The Covid-19 doesn’t just call our bluff it is questing the way we allow our society to be run.
It is bringing into sharp relief what some of us have always known to be true. Our current way of living must end.
Capitalism and the culture of hierarchy that props it up is now extremely screwed up.
The story of Capitalism up to now has been selling your labour so you don’t end up on the streets.
We should not behave to exist this way.
We come into this world kicking and screaming for our own needs while our birth’s, and our eventual departure’s, have all been turned into a product by capitalism to generate profit. We leave silent.
We live in a world where nearly everything has some kind of cost and the increased workforce automation is suggesting that things will keep getting worse.
What is considered valuable by man or the people of this world are of little or no value when one is confronted by a virus (which unfortunately some of us are witnessing this very minute) that does not discriminate any grounds.
Money, wealth, riches, gold, property, power and so on are either transitory, fading or can be destroyed in the blink of an eye and are of no value in the long term.
In the past few years, the money markets have fallen in a heap with the global financial crisis and the value of money becoming very shaky. The same can be said of shares, property and other investments. And this is nothing new for the economic cycle goes through boom and bust every seven to ten years making fortunes at one time and destroying them at other times.
However, men believe that wealth gives you the power to be able to rise above the problems and issues of the world.
How wrong he is.
The coronavirus is not the only virus we have to confront we also have to confront capitalism and the world that sustains it.
Climate Change was not enough to make the world pause.
The challenge man faces is that we think only of the here and now.
We now have a moment to consider what a rapid response to the climate emergency would look like – how we build a society that completely transforms our social order towards something that is in equilibrium with the biosphere and gives to each according to their needs.
But will more sustainable capitalism emerge from Covid-19 highly unlikely as the protection of private interest over public interest remains the same?
What the coronavirus has and is showing is that our cheapskate governments can provide far more in social programmes than they have.
While none of us can predict the future let’s hope that this time the penny drops.
The risks of Covid – 19 are now but the risks of climate change with the clock ticking needs us to wake up before the alarm goes off.
It’s not science, not protest, that will save the planet. Science alerted us to global warming but understand the nature of the world is crucial to dealing with it.
Everything has a function and our function is to fit into our world and not divorce ourselves from nature.
With the age of technology and its Algorithms working themselves into everything relentless, enabling profits to disappear far from the trickle-down effect the coronavirus is revealing heroes and villains across the world.
The markets might be paralysed with numerous industries entering a state of suspended animation the environment is getting a recovery period.
Covid -19 is showing us that on the horizon, capitalism in its current form threatens value. It is built on the premise of instant gratification.
Many businesses today are aware of this failing in mankind and play to it to great effect encouraging us to insure ourselves against the cost of living and dying but we are now trading for time and for eternity.
The corona-virus is certainly a much greater reward than the fleeting pleasures of this life.
The new WFH world that emerges from this will be intriguing – Universal Basic Income.
STOP DESTROYING OUR PLANET: It’s no secret that our planet is in a pretty dire condition.
The problem is a massive one.
It’s so big that there are things that you do every day that are helping to bring about the end of the world, and chances are that you might not even know it.
Here are a few.
China produces a whopping 80 billion disposable chopsticks every year. The vast majority are used—and thrown away—That kind of production takes 20 million trees, and not just any trees.
Estrogen, one of the active ingredients in birth control pills and hormone therapy treatments, was introduced into a freshwater lake research facility in Ontario.
The impact was almost immediate. Male fish first began producing egg proteins and then producing eggs.
Wastewater treatment and its impact on freshwater ecosystems.
Hormones that aren’t absorbed or used end up in the sewer system after they cycle through the human body. In areas where sewer water is dumped into lakes and rivers, the average fish population is about 85 per cent female. The cause has been traced back to the release of improperly treated wastewater that contains hormones from hormone therapy drugs and birth control pills. A stark contrast to the normal 55 per cent. Fish exposed to the hormones not only lose the ability to reproduce, but their accidental hormone treatment impacts eggs at the development stage as well.
Prozac. Might have something to do with the decline in the starling population over the last few decades—to the tune of about 50 million birds.
Drinking straws.
The United States alone uses about 500 million drinking straws made from a polypropylene plastic that doesn’t disintegrate or dissolve.
These millions of straws are around forever, making up a huge part of the estimated 12 to 24 tons of plastic that end up ingested by fish and other marine wildlife every year. And that includes about one million seabirds that die after eating plastics. One of the most common items found in autopsies? The drinking straws that come attached to juice boxes.
Eating frogs.
The fungus that’s being spread by the live food trade is different than one that’s being blamed for most of the recent die-offs.
The consequences of the fungus and its ability to hybridize create the potential to unleash an epidemic across the globe.
