Monday, November 1, 2021

Future Times

I watched NOVA last night, and it was all about edible insects.  Did you gag just then?  I know the feeling.  But I kept watching the program, and I found my gag reflex diminishing.  A lot of insects, like crickets, can be made into a powder and added to smoothies for protein.  They sell it on - you guessed it - Amazon!  I was fascinated by the show, and intrigued by the suggestion that if the world population grows as expected, edible insects could save our ecosystem and contribute to our health.  We can't keep growing cattle to keep the pace with population, that's for sure.  Insects require much less water and feed.  Much.

If you can watch the show, I recommend it.  Especially if you are squeamish. 

The world news on the lack of action regarding climate change mitigation's is alarming.  I'm sorry, but Silent Spring came out decades ago.  So did An Inconvenient Truth.  The UN said this week that we are digging our own grave.  We are. One billion people each year have mobilized for Earth Day since 1970.  How'd that work out?

To further my mild anxiety, last night I watched an interview with Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens.  He predicts that humans will be hybrid human/machine/computer in a century or two.  (Find the interview on 60 Minutes.). Hopefully, Mother Earth will have killed us all by then.  Or shall I say, we killed ourselves?

Feeling powerless to influence any of this frees me from terror.  There is nothing to do but live my life giving and receiving love and kindness, and appreciating the here and now.  Is it maturity or exhaustion that leads me to the conclusion that we cannot affect change?  Of course people, and movements, have moved forward such issues as human rights, drunk driving and the like.  But to influence the global corporate juggernaut seems out of reach.  To wean our world off fossil fuels - it is a pipe dream?  (No pun intended.)

"What a world, what a world," said the Wicked Witch.  A tip o' my hat to Halloween.


Ode to innocence.


2 comments:

  1. You write the words that are in my heart, that bring tears to my eyes everyday. The only way our beautiful planet survives is if we humans would just disappear. We are a machine of destruction. What a world, what a world. Oy.

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  2. A Tibetan monk I once interviewed told me that to change the whole world, I only have to change myself. It was strangely liberating to hear that, because I am, after all, the only person I can control in this equation. Living your life with loving kindness is everything. Imagine if we all lived from that place? A thought provoking post.

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