What does it mean to live a finite, fragile life in an infinite, eternal universe? (Brian Cox)
We are definitely physically insignificant; the Earth is one planet around one star among 400 billion stars in one galaxy among two trillion galaxies in a small patch of the universe. The very matter that makes us up was generated long ago and far away in red giant stars. Imagine there’s just us that think and can feel and, in a very real sense, bring meaning to the universe. The decisions that we make now as a civilization have galactic implications.
It’s only in the last less than a million years that we’ve had homo sapiens on Earth and in the last few tens of thousands of years that we’ve had a civilization. If we destroy ourselves, deliberately or through inaction, then it’s possible that we eliminate meaning, perhaps forever – we have a tremendous responsibility not to do that.
Carl Sagan says: We should make an easily understandable, achievable and inspiring goal for the human species and then set out and do it. Let’s make a planet in which nobody is starving. Let’s make a planet in which men and women have equal access to power. Let us make a planet in which no ethnic group has it over another ethnic group. Let’s have a planet in which science and engineering are used for the benefit of everybody on the planet.
You are composed of 84 minerals, 23 elements and 36.7 litres of water distributed among 38 trillion cells. You have been built out of nothing by the spare parts of the Earth that you have consumed, according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix and small enough to be carried by a sperm. You are made of recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf skins, and shark teeth decomposed into their smallest parts and reconstructed into the most complete living being on our planet.
You are not living on Earth; you are the Earth – author unknown.
What can you do?
* Be brave – remember what stuff we are made of and what we can achieve when we put our minds and hearts into something.
* Donate – time, skills, ideas, objects, plants, money, love, hope
* Volunteer – conservancies, animal shelters, NGOs, service clubs
* Share – Each one Teach one
1) RETHINK! Be mindful of your consumption, your relationship with ‘things’ and your relationship with the Earth
2) REDUCE (use less), including meat: even if you have a meat-free Monday, it all makes a positive difference
3) REVERT – Try to use natural cleaning materials like vinegar and bicarb, or ‘eco’ products, wherever possible
4) RE-USE (buy durable things that can be used over and over)
5) RECYCLE (put as little dangerous stuff into the Earth as possible) and reduce the need to keep producing it
6) REFUSE – don’t consume what you don’t need to
7) REPAIR – fix or upgrade your objects rather than throwing them away
8) RE-GIFT – share and be a part of the gift economy
9) RECOVER energy and materials and upcycle
10) REMOVE AIP’s Alien Invasive Plants and replace with indigenous plants and trees
HAVE YOUR SAY
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