Antibacterial soaps, washing liquids/tablets use triclocarban and triclosan, chemicals while most of those chemicals are removed from wastewater when they’re run through a treatment plant, they have to go somewhere. When triclocarban degrades, it degrades into two chemicals—both carcinogens.
When triclosan is run through a treatment plant to make drinking water, it doesn’t exactly make safe drinking water. Instead, it makes other chemicals that can include chloroform. And those chemicals travel through the food chain in plants, animals, and ultimately humans.
Farm-raised fish.
Shrimp aquaculture has resulted in the large-scale degradation of coastal areas, the destruction of wetlands, and salinization of freshwater areas and drinking water. Salmon farming relies on the release of fish food and nutrients into the water, which always results in wasted feed and a huge amount of fish droppings in the water
Extra waste products end up sinking to the bottom where they react with the medicines and other nutrients used to keep the fish healthy along with antifoulant agents used to keep nets clean. That means fish farms are a breeding ground for sea lice, which are as disgusting as they sound. More chemicals are used to control the sea lice, which end up killing the other marine life that was supposed to be in the area in the first place.
Not the eco-friendly choice you’d think.
Soybeans 80 per cent of the world’s soy production goes into livestock feed.
1.2 million hectares of soy was planted in Brazil’s rain forest in 2005 alone.
Global food waste.
Every year, global food waste amounts to about 1.3 billion tons, and that’s such a big number that it’s impossible to imagine. Meanwhile, about 870 million people are starving.
Inequality: Lack of Healthcare, Nutrition and Education.
We all know that the world’s richest 1 per cent, those with more than $1 million, own 44 per cent of the world’s wealth. In many countries, a decent education or quality healthcare has become a luxury only the rich can afford.
Being poor all too often means more sickness and an earlier grave.
The story of inequality in many developed countries, including the U.S. and U.K., is more sobering. However, when you are born in a poor place where every tenth child dies, as the well-to-do’s share of the national economic pie surges, a pandemic is a joke.
So what can be done to right this unsettling imbalance and restore a sense of opportunity for the billions of people who are being excluded from the gains of economic development?
The first and most important step may ultimately be recognizing the scope and scale of the problems caused by inequality in the first place and resolving to do something about them.
Inequality is out of control with the human costs devastating.
Like many other environmental problems, there’s absolutely no easy answer but it is time we opened our eyes.
Ironically, with the coming economic collapse due to the coronavirus, we might finally be recognizing inequality’s great economic costs may be just the motivation that financial interests need to take the issue seriously.
Its not Amazon fortune and power that will grow exponentially.
The growing gap between rich and poor is undermining the fight against poverty, damaging our economies and tearing our societies apart.
If not with climate change added to next pandemic it won’t be the virus that kills you but the influx of refugees.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
I know that humans are the only type of species that are suitable to manage the earth but it does not make them the right species!
Apparently not.
Did we ever think that we would be living in a world where it is life-threatening to go our side and I am not talking about terrorists or any other Hollywood science fiction movie scenario?
There’s a lot of bad news out there but this is not a death sentence.
It’s time to save the world. ” We can use it as we wish”
No one owns the earth. No one has the right to do whatever they want.
We’re not the only thing that lives here, nor are we more important in any way.
We cannot use the world as we please as our actions are endangering not just us but other species.
Our Earth was meant to be lived on in union with its Ecosystems and we cannot allow that to be broken.
The Coronavirus ( Covid 19 ) is illuminating what is wrong with our world.
So our most crucial life questions are:
What Kind of World Do We Want to Leave to Our Children?
Whatever your interest — whether it’s the environment, health care, poverty, or education — there are simple steps each of us can take to make life better not just for someone in our own community.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” now needs an Earth Declaration.
Here are the top six of my non-legal binding the goals.
Use Global Warming to Solve Global Warming.
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts to protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, and halt biodiversity loss.
Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development.
Sustainable Development Goals which will take years for a critical mass of governments to actually rally behind.
The allocation of resources to fight climate change and other environmental issues over the next decade can be achieved by making a profit for profit sake pay. ( See the previous post on a 0.05% World Aid Commission. How it could be implemented so the costs are spread fairly)
End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Global poverty. Reduce inequality within and among countries. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Expand access to clean drinking water, green energy.
Artificial Intelligence and Automation.
The 2020s sounds like such a radical futuristic decade however to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development requires a coherent and plausible conception of social justice. Abasic income, a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement.
Stop the sale of arms.
The estimate of the total value of the global arms trade in 2017 was at least $95 billion.* However, the true figure is likely to be higher. On any given day at any given moment in your life, there are at least 15 wars and armed conflicts actively going on all around the world — even if you’re only hearing about a few of them on the news.
