I agree with you, Paul.
Thanks, Jess.
In the great scheme of things, I am not important, human life is not important, the planet will adjust itself and get on without me, but, I am important to me, my children and grandchildren are important to me, my friends and family are important to me, the culture associated with human civilization, our history, our writers, William Shakespeare, (come on William, don't be pressured by those Tudor propagandists ), and Jane Austen are important to me, our arts and everything about our lives here and now, are important to me.
I’m delighted to know that you’re not a nihilist, Jess.
Unlike Macbeth, who after hearing of his wife’s suicide, says that human life has no meaning or purpose and whose pessimism leads him to say that life itself is “but a walking shadow,” insubstantial, a nothing.
In a way, his speech could also possibly be seen as being rather defensive, even self-justifying, in that his crimes also “signify nothing.” (Which is open to argument, of course.)
If so, perhaps it’s also the approach taken by others who are, perhaps, presently unaware of the consequences of their deeds.
I recently came across a site (Countercurrents.org) in which
Mary Hamer deplores the way that the earth’s crust is being imperilled by the building of massive reservoirs, the injection of toxic and nuclear waste, underwater nuclear bomb tests on ocean sea beds, drilling to extract oil, fracking and the erection of immense skyscrapers.
The Taipei 101 tower, for instance, currently the tallest building on earth, with a weight of 700 thousand tons of steel and concrete, was constructed only 600 feet from an ancient fault line, and has, as reported in
The Guardian,
“raised concerns about similar man-made megastructures as it’s thought to have triggered two recent earthquakes because of the stress it exerts on the ground beneath.”
According to the geologist Cheng Horng Lin, from the National Taiwan Normal University, the stress from the skyscraper may have reopened an ancient earthquake fault.
Before the construction of Taipei 101, the Taipei basin was a very stable area with no active earthquake faults at the surface. Its earthquake activity was similar to parts of the UK, with micro-earthquakes (less than magnitude 2) happening about once a year.
However, once Taipei 101 started to rise from the ground, things changed. “The number of earthquakes increased to around two micro-earthquakes per year during the construction period (1997 to 2003). Since the construction finished there have been two larger earthquakes (magnitude 3.8 and 3.2) directly beneath Taipei 101...” says Dr Lin.Despite its excessive capitalisation, Hamer’s article, “
The Rape Of The Earth And The Human Ego,” is worth reading for the connection she makes with such things as human-induced earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic and other seismic-related activity.
We must not let our actions destroy all of this because of stupidity and greed, something we are in danger of doing.
We are clever enough to avoid it, but do we have the will?
If the evidence of current “progress” is anything to go by, I'd doubt it, Jess.