The Individual Soul

 
It's really unfortunate that the environmental crisis has been given the convenient tag "Climate Change" by well meaning commentators. Focusing on the symptoms rather than the causes, they speak in hope giving the impression that a scientific solution will prevail. Will it? If a 'technical' solution can work, why won't a 'moral' solution?

Climate Change is only one of the many symptoms of a sick Earth. The malaise is caused by the unthinking exploitation of its precious nutrients. The profits made are needed in ever greater quantities to feed the grossly complex mechanisms of the financial markets but whatever the excuses, if we are to avoid the use of expletives, it should be called simply what it is, "Abuse".

What is the "Greenhouse Effect"? It too is a jargon for only one of the many negative consequences of fuel combustion. We must resist the temptations to use euphemisms. There is a long series of inter-connected events of which the carbon-dioxide discharge is one. It should be simply said, "There is Too Much Burning."

Since the problems are caused by living itself, we may well ask whether the consumer society is a viable model. The chain of supply and demand seems to have accelerated to another speed altogether. People accumulate and replace in ever greater frequencies every possible thing imaginable. In economic terms it is called trading in goods and services, making it sound all very fair but a keener observation sees how industrialisation has well surpassed its social goals and is now in a phase of a production glut creating, in the so called advanced nations, a sort of material obesity. This seems reason enough, purely on ethical grounds, to reassess the aims of mankind.

Notwithstanding the sensation that modernity's own embedded infrastructure is out of balance, immediate affirmative intervention is unthinkable for the gross economic chaos that will ensue, so corrective measures to reduce consumption can only be made slowly, gradually. The responsibility therefore, falls back on the critical faculties of the single person. In this artificial jungle of packagings, one must be clear about choices. "What and how much do I really need?" Art is often improved by leaving things out, so too can life. When no one can give the right orders, the individual soul must act for himself. Eventually a consensus will emerge for better or for worse. The paradigm must shift first at the base. "Readiness is all", according to Shakespeare's noble Prince Hamlet.