There are an estimated 11-12 million refugees in the world today with between 12-24 million Internally Displaced Persons.
Electoral Reform with Citizens’ Assemblies.
These aren’t just focus groups or consultations though but for the members to engage in serious, informed reflection on important policy matters with people they may never normally meet.
As Hubert Reeves ( Canadian-French Astrophysicist) say’s, ” Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and Destroys a Visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshipping “
Feel free to have idea sex between your ideas and mine so we can come up with even better ideas. It’s a way of saying: “We agree that these are the world’s top priorities right now.”
NO MATTER HOW MUCH THE TRUTH IS HIDDEN BEHIND LIES IT EVENTUALLY BURST THROUGH AND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT TRUTH WILL REVILE THE FELICE OF CAPITALISM SYSTEMS WHICH ARE THE CURRENT MARAIDIME OF OUR TIMES.…
The eco of our origins is being heard in as much that we can’t continue living in abstract economic systems with limitless consumerism. Where everything that we consume is filmed while everything we rely on life is not.
When now the unconscious world is surging up the powerlessness of the market is evident to all: The global financial system is already insolvent.
Where is the bottom? There is no bottom.
Everyone expecting the economics and financial markets to magically return to January 2020 levels once the pandemic dies down is delusional.
We are all connected to one another whether its an Airline or an Individual. The rules of capitalism have to be suspended and help given to all.
There is no place for Governments loans to get through this.
Loans must still be serviced or paid off, and if the borrowers default, then the losses must be absorbed by the lenders or taxpayers.
This is the time to introduce a National basic income to one and all. ( We don’t need the virus to tell or see this – Stay at home – AI Automation – Wifi you name it)
Up to now, one could argue that everything we do is to secure our future as a species, but for the last thousand year, we have become more and more out of touch with NATURE AND OUR OWN NATURE.
So what does the future hold in terms of how humans will evolve?
During our first four billion years we made very little progress in terms of social or technological advancements. It took over a billion years to transfer from one basic stone tool to the next. Today our brains still cannot visualize dark matter or dark energy that makes up over 90% of our universe.
And that is with brains about the same size as those that used stone tools.
However, as we PAVE THE WAY TO OUR SELF DESTRUCTION IN A WORLD OF MATERIALISTIC PARADIGM our behaviour is now unrecognisable.
One of the possibilities of human evolution is that we are done evolving.
Another possibility is the exact opposite: we are still changing.
Survival of the fittest can’t operate if the “less fit” are helped to survive. So it’s no surprise that much technological advancement is currently aimed at the human body.
For those of us that survive this current threating world Pandemic, we are going to see a fundamental change to society – SELF ACTUALIZATION.
We have invested so much in self-destruction our perception of reality relies on the filter of our minds that have been educated not to value the planet we all live on but to use in for Profit.
When those filters are dulled by psychedelics we see the true nature of reality.
God forbid we don’t learn the lessons of values.
Biological evolution relies on mutations as a source of new characteristics and involves much longer time periods of a Pandemic.
WHAT IS THE VALUE OF A NATION IF WHEN NATURE SURGES BACK IT FALLS APART?
Where the panic lands will determine our future – Toilet Paper or the Gun.
The quest for the single explanation that could unite all the observed forces at play in our universe must leave the arena of religion and spirituality and become the search for the Unified Field Theory.
Perhaps we need a Shaman. One who mediates between the visible world of form and matter, and the invisible world of energy and spirits. For the shaman, there is no supernatural world. Only the natural world exists, with its visible and invisible dimensions.
The shaman is dedicated to service to her community, whereas the mystic is dedicated to dwelling on her own experience of the divine, and lets the world unfold as it may.
When a person regains health after being near death, it is believed by some that they have a special ability to overcome hardships and they can help others do so as well, and so are looked at as a shaman.
It is better to classify shamanism among the mysticisms than among the religions of the world.
Today many of us feel compelled to describe our art and practice using the language of quantum physics, I believe that doing so actually devalues the 50,000-plus year tradition of shamanism.
Therianthropes are found among all religious theology with their visions based in shamanism.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
I am no scientist but it is obvious that you don’t rely on the very deadly infectious agent to create an immune population by allowing it to grow exponentially.
Viruses have host-pathogen interactions. They increase their diffusion rates, which creates opportunities for new host-virus encounters.
We are under environmental change and this virus might be the first associated with the ecosystem. The environment creates a disease triangle, animals, plants, humans, three-way interactions or hyperlinks driven by intraspecific competition.
So warm weather as we know kills off the flue till it returns in another form.
The transmissibility of COCID_19 is much greater and it is not clear what effect temperature and humidity will have on this virus.
My understanding of a virus is that it lies low in the long tall grass till its behavioural fatigue is understood.
Without strong guidance institutions and citizens will begin to make there own decisions.
This is not a time to create stamping herds however if your planning to practice social distancing your first thought turn to food.
Remember that online shopping and its delivery pass through multiple handling, so wash your hands before picking up the delivery and after.
Wash everything packeted or not.
Precaution, not panic.
Don’t believe sensational Tabloid News paper head lines.
The Evening Standard newspaper has a headline that states “the residents in Los Angeles are flocking to buy arms.”
History has taught us that Society is capable of both untold horrors and inspiring resolve.
That said watch Sovereign wealth funds the hyena of the world economy gobble, the roadkill.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
With all aspects of our life made into a form of viewing entertainment. We live in a world that has become desensitized.
The result is that most if not all of us pay little attention to the state of Earth.
The drawn-out nature of many crises now facing us all underscores the importance of coming together to urgently resolve the root causes of a humanitarian crisis.
It is unlikely the situation will improve.
Where do you even start? Which issues are the most urgent?
So this post is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Rather, it serves as an overview of some of the major issues all global citizens should be aware of.
Sometimes it can seem as though there are too many – from climate change to inequality around the world, too many people living without access to medical care its not worth knowing.
But just in case here is why we are in such a mess.
12.9% of the world is undernourished, about 30% of the adult population is overweight.
Conflict continues to drive displacement and food insecurity but communicable diseases are still responsible for 71% of deaths.
The international community, and in particular wealthy nations, are failing to meaningfully share the responsibility for protecting people who have fled their homes in search of safety.
25.9 million refugees globally — the highest level ever recorded
Half of the world’s refugees are children
A third of refugees — 6.7 million people — is hosted by the world’s poorest countries
Driven by nearly two decades of conflict and political instability; 9.4 million Afghans (25 per cent of the population) need humanitarian assistance. There are almost 2.5 million registered Afghan refugees living outside the country.
4.6 million Venezuelans have fled the country as of November 2019.
There are over 2 million displaced Nigerians.
Eleven million Syrians (65 per cent of the population) are in need of humanitarian assistance.
The Democratic Republic of Congo 15.9 million people require humanitarian assistance.
Over 24 million Yemenis (80 per cent of the population) are in need of humanitarian assistance,
South Sudan 7.5 million people need humanitarian assistance.
600 million children are not mastering basic mathematics and literacy while at school.
Forests are key to producing the air we breathe, yet these are being depleted at a rate of 26 million hectares every year.
Extinctions are happening at what scientists estimate to be about 1,000 times the normal pace. Not only are we losing flora and fauna, but we are also damaging our ecosystems, and throwing them out of balance
Our oceans are under threat.
Sand and gravel are now the most-extracted materials in the world, exceeding fossil fuels and biomass.
Climate change is another issue.
There is actually not enough fresh water for each person currently living on the planet.
Population growth. The number of people on the planet is set to rise to 9.7 billion in 2050 with 2 billion aged over 60.
More than 61 million jobs have been lost since the start of the global economic crisis in 2008, leaving more than 200 million people unemployed globally.
With 43% of the world’s population connected to the internet, regulatory frameworks are unable to keep up.
In this complex moment in history, in which so many are suffering and the Earth itself is in peril
The cloud of nuclear destruction hangs over each of our days.
But the question remains what kind of society do we want to have?
The reasons behind current trends are many and complex.
The detail of the information that we are beginning to capture about our world is mind-blowing. The granularity of the data we are beginning to collect through advances in technology. While improving our lives through cleaner energy sources, personalized nanomedicine and nano-engineered materials.
In all of these areas, progress will undoubtedly lead to a reduction in conventional jobs and inequality on a global scale not seen before.
But technology alone can not break the self-reinforcing mechanism that causes poverty to persist.
As highly innovative products emerging will, however, promote inequality if only a few have access to this new technology and the knowledge to master it.
Education is probably the single most important tool for turning technology into an engine for opportunities for all.
Public policies, which are currently mainly focused on fostering economic growth, should focus on providing further opportunities, less inequality and a more sustainable economic, social and environmental future.
Technology is not the solution but it is, for sure, a powerful tool towards achieving this ambitious objective.
Whether it’s turning promises on climate change into action, rebuilding trust in the financial system, or connecting the world to the internet there is an overall lack of long-term investment, which has serious implications for global growth.
But the most astonishing canvas is right in front of us if only we would listen with our ear to the earth we might see the light we cannot see.
In short, the world urgently needs a new, global plan based on genuine international cooperation and a meaningful and fair sharing of responsibilities.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Although climate change undoubtedly posed an “existential threat to our world” it is not too late to take decisive action.
So far we had the Cop-out 15 to Cop 25, the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 the Paris Agreement in December 2015 and now the 2020 United Nations climate change conference in Glasgow.
As you know dealing with climate change will require coordinated action by nations around the world.
Up to this point what we have seen are countries and industries trying to gut, block or water down all efforts, in a rearguard manoeuvre that mirrors President Donald Trump’s rollback of climate policy in Washington.
24 million people were displaced by weather-related disasters this year.
As climate change begins to alter patterns of disasters, we can imagine these figures will get worse. Understand how changing weather patterns and disasters will alter patterns of migration. This will be both difficult and almost impossible to predict.
Reduction of carbon emissions has no chance of being reached through a voluntary cap and trade system utilizing the free market system. Why would countries strongly enforce caps and targets on their emissions if it puts them at a competitive disadvantage in the market place?
The fact is that if we are to save the planet from a devastating ecological meltdown, it is going to require an immediate and I mean immediate, reduction in greenhouse gases.
We must abandon the absurd notion that the invisible hand of the free market system will solve the crisis.
Why?
Because a market-driven voluntary system will not work.
Because they are traded for huge profits. There is no baseline from which true carbon reductions can be measured, verification is lacking.
Because it is cheaper to pollute and buy credits than it is to change production processes.
It is totally unrealistic to believe that carbon reductions on a large scale can be attained unless mandatory reductions are implemented and a full scale global.
While rewarding carbon-reducing technologies makes sense we will only be able to take worthwhile actions if they are funded by a self-perpetuating fund with outright non-repayable subsidies.
However, I don’t have to tell you that when it comes down to the wire as who and how we are going to fund the way forward to tackle fairly any actions the simple answer is that we do not have enough time to haggle about it.
It can be achieved tomorrow by placing a 0.005% commission on all world activities that seek profit for profit sake. ( See previous posts)
The world stock markets are 99% run by high-frequency algorithms. Exploiting market conditions that can’t be detected by the human eye.
Of course, this begs an important question will such a commission affect the free market and can it be applied worldwide.
Yes to both.
It will not be climate change that creates another refugee crisis.
Rather, it will be the attempts to stop this migration that will be creating a crisis.
Climate change will not wait. Neither can we for climate refugees.
Regardless of how fast we cut emissions, we are going to see more and more people on the move and there is no single global agreement that can be signed and ratified to change this fact.
Most of what you know about climate-linked migration is probably wrong.
We all know that climate change is the unpredictable ingredient in our rapidly changing world – and it’s potential to trigger both violent conflict and mass migration – needs to be considered as an urgent priority for policymakers.
As its effects spread, it will destabilise entire economies and overwhelm poorer countries lacking resources and infrastructure.
When added to existing social, economic and political tensions, it has the potential to ignite violence and conflict with disastrous consequences.
You cannot strike a bargain with Climate.
The choice faced by politicians and all of us is not about how to prevent climate-linked migration.
That possibility is gone, several decades ago.
There is now a stark choice between two very different options:
One: Trying to stop people from moving—which will lead to something that looks like a crisis—or helping people migrate out of the most badly hit areas.
Two: Is to facilitate climate-linked migration in a legal and organised way.
Support for migrants and refugees is at an all-time low. People are already using migration as a way of adapting climate change, with little or no help.
When migration isn’t illegal there is no need to do it secretly. No need for traffickers and smugglers. And no need for migrants to hide as soon as they arrive.
There is no simple law that could be passed that would “fix” climate-linked migration.
The problem is this won’t stop people moving so we need to start by defining exactly what a climate refugee is.
Droughts, hurricanes, floods and sea-level rise are all forcing people to move but picking out one group of people to call “climate refugees” is very difficult.
WHY?
Political responses to climate-linked migration are complicated, and it’s a field where the answers are often not simple.
Because if climate change plays a role in displacement it becomes difficult to draw the line.
What do we know about the links between climate change and conflict?
Climate-linked migration is very often from rural areas into cities.
So if the seas do rise to the predicted levels and people move within there own countries they will not be refugees climate or otherwise.
To be a refugee you have to have crossed an international border which is part of the official definition of what makes someone a refugee. But, as the impacts of climate change worsen, more people will want to migrate across borders.
Therefore there is only one course of action and that is to open approved channels into the EU and other world nations in order to determine who is a genuine refugee and who is not.
Few politicians will risk making bold statements about making provision for more people. Climate change is also a low priority for electorates in developed countries.
This is the climate crisis, not the coronavirus. tomorrow is too late.
These changes cannot take place tomorrow. They should have been implemented yesterday!
Capitalism caused the problem now it should pay to resolve it.
Climate change is unequivocal, that we are responsible, and that our choices before us matter”.
We were never going to get there in one go unless we spread the cost in a way that is acceptable to one and all.
Most of us struggle with seeing things from a different perspective but our perception of how the world is changing matters for what we believe is possible in the future.
So the purpose of this post is an attempt to take the complexity of the world and simplify it into some sort of graphic that will either help you understand it or motivate you to do something differently.
Dire predictions for the future are nothing new. There is a connection between our perception of the past and our hope for the future.
When one considers our world from a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
The state of the world today with Social media and profit-seeking algorithms is one of distrust. There are things that are certain in this world and there are lots of uncertainty attached to many things. Sometimes the only way to understand the world at its extremes is to put it in terms we use every day.
The fact is that at least two of the world’s largest powers have been at war with each other more than 50% of the time since about 1500.
The only problem we have here is us and therefore we cannot kill our way to a solution.
The Earth is about 3.5 million times larger than a human.
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
Here’s what we’ve got.
We see our earth as big, and in a relative way, it is.
There are about 7 billion people currently on Earth. Over its existence, around 106 billion people have lived on Earth.
It exists on a blue dot, 24,901 miles in circumference that is over 4 1/2 billion years old, weighing in a 13,170,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 pounds (or 5,974,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms)
(Since Earth is too big to be placed on a scale, scientists use mathematics and the laws of gravity to figure out Earth’s weight.)
It has a solid iron ball in the middle that is 1,500 miles wide.
It makes up about 0.0003% of the total mass of our solar system.
75% of the Earth is covered in water only 2.5 per cent of it is fresh essential for producing food, clothing, and computers, moving our waste stream, and keeping us and the environment healthy.
About 321 billion gallons per day of surface water is used by humans.
Humans who are just 0.01% of all life have destroyed 83% of wild mammals.
Plants overshadow everything, representing 82% of all living matter. All other creatures, from insects to fungi, to fish and animals, make up just 5% of the world’s biomass.
It takes light a little over 8 light-minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth and it can circle our planet about seven and a half times in a single second.
Our closest star is Proxima Centauri at a distance of four light-years.
The Milky Way itself is about 100,000 light-years across and is home to about 400 billion stars.
(A light-year is the distance light travels in one Earth year. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles (9 trillion km). That is a 6 with 12 zeros behind it!)
According to the Big bang theory which happened about 13.7 billion years ago all the matter in the universe came into existence at the same time.
So anything can serve as a symbol as long as it refers to something beyond itself.
In our daily activities to give such things more than a passing glance.
However, our planet only seems large until we take a look at the rest of the cosmos around us.
Where do start? Its age., its place in the cosmic, or it’s future.
“Statistical facts don’t come to people naturally. Quite the opposite.
We’re visual creatures.
So perhaps a sense of scale might help.
Let’s start with a few comparisons
Life on Earth first emerged about 600 million years and we are the first generations whose decisions will determine for good or ill the future of human life on this planet, and we seem stuck in a way of thinking that is obsolete in a globalized world of growing populations. The widespread ignorance about these truly important changes in the world feeds into a general discontent about how the world is changing.
To our brains, a million, billion, and trillion all seem like large, vague numbers.
Today (January 2020) Bill Gates fortune amounts to around $108,5 billion around 0.5% of the GDP of the United States. By the time I complete this post, $1436400 amount will be added to his net worth and is predicted to hit the trillion mark by the age of 86.
If you are one of the so-called “rich” and you were lucky enough to make a million dollars per year, it would take you almost 80,000 YEARS to catch up.
We share the Earth with an estimated 1 quadrillion ants. Insects outweigh us by a factor of 17.
For every human, there are about one million ants and the total weight termites are more than the weight of all the humans in the world. They alone make up 10% of all animal biomass and 95% of soil and insect biomass in tropical regions.
Bacteria were one of the first life forms to appear on Earth, about 3.8 billion years ago, and they will most likely survive long after humans are gone.
The number of bacteria on our planet is estimated to be five million trillion trillion – that’s a five with 30 zeroes after it.
All the bacteria on Earth combined are about 1,166 times more massive than all the humans. For every human walking over the face of the planet.
Bacteria are the huddled masses of the microbial world, performing tasks that include everything from causing diseases to fixing nitrogen in the soil.
The number of bacteria makes the globe’s human population look downright puny.
Because the number of bacteria is so large, events that would occur once in 10 billion years in the laboratory would occur every second somewhere on the Earth.
We may have been underestimating our own humanness for the past several decades when it comes to Bacteria. The average human has over 100 trillion microbes in and on their body microbial cells outnumber human cells in your body by a ratio of around 10:1.
Our modus operandi was to kill them, rather than synchronize with them.
Bills and coins are the best way to transfer bacteria between people worldwide;
The debate over the microbiome will rage on, as the fear of the invisible and little understood will drive the masses in the short-term.
It is a fact that bacteria live in a whole series of worlds which stretch our imagination, be it the clouds in the sky, an Antarctic ice flow, a 100 degree C hot sulphur spring, 10 km down at the bottom of the sea, 1500 m below the surface of the earth in solid rock, in a rotting peach, in the roots of plants, the stomachs of animals and even your mouth, bacteria can be found there.
The vast majority of life is land-based and a large chunk – an eighth – is bacteria buried deep below the surface but bacteria also now found circling the Earth in the most upper layers of our atmosphere.
Recent findings on animal-bacteria interactions will likely require biologists to significantly alter their view of the fundamental nature of the entire biosphere.
“And that’s the way it is.”
My preference would be to avoid mentioning any ratio at all – you don’t need to it convey the importance of the microbiome.
Some 70 per cent of the global consumption of the drugs are used in animal and fish farming and to spray on crops.
Antibiotics in the environment do not do any good, they only contribute to risks which we are now witnessing with the Coronavirus. A rapidly spreading virus that is establishing itself across the world through international travel, trade and tourism.
We are now living in a bacterial world, and it’s impacting us more than
previously thought. No matter what process you think you are studying, you
must look for and consider a major role for bacteria.
The World Bank has estimated that drug-resistant infections could cost the world economy $1 trillion every year after 2030.
By 2050 costing the world around $100 trillion in lost output: more than the size of the current world economy, and roughly equivalent to the world losing the output of the UK economy every year, for 35 years not to mention killing an extra 10 million people across the world every year.
Back to earth.
This is what a quadrillion looks like written out: 1,000,000,000,000,000.
If it survives us it has 6.5 billion years before the sun (which is 92,960,000 miles away) about 109 times larger than the earth. That means you could fit around 1.3 million earth’s inside the sun which is actually considered a dwarf star — By contrast, UY Scuti is the largest star we humans are aware of; it is a hypergiant around 1.7 billion miles in diameter. UY Scuti is around 5 billion times larger than our sun.
Its no wonder we a pixel.
The diameter of our solar system is around 5,580,000,000,000 miles — that is, about five and a half trillion miles across. Expanding outward from here, we have to start talking about things in terms of light-years, as the scale is just too massive to discuss in miles. (One light-year is about 6 trillion miles (9 trillion km).
Our Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 light-years in diameter of which since the dawn of man we have observed the equivalent of the top of rubber on a pencil.
This is about one 24-millionth of the entire night sky visible from earth.
The diameter of the observable universe is estimated at about 28 billion parsecs (93 billion light-years).
Ok, the numbers are pretty hard to comprehend even when you know what each unit represents. To even think of how long 10 trillion kilometres might be, let alone 93 billion times that distance, can cause your brain to hurt.
Earth, in turn, is nothing more than a molecule in the incomprehensibly vast cosmic ocean.
Without a global jurisdiction, no government can enforce any kind of coherent rights doctrine, particularly in the face of borderless problems like terrorism or environmental crisis.
It is up to the people of earth to dissolve the strains between each-other in an equitable, harmonious way.
The planet you were born on is dying.
We’re on a timeline that leaves little space for politicians to gamble. This is a world that requires nations, corporations and individuals to think not in terms of quarterly reports or midterm elections, but in decades.
For transformative change to be possible, we sometimes need marginalized peoples to speak out, in a loud voice, against the status quo.
The guardians for future generations, representing the children of 2050, can be that voice that says we are spending too much on conflict and too little on peace.
Thus as Irving John Good said, “The survival of man depends on the early construction of an ultra-intelligent machine.”
“The first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.”
If I took a personal guess the way we are going there will be no need for such an intelligent machine as there will be nothing to be intelligent with.
ALL HUMAN COMMENTS APPRECIATED. ALL LIKE CLICKS AND ABUSE CHUCKED IN THE BIN.
The plain truth can often be so obvious as to be invisible.
There are so many obstacles to change on the scale we so desperately need.
We are fast reaching a point that no humans can or will be able to understand the world we live in.
We pass this way just once.
Artificial algorithms are taking over.
Yuval Noah Harari in his latest book ( 21 lessons for the 21st Century) puts his finger on the problem.
” In the coming century biotech and infotech will give us the power to manipulate the world inside us and reshape ourselves, but because we don’t understand our own minds, the changes we will make might upset our mental system to such an extent that it too might brake down.
Surely its time we stop being the free fodder that feds big data. It’s much harder to struggle against irrelevance than against exploitation.
What will be the point to education if algorithms make us redundant?
It is difficult to discern world-wise whether there is any sincere conversation on AI Ethics.
Is it being addressed by any of the big tech companies or are they just giving token nods to what is right or wrong, while taking advantage of all human beings out there?
Are there just pushback from the outside organisations.
What we are witnessing is their profit growth with economic disparity worldwide increases at a starting rate. This certainly rings true if one looks at the state of the world with people judged by their wealth.
So what is the ethics of creating a sentient life form on a planet that is burning?
Perhaps it will be for the best if we continue not to understand the planet we all live on and leave it to AI to sort us out.
Or can we now start contributing to better governance solutions?
If we don’t grasp the nettle soon there will be no coming back.
To have any relevance now and in the future, we need billions to take to the streets to demand the sustainability of our planet (Human vote with their feet, not Social media) before profit-making goes underground.
When it comes to making the world a better place, corporations are often accused of apathy (the flip-side of blind self-interest). But if consumers are truly committed to social change, they must answer the same challenge.
If we can get consumers to make mindful shopping choices, to support brands that act responsibly and to purchase goods from those that dedicate a portion of the sale proceeds to causes, we are well on our way to re-purposing everyday purchases.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
We are the first generation to know we’re destroying the world, and we could be the last that can do anything about it.
SO AS IF YOU DON’T ALREADY KNOW WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE HERE IS YOUR CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
We need to recognize that everything we do, every step we take, every sentence we write, every word we speak—or don’t speak—counts. Nothing is trivial.
Take personal responsibility.
We need to use social media – this is one of the most effective ways to get brands to listen to you, so tell them that you want a change.
Why?
Because, unfortunately, the politicians who dominate the world stage are, depressingly, mostly cut from the old cloth, and the leadership challenges they face, are particularly complex and will require different skills — notably a clearer vision among leaders of organisation’s shared purpose.
Because the digital revolution is far from over the pace of change only seems to be quickening when in fact it is causing isolation.
Because, we are allowing non-regulated large technology platforms to become too powerful, using their size to dominate markets and we are not paying enough attention to how the tools they create can be used for ill – like device addictions, as we drown in notifications and false news feed posts.
Because there is an increasing imperative for all of us to respond to climate change. Which will and is challenging our lives developing on a daily bases right in front of our eyes into our biggest need to act as one.
How can any of this be achieved?
How will the changing political, economic and environmental landscapes shape the world?
Don’t get caught up in the how of things. Don’t wait for things to be right in order to begin.
Because in our age of tectonic geopolitical shifts, “alternative facts,” and conflicting narratives, our routine everyday life is losing sight of our true goals and aspirations.
Because with the rise of short-sighted populism we will solve nothing, other than feeding the great unwashed with short term gratification.
We need to write a piece of software that eliminated malware, viruses and all of that crap.
We need to show our political leaders that they want to change, to understand our common humanity.
We need to try to put yourself into another person’s headspace and accept people for who they are and what their beliefs are.
We need to collaborate and push for policies that complement both sides of the political spectrum.
We need to make wasting our resources unacceptable in all aspects of our life. Every product we buy has an environmental footprint and could end up in a landfill. The impact of plastic pollution on our oceans is becoming increasingly clear, having drastic impacts on marine life.
We need to be more conscious about what we buy, and where we buy it from. Living a less consumerist lifestyle can benefit you and our planet.
We need to use our purchasing power and make sure our money is going towards positive change.
We need to realize that what we eat contributes around a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions and is responsible for almost 60% of global biodiversity loss.
We need to be supporting eco-friendly products.
We need to try to waste as little food as possible, and compost the organic waste we can’t eat.
We need to make education free for all. Start educating not for profit but for a better understanding of what is the common values of life.
We need to stop asking the world’s smartest scientists to find us more time and to reverse gravity’s effect on our lives.
We need to stop killing each other. Countries start wars and people die and more people are in poverty.
We need to create out of profit for profit sake a World Aid fund with perpetual funding. (See previous posts) A new nonprofit called Carbon Offsets to alleviate address Climate change and Poverty.
We need to realize that all significant change throughout history has occurred not because of nations, armies, governments and certainly not committees. They happened as a result of the courage and commitment of individuals. Believe that you can and will make a difference.
The genesis for change is awareness so I need to stop.
This year will not only be another opportunity for the leading minds in media in all its forms to highlight consumption for consumption sake.
However, if they wanted to spread a message that helps us all they would ban advertising that promotes consumption for consumption sake/profit.
Feel free to add your priorities. With rapid innovations in technology and open access to data its no longer “wait and see.” We need to stop the huge feeling of apathy.
The coming year, let alone the next decade looks unpredictable.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
