WAITING FOR AID WAITING FOR THOUGHT

That is correct. Epilogue on Page 1.

~I thought I would never have to write these words. I believed that our "advanced" civilization, democracy and scientific literacy would save the earth and save the day. I believed that enough of the religions of the world embraced the concept of stewardship of god's Creation to save the earth. I believed that humanism would be part of the effort of those without religion.

Those that love nature made valient contributions but did not stand a chance against the billions of the fuel companies nor the greed and/or mindlessness of politicians.

What has been missing?

~Plain old honest thinking, not the kind that justifies a desired result but the kind that searches for truth. But truth must stand on a foundation either of observation or of science. And the observation must not be whitewashed and the science must be solid,

However although truth is implied in teaching it is rarely spelled out and the obstacles to knowing it are not taught. So "climate change," an obvious earthquake to our past way of thinking must get by the fear or whatever that prevents it from bein scrutenized and evaluated on its merits. That is a disaster.

How we react to new information depends on the sum total of all we have come to believe about life, our personalities, fears, intellectual abilities and the social mileau within which we live and function. The quickest clue I expect would be to observe a gathering of the closest friends in an informal discussion (bull session) where people speak freely or not, showing their dominance or awareness, attention. Too buzy earning a living, and being distracted by the trivia of life, or the pounding of poverty and selfishness of the right, literally stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Tennessee won't take free health care for its sick and dying.

You have to be able to see through a thought.

Perhaps the single hardest thing a thinker has to do. Why? CLICK HERE.

~We are uneducated in that we do not teach about the disconnect of humanity from the natural world. We are dishonest in that we want something other than what we teach; we are deaf and blind in that we do not see or hear the world around us; we are still preoccupied with remnants of our evolution so we hoard and seek power; but the technology we have devised needs many of these abilities to keep it in check. We do not understand the concept of relationship through reciprocity. We put beauty at the bottom of our list of priorities.

What has gone wrong?

~Perhaps nothing. We are the only peoples in the universe as far as we know. Perhaps there is a next time around and we will do better.

~But collateral damage has been extreme in lives lost and in damage to the earth, some damage that might have been or still is correctable, but damage to the climate that is almost certainly permanent and likely to get worse. So the beauty and science were not enough to catch our attention and to preserve what we had. It seems that marshalling our collective strengths to stop emissions of greenhouse gas and perhaps even reverse it has not had the necessary circumstances to rouse the population that Pearl Harbor did.

Our president, who should be taking the lead in this batttle apparently cannot distinguish between "clean air" and climate change.

I had a vivid experience when photogaphing at Walden Pond. There is a small vernal pool a few feet from the pond where I photographed often. The very well trod path around the pond between the pool and the pond is only about six feet wide. Traffic around the pond was often bumper to bumper on Saturday while I had my large attention-getting view camera pointed into the water. In ten years of photographing there I had perhaps two or three people inquire about what I was doing. We spoke for a few seconds and they would be on their way. In fact I was making photographs like the one below.