A great Huzzah for mankind

I see that we, (as a collective species) once again reached out to the universe. We, well NASA, have managed to overcome many complex problems requiring brains larger than Marvin the Paranoid Android to solve and landed on Mars.

I look forward in the coming weeks / months / years to receiving periodic updates as to how well / badly things are going with the Curiosity Rover. What an exciting time of exploration we all live in. I have added the link to the BBC coverage so that we may all share in the wonder that is this fantastic event.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19159382

Of course, …

Now you wouldn’t expect me to be enthusiastic for long would you. The mission is reported to cost £1.6Bn. (For any non Brits $2.5Bn US) Oh there’s another topic in itself, why is everything always quoted in $US?

Anyway, £1.6bn is an awful lot of money. The World Food Programme states it would take $3.2 billion a year to feed 66 million hungry school children. So, in context the whole space programme to send Curiosity to Mars is less than it would take to feed all the starving kids in the world for a year, sounds like a good deal?

My personal viewpoint, and this is NOT political but humanitarian (for any rubber heelers watching), is that we, as a species have not earned the right to visit other planets, stars, lumps of rock or whatever. We have in the span of our existence raped and pillaged mother earth. We denude her of all her resources, we pay her back by polluting her air and water, the dump filth on her land and overpopulate with our kind in the absence of natural predators. We abandon junk in the sky even beyond the atmosphere of out planet and leave rubbish everywhere we go. The moon is still littered with US and Russian garbage. Not a monument to the ingenuity of man, but as a monument to paranoia.

If the total spend of the space programmes of the world, coupled with all the money spent on arms research and production were totalled there would be enough to feed the poor, set up sustainable food programmes based on permaculture principles, meaning food for life for everyone. )Even allowing for the kick backs that would have to be paid to the great and not so good).

The one bitter pill which is even more difficult to swallow is population control. Even if we could have every country to agree on the funding of projects in the way suggested, there will still be too many people.

As Fraser said, ‘We’re all doomed.’

Happy days

I was recently watching Horizon here in the UK. A TV documentary programme. Being a cheerful soul I was drawn to the title,

The End of the World? A Horizon Guide to Armageddon

Fantastic stuff, some of the historical footage quite took me back to my youth. The soundtrack included Barry McGuire‘s Eve of Destruction. I had quite forgotten this song until I heard the opening bars. I was transported on one of those magical mystery tours that occur from time to time. A scent, a sound, a familiar place will all weave their magic.

The link to a version of this can be found here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntLsElbW9Xo

Of course, Bazza and the sentiment turned out to be less than prophetic, or did it? We may have survived the days of the Russian Bear, the fear of a Tupolov TU95 appearing overhead may have diminished to the point where it is not the first thing you would think of on hearing a flood siren but …

The nuclear red button has been replaced by the red ‘on’ switch at each and every coal fired power station, etc etc etc.

Before this post becomes too depressing by far (as you hopefully listen to Baz) I should like to draw your attention to the permaculture position of finding solutions not voicing problems. There is a man who epitomises this view, Mike Reynolds. Some may already have seen Garbage Warrior.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrMJwIedrWU

If you watch the film you can understand why people like Bill Mollison began their personal voyages by disappearing from society. Both Bill and Mike decided that rather than adopting such a shortsighted position they would challenge the establishment.

I have been to the Brighton earth ship, several years ago now. It is a wonderfully organic structure which is so tactile in nature that everyone on the tour found it hard to stop stroking the walls! I found that a company in Brighton had managed to obtain planning permission from Brighton and Hove council for 16 Earth Ships to be built near Brighton Marina. I have been tryng to find details as I would be interested in living mortgage and utility bill free for my remaining days. I can find no details. It would appear that the trials of obtaining consent and approval for the materials must have been too much for the company, or maybe they ran out of funding.

Russian maritme fly tipping

The Russian fleet
Shelters from a storm
Garbage thrown
Overboard
MP’s lather
We would really rather
They took there trash
Home again.
A question, what do the MP’s think the Royal Navy does with its trash?