The High Price of Materialism

Great Video on the dangers of a world that is being dominated by commercial consumerism.

It should be a wake up call to what really matters in life. We have to recognise that the world does not revolve around ourselves, that we are part of a bigger picture, that we belong to a community and to a planet both of which are in  a delicate state of being due to a society that promotes self-promotion and greed at the expense of intrinsic values. For it is only in giving to other humans and to the Earth can we truly feel that our few years of existence is worthwhile. This principle underpins every science course I teach, every technology I promote, every environmental, political, social and community campaign that I get involved in. 

The personal enjoyment is in giving knowledge that enriches or empowers the lives of others, and to realise that so many others all around me also giving their time, energies and resources to do likewise.

That puts a smile on my face every time!

Enjoy the video!

Battle to Save Planet Earth starts today in Copenhagen

Mankind's Global Legacy?

Since the dawn of Civilisation, Mankind has nonchalantly wiped so many other species off the face of the planet. Now our arrogance & selfishness is putting the fate of humanity itself at risk.
Hence the nations of the world have come together in Copenhagen today to decide whether w...e will try to save our own skins. Our future though relies in reversing our almost genetic trait of treating other living things as only existing to serve our selfish interests. Our satantic power to destroy must now be transformed into a godly power to protect biodiversity. In saving others and their habitats, we will find the key to our own salvation.

Global Warming: 'Playing the Fiddle While the World Burns'

I mentioned last week that I wrote a letter to our local newspaper -The Galway City Tribune- in response to one of their columnists (Dick Byrne) rubbishing the claims of environmentalists and others over the melting of the Polar Ice Caps.
Amazingly I had to write another letter which was again published as a reply to another article (from an anonymous writer) that also took issue with the opinion that man's activities are contributing to 'Global Warming'.
So see what you think..........!

Letters to the Editor
'Playing the Fiddle While the World Burns'
The content and tone of letter in last week’s Tribune from an anonymous (why?) a.k.a. Homo Vexus reader reminds me of someone at the bar of a sinking ship wondering why other once sane passengers and crew are getting so upset and why the hell he cannot get a damn drink! The reason, my dear Homo Vexus, that so many of your fellow homo sapiens are jumping on the Greenhouse Effect Bandwagon is that, thanks to scientific analysis and first-hand observations, we getting a clearer picture of the dramatic changes the world is rapidly going through. Modern microchip technology can now help us to record and analyse past and present rates of climatic change, extrapolate the causes and estimate the effects on the world of the future. To paraphrase the writer’s words, these conclusions are based on measured scientific “study, research, causation association and discipline”. But we don’t need this scientific know-how alone to realise that big weather changes are occurring at an accelerating rate; for we can see it with our own eyes and from our own experiences in our short life-times. In some areas of the world, it is more obvious than others. Compare photographs of tropical glaciers taken over a 40 year period and view the massive decrease in size. I lived in the northern climes of Iceland for a number of years and listened to older people talk of their fears as they told of temperatures that have suddenly warmed in recent decades. That is why an increasing amount of people from all walks of life (tour operators, insurance companies, manufacturers, multi-national retail outlets, conscientious urban planners, farmers, governments, economists, environmentalists, scientists, churches, grassroots communities, and of course Arnold Schwarzeneger...) are seeing the writing in the sky, are getting fearful and promoting individual, local and coordinated global action on the critical issue of increasing atmospheric warming. Only this week six major US energy companies demanded that President Bush introduce mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions. The recent British government-commissioned ‘Stern’ report makes abundantly clear what the consequences are if action is not taken. But while these concerned people cannot be dismissed as caricature Doomsday ‘sackcloth/ashes’ religious-type zealots, their message to mankind has similar overtones, “Repent from your sinful path of selfishness or suffer the apocalyptic consequences of your collective greed.” Of course there were global changes well before man ever came into existence as natural and cosmic forces shaped and reshaped the planet. Earth is in a constant state of alteration; deserts were once jungles, mountains were once sea-beds. Volcanoes have in the past, and will in the future, effect global temperatures. But present global change is different to all others: this one is man-induced. Therein lies the central message. We caused it: we should try to change it before it is too late. No other living species has managed to impact so quickly on the plant as much as mankind. We flatten mountains, drain lakes, obliterate forests, create deserts, wipe out thousands of other species…and change weather patterns by our activities. According to NASA, the majority of climatologists recognise human activities as the main contributor to this alarming new pace of change. The large individual chunks of Antarctic ice shelves falling off into the sea are the size of Luxembourg and can be 12,000 years old. Of course there are those such as the Bush Administration who, dancing to the tune of their oil producing carbon-belching paymasters, blindly ignore the reality of what is happening in the world today and imitate Nero as he played the fiddle while Rome burns. But thankfully there is a growing consensus worldwide that something drastic needs to be done if we are to provide a future for our children’s children. Yet we as individuals can all do our personal bit by living by the green motto of ‘Think Global, Act Local’.
Yours sincerely,

Brendan Smith

Ignoring the Reality of the Polar Ice Meltdown

Ireland is being battered by storms, December snow is but a dim & distant memory, flowers are blooming in winter, the average yearly tempartures are rising...
Yet it is hard to believe that some people still cannot accept the reality of Global Warming even when it is staring them in their faces and when they are provided with increasing amounts of hard scientific evidence. Recently a columnist in a local Galway newspaper (Connacht Tribune) Dick Byrne condemned those warning of rising greenhouse gas emissions as scare-mongering. It is not only President Bush, the darling of the oil corporations, that ignores the obvious!
Below is my reply to him that was published in this week's edition of the newspaper:

Last week’s ‘Under my Hat’ column by Dick Byrne was full of factual inaccuracies on the issue of global warming. He belittles the idea that melting ice in the Arctic region will lead to raising sea levels on the basis that the polar ice cap already floats on water. But the fact is that glacial ice in the Arctic region also covers an enormous landmass that includes Greenland and parts of North America and northern Russia whose disintegration will definitely impact on sea levels. NASA’s photographs show conclusively that the Greenland ice sheet is retreating in some parts at the rate of one metre per month. It is estimated that its disappearance could lead to global sea levels rising by 23 feet. The satellite images also dramatically portray the massive retreat of the seaborne perennial ice caps since 1979.
Polar ice reflects back 90% of the sun’s light; its disappearance allows the oceans to heat up, thereby increasing each time the rate of melting and further accentuating global warming. Furthermore, the release of these northern freshwaters into the salty oceans is already slowing down the Gulf Stream which will have a serious impact on the climate and therefore human habitation of Britain and Ireland.
Mr Byrne then comes out with the astonishing statement that “…the Antarctic appears not to be melting, so there is no real problem from that area…” This comment flies against the majority of scientific evidence available today. The US based National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSDIC) estimates that 13,500 sq km of ice shelves in one area alone (Antarctic Peninsula) has broken off from the continent since 1974. The largest breakage was a 3,250km section of the Larsen B ice shelf which dropped off into the sea in 2002.
Rather than berate those politicians who have awakened from their slumber to discover that global warming is a terrifying reality, he should encourage them to do more in sharply curtailing greenhouse gas emissions and using the technological creativity of humankind to save rather than destroy life as we know it on Planet Earth.