This little planet of ours

It could have all been so different, couldn’t it? We could have got along, we could have shared this beautiful home of ours and looked after it and listened to its needs. But we didn’t. We came up with the idea that some people were better than others, that some should have more power than others, that some people were merely born to serve the needs of others. We started wars because we wanted more. But why? What more is there? More land, more oil, more money. It’s certainly not more happiness, more contentment, more compassion. The people who work on our behalf – our governments – seem ever further away from us. living in their own bubbles. They claim they’re helping us, but only appear to be helping themselves. We have a global illness still sweeping the globe but some people are denying it even exists, that it’s a huge conspiracy. Yet people are still suffering. We have climate change, which some people are also denying. Okay, it might be part of the natural cycle and beyond our control, but the changes we are trying to make (renewable energy to replace dwindling oil reserves, finding alternatives to single-use – and possibly one day, all use – plastics, reducing our consumer desire to need the latest fashion or replacing our mobiles every year) are still important. Would there be less war without the need for oil, or for the rare metals used in mobile phones? What new industries would spring up to fill the plastic void? Could we find ways to feed those in poverty, in our own country as well as the drought-ridden countries of Africa? Could we, at some point, learn how to live on this planet and with each other?

Photo by NASA on Unsplash