Tag: war

War in Europe

Posted on by Mark

A critical, non-renewable resource should be safeguarded. Wisdom recommends it be used only as necessary. With the ongoing climate crisis, there’s also greater cause for safeguarding non-renewable fossil fuels due to their noxious by-products. And we can use the energy contained in fossil fuels only once; thereafter, it’s gone forever. Hence wisdom dictates restricting it to essential usage.

Yet folly has replaced wisdom as war returns to Europe. War, as typical, serves to destroy. In effect, combatants use large amounts of natural resources to ruin their opponent’s infrastructure. There’s little regard for the attendant loss in nature services or the commensurate loss of nature. Presumably the combatants assume that they can easily rebuild infrastructure and that nature regenerates itself. This isn’t wisdom given the constrained availability of energy and the finite ability of nature.

Let’s remember, non-renewable fuels can only be used once. As we use natural resources to build and rebuild infrastructure, we take more of nature for ourselves. And release more noxious emissions for future generations. Let’s also remember that when a species goes extinct, we’ve lost its service forever. Can we accept war as common in the future? Assuming not, how do we end war?
Fire at Chernihiv oil depot. Credit: nexta
Oil depot burning. Photo Nexta_TV

Imagine If

Posted on by Mark

We humans have conquered the biosphere with our brawn and brains. Our ability to travel through forests, across deserts and in water demonstrates our mobility. Our investigative minds enable us to construct wonders from natural resources. Our prowess at domination allowed us to reduce competitor species either to the margins or to extinction. Now none remain to challenge us, except ourselves. And we do. Our aggressive tendencies have resulted in nearly ceaseless destructive warfare where some push others either to the margins or conquer them.

But imagine if we could exorcise this tendency. Imagine if we, as the dominant species, would forego our natural mobility and capabilities in favour of contentedly sitting motionless for hours at a time. Imagine if we were to simply stare at an immovable object while occasionally pressing down upon little cubes. We’d remain motionless in a chair for hours and days except for brief, occasional periods of vacation where we’d lie motionless on a beach. With time, we’d fade and our physical prowess would fade and we could no longer compete. And our tendency would be exorcised.

Now imagine if we gave this exorcistic activity a cool name such as ‘computer specialist’. And we engender a desire for much of the human population to forego natural tendencies and undertake this task; to remain motionless, without expending physical energy. Can you imagine this? And then can you imagine if energy for computers ceased and people were to become active again?

Wild turkey