- iaindryden1
Tropical nights
Adrenaline is amazing stuff. Last night our house was partially flooded due to my not being fit enough to sweep autumnal leaves from our courtyard. Despite my condition, we worked flat out for an hour and all was contained, but as soon as we stopped the adrenaline drained away and I was shattered. Sadly, other poor souls down the hill weren’t as fortunate - unthoughtful cars splashed waves of water through their front doors.
For hours tropical loads of water fell from the sky. This isn’t England - our roofs show it - they don’t overhang walls as much as those in French and tropical houses, (a fact which created other problems for us last night). This historical architectural feature is a pointer -the Climate has Changed.
Despite our governments going ‘Blah blah blah’ yet secretly doing deals with CO2 heavy industry, it is up to us to act, although it really isn’t our fault. Well, it is partly, we’ve been hoodwinked - lead down the lane because we were not fully aware/awake. But then that wasn’t really our fault either. They educated us from infancy to be cogs in the system they devised and to be pawns in the economic game they play out over our heads.
You’re a little lost? Well, consider these two facts.
One. The processed food most people in richer countries buy because it saves slogging in the kitchen at the end of a tough day, is addictive. A highly intelligent English doctor recently underwent a dangerous experiment - changing his eating habits from a healthy plant rich, home cooked one to convenience foods. Within a few days he was addicted to the stuff which has specific mixes of chemicals to make it super tasty. He continued for only a month, but at the end of it, comparing brain-scans before and after, he was shocked to discover, he who had had no previous tendency towards addiction, even mildly, now has powerful addictive pathways permanently set in his brain. Junk food chains you to junk food after just two weeks! Add to this my main point - processed foods are incredibly environmentally and climatologically destructive due to their heavy chemical, carbon and physical footfall at all stages from growing to shop, which includes the story after we’ve stopped eating them - garbage, chemical break-down, pollution.
Two. The goods you buy are designed to make you buy them, and the hard things, such as phones, tablets and laptops are designed to draw you in to the maker’s specific systems so that your entire range of information and activity is locked in and so to shift to another system is far too much hassle, so you stay with those you know. All the things you do on these devices is harvested as data, so your personal life is the fuel by which global companies get richer and more powerful. Furthermore, they suck your attention in to their worlds, ensuring you stay attached to these enticing cyber places where consumer life is sold as a dreamland. You, as you buy what they prompt you to buy, are nothing but a cash crop to them. All your data is stored in vast electronic libraries which consume enormous amounts of energy, hence enhance Climate Change. On top of this, they ensure your device is obsolete within an ever shorter time, so you are forced to buy an upgrade to keep going. As happens with most of the goods they’ve got you to buy. This is highly destructive to the environment in general and to specify habitats where rare minerals are mined and all of this promotes global warming at every single stage.
Those enormous food, product and storage companies are bigger than governments. As big as that storm which hit our town last night. They are only concerned with profit, in other words, they harvest you to make themselves rich, which in turn destroys the world we love and creates tropical storms in Northern Europe. Our governments are their puppets, not our representatives.
You see, it’s not entirely your fault, but you can’t get off lightly - you do have choice. Go with the flow of destruction or jump out of this powerful world-wide slick stream to stand on your own (with the rest of us +++) and decide what you consume (local, low carbon footprint). Shift from dependence on these head-in-the-sand monsters to a realisation that our future depends on you (+++ us all). Try to manufacture contentment within, being at ease with yourself without the faux-props of junk food and consumer products. Oh how we turn to them! Still mostly bed bound, my lapdog is my toy, hence this blog and other such distractions - the French book now awaits editing…. you see, I’m as bad as….
Being self-motivated (+++) would be better for your body, your mind and the The Planet. Simple mathematics (+++ added to +++). But it takes being strong so dig deep and be proud to be yourself without props and act. Our governments are too slow (unless it benefits them personally, then they jump). They are too tied-in, too self-obsessed, too frightened to move. And businesses won’t, they only want profit.
In both cases, we are their cattle, so start mooing at them to change (my MP never responded). It really is up to us. Together, if we truly are together in action, we are more powerful than they who rely on exploiting us.