Thursday, July 1, 2021

1st July 2021

 "The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop."

Who is up for a little gloom this morning?  Well it all started with a photo of Incredible Edible Todmorden, the gardeners setting out to garden their town.  A communal get together at the weekend, with meals shared and the weeding done around the food plants and fruit bushes.

Gardening by the canal

This is the place I shall be moving to in just under three weeks, and for some reason Paul Kingsnorth of the Dark Mountain movement passed through my mind. His manifesto may seem all gloom and doom but nearer a truth that may be  uncomfortable.  Do I believe it? not particularly, our short life span does not allow us to see into the future.  But the central premise is that it is civilisation that will fail before nature does seem a good place to start from.  When dinosaurs roamed the Earth it was different and so it will be in the future.  Our elephants, rhino, lions and every conceivable living creature that now walks this Earth may disappear but the Earth will once more evolve into something different.  Must read Lovelock because I think he had the same idea.

There are too many humans that need feeding unfortunately, we raid the natural wild places, cutting the trees down and alter the climate, so that in places it becomes unbearable for humans to survive.  Wally the walrus may be happily floating around our country but he should not really be here.

I believe there is an irrepressible urge to live and conquer in humans and perhaps we may overcome the problems we face today.  Economically China  is having a good time, but as today's generation of Chinese people age in about 20 years they will have become old and need care and there will be an economic slump.

In the West the rich are drawing away ever so more quickly from the poor, banking their money, spending it on missions to outer space on the hope that there is an answer out there, foolishness at best.

We live in a protected bubble, pandemics are small fry ;) And here endeth the first lesson!

And then there is Murrmurrs take on it!!


The Dark Mountain Manifesto

Paul Kingsnorth

The Dark Mountain

4 comments:

  1. Please do keep blogging from Todmorden won't you.

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    1. Of course there is a lot to explore, and plenty of walks. May even go up to Hepstonstall and visit Sylvia Plath's grave. Then there is the moors with 'Kathy' wandering around! ;) My daughter's friend has worked out some things for me as well.

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  2. I'm glad you will be near your family. I hope you have somewhere away from the bits that flood though.

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  3. Yes Jennie, I shall go higher up. My friend in the village Jo, often talks when how their camper got stuck in the floods at Hebden Bridge

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