Director, Fazlun Khalid, the founder of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences was invited by the Secretary General of the UN to participate in a round table discussion on Climate Change with world leaders on 22 September in New York. This is what he said:"It hasn't quite entered the human consciousness, that if planet earth suffers we suffer and that we have nowhere else to go. We are part of an integrated earth and when we reduce the natural world to an exploitable resource this turns inwards on us. How else does one explain the consequences of climate change? Yes, the human species is unique. We have the capacity to observe the world around us, describe what we see, quantify it and then take advantage of it. However, the most extreme and all pervasive form of this is our collective, unfettered defilement of nature. For example we have managed to consume in a space of two hundred and fifty years or so, fossil fuel resources that have taken 250,000,000 years to lay down. That is, averaging consumption in one year, of what has taken nature a million years to produce. This is set to continue unabated until these resources run dry even as the chickens come home to roost. Prosperity it seems is based on creating discontent as consumers are seduced to vie with each other in pursuit of technopia. We have political, financial and industrial systems, in place that will ensure that this continues without interruption. If there is a lesson we can learn from the financial crisis it is that market forces are a fiction because money itself is a fiction. It can be created by the stroke of a pen or push of a button by those privileged to be bankers. The rest of us work for a living.
Individual nation states have their own priorities and agendas. But, the common denominator however is growth based on fictitious money. While those ahead in the race are able to create more money to stay ahead, those behind engage in an almost impossible game of catch up. The victim of this game is planet earth and climate change is the result. Moderating this appears to be what Copenhagen is about and this requires, the rich nations particularly, to tighten their belts severely, whilst those behind loosen theirs' ever so gently. There is no gain without pain. Current growth rates steal from the legacy that by right belong to future generations. It would seem that in allowing to be swept away by forces intent on destroying the natural world in the name of economic growth faith communities have surrendered their responsibilities, Muslims, not least amongst them. Our job is to prod this group, which constitutes twenty percent of the world's population, to wake up to their teachings and join forces with other like-minded people to leave a liveable planet for our children.
It is now or never - well almost."
Handle with Care
Overshoot Day
Earth to Humans
'We have nowhere else to go' - not true, if fairly unimaginable today. Before WW1, an eminent scientist stated that scientific discovery had gone as far as it could go. We know now how wrong he was.
ReplyDeleteHumanity has been abusing their local environment for centuries - how about addressing the abuses in Africa and Bangladesh, for a start?