I find it significant that Covid should be a respiratory disease in which people struggle to get sufficient Oxygen into their lungs to absorb into the bloodstream. It must feel like drowning. Now, we hear, India is running out of beds and respirators for its population. We can expect the illness to strip through that population and additionally to transmute into a catalogue of variants in the process. Other concentrations of population, such as Brazil and China, can also expect a similar increase I would suggest. Brazil we know is already experiencing that, but China keeps its mouth closed on the matter. At least as far as I am aware.
One scrap of good news, momentous in its power, was received today however , when the former police officer responsible for the death of George Floyd was found guilty of murder on two counts and manslaughter on a third. Quite how it is possible to be guilty for murder and manslaughter from the death of a single person remains one of the mysteries of the American judicial system. To me at least. Nevertheless I am pleased to see that justice has been done in this instance. Though quite what the sentence will be might alleviate some of that relief. The deed – filmed by local people and published around the world – was callous and cynical. The man deserves the maximum sentence available in that state, in my opinion. However this is cause for celebration after centuries of injustice towards black men at last a realistic decision has been reached. It heralds a new day for justice, not only in that state and nation, but in the world as well.
In the fight for Life on this planet Justice lies at the heart of the problem. Justice not only for people but also for the other species we share this world with. Which brings me back to Covid.
With the destruction of the oceans – through constant dragging of polluting craft across them, leaving deposits of oil and slick on the surface – goes the depletion of Oxygen in the atmosphere. The plankton were the original causes of an oxygen rich atmosphere. This allowed the other more complex life forms to develop. Without the plankton there would be no oxygen to breathe. Let me repeat that – without plankton there will be no oxygen to breathe.
When we add to that the decimation of forests at an alarming rate right across the planet from over harvesting, we realise that we are cutting our own throats and removing the very air we breathe for the sake of what? Commerce and profit? Airs and graces? Pomp and circumstance? So that we may have a prestigious desk of teak in the office, or another acre of palm oil to sell to already overweight populations in wealthy countries?
Global trade has proven disastrous for the human race and, to help us understand, over the last few years the Earth herself has retaliated with ravaging fires in all parts of the world, from arctic forests to the Australian bush. Added to that, we discover that the vast forests of north-western America are being destroyed by a beetle that needs to be controlled by colder winters.
Children all around the world are being encouraged to plant trees. A wonderful initiative. Until we discover that trees do not reduce carbon in the atmosphere for the first 30 years of their lives. Only thereafter do they begin to help the carbon reduction so widely spoken on. But will there be sufficient oxygen for those children who are planting the trees to reach the age of 30?
So what’s to do?
Firstly let us find the cause of the rapid overheating of the globe. Suggesting it is only due to emissions and that ‘the people are responsible by driving old cars’ is ducking the issue. To my mind far more devastating than this is the fact that we are happily microwaving the atmosphere. Not a popular thing to say I know but then popularity was never my first concern.
We are not exploring the Earth, we are ravishing Her. Instead of discovering what the subtle etheric fields – the electro-magnetic fields – of the Earth are and how they operate to sustain Life on Earth, we are rushing headlong into technologies which are already known to be damaging.
Isn’t it time to wake up?
I think so.
