The World Health Organisation has made a huge
difference to the world, saved and improved countless millions of lives. But there is a big question-mark.
Actually, I'd like to throw a bucket-full of
question-marks into this blog. Things to
agree with, disagree with, or better still just to chew over. But most importantly, let's not bury our
heads in the sand and ignore them.
So, back to Coronavirus (sorry!) WHO has recently told us that "the worst
is yet to come". And there is news
that another powerful virus has emerged from pigs in a slaughterhouse in
China. No doubt there will be more. Are we surprised?
Global warming is now on the brink (over the brink?)
of being out of control. As a result the
world is already over a degree hotter, and warming further. Doesn't sound much? Good for summer holidays? Some environmental scientists like Mark
Lynas, author of Six Degrees, believe that after as little as another
two degrees world agriculture will be terminally damaged, causing widespread
famine. Only one degree beyond that the
Sahara desert will be encroaching over Iberia and southern France. And just a degree higher still, human life
will be fast dying out. Much above that
all life on earth will be unsustainable.
Why?
Amazing that all this damage has been done to the
planet since the Industrial Revolution, and most in just the past 60
years. Only in the last 40 years about
60% of wildlife has been destroyed. Things
are happening fast. Why?
Not only are wild creatures dying out. Coronavirus is now killing us too. As for our planet... recently we have seen
terrible forest fires, storms, floods and mud slides engulfing villages,
droughts, locusts and now a new pandemic.
Is that because we haven't obeyed the rules and have upset the natural
order or balance in the world? Is a
Creative Power or Balancing Force over-riding us?
Isn't it time that we began to think of ourselves, the
wild and domestic creatures and even the plants, as all part of the same 'us'
that must be considered together in our attitudes to the world?
As long ago as 1962 Bob Dylan wrote "About a
funny old world that’s a-coming along
/ Seems sick and it's hungry, it's tired and it's torn / It looks like it's
a-dying and it's hardly been born."
Organisations like WHO and our own wonderful NHS have
been doing a magnificent job looking after us, but who's looking after the
planet that we rely on? A few lonely
organisations like WWF do the best they can.
But are we the planet's main problem?
Along with rats and cockroaches are we unstoppable breeding machines?
Every farmer knows that if any crop (animal or
vegetable), is closely grown in vast numbers it breeds pests and disease. So they increasingly have to use all kind of
chemicals to control it. None of which
are good for the health of the final consumer... normally us. And completely alien to the balance of life
on earth. But is this now a necessary
evil to feed the increasing numbers of our own species? Why?
Are there just far far far too many of us?
If the numbers of Homo sapiens were indiscriminately
halved, would there be half the disease, half the famine, half the destruction
of the environment, half the loss of wildlife, half the crime, half the
industry and half the vehicles? Half the
pollution? And half the global
warming? Sounds like a golden age? So what's gone wrong? Politicians wouldn't dare suggest reducing
the numbers of their voters who will be tax payers buoying up the economy. Businesses are equally reticent because more
people means more consumers, more investors and more wealth. So does the wheel spin faster and faster out
of control as humanity races to the bottom?
Taking everything else with it?
In past years before modern medicines, mortality,
particularly amongst infants, was much much higher. So families needed to be huge. Even in this country, as recently as Georgian
and Victorian times, eight or nine children was not unusual. Poor mothers!
But here comes the WHO again.
Good for them, they hugely reduced infant mortality rates. But the world went on breeding... and
surviving. And expanding
exponentially. Where does it all
end?
We all have a right to life... don't we? But Richard Meinertzhagen and Wilfred
Thesiger both said, "I have no belief in the sanctity of human life". Were they right? Are we too cosseted and self obsessed? Our generation has fortunately not
experienced a World War. Have we grown
soft? In my book Walks on the Wild
Side I describe being pursued by bandits determined to kill us. They weren't bad people. They just lived in a society with a different
ethical code.
After WWI the Spanish Flu infected about 500 million
(one third of the population of the world in those days) and killed over 50
million. (Source: CDC click here) Have those figures been conveniently
forgotten? Coronavirus is also a
flu. A very dangerous one.
So what can we do about it? What should we do about it? And how could it be done?
I don't know.
What do you think? Something
certainly needs to be done. We are
hurtling towards catastrophe. What? How? WHO?
Sorry to be so bloody depressing. I promise to loosen up in my next blog! But question-marks are terribly important
things.
