ebola, SARS, Aids? They all originated on this contiment.
It needs to be put into perspective. For years we have been warned of the harm we are doing to the planet. There was the hole in the ozone, the deforestation, the mountains of plastic waste, global warming, unprecedented fires and floods, the air we breath, the list goes on. In the 1920s Rachel Carson wrote The Silent Spring, many others wrote in similar vein. Jane Goodall has warned of the probable consequences of treating animals as commodities, factory farming, slaughter of wild animals for outlandish beliefs.
We irradiate crops to increase yield, leaving the seed sterile, domestic animals are given steroids, hormones, antibiotics with total disregard for the longterm consequences and effects. In February a renowned historian predicted that the signs were in place for a catastrophe that would affect the whole world for generations to come, unless governments put their differences to one side to tackle it.
This is not a time for accusation and threats. Every country and politician, every medical and research institute should be focused on possibe solutions to this nightmare in our midst. An interviewer recently asked Jane Goodall if anyone ever listened to her. She answered ‘Oh yes they listen but profit speaks louder.’ It’s our mantra today ‘This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper – TS Eliot The Waste Land.
People scoff at my vegetarian diet, my insistence on free range eggs, refusal to cut down a large tree that sheds leaves on my neighbour’s pristine lawn in winter. And they are right, it doesnt’t make an iota of differece, but leaves me feeling a little better.
JY
Glenwood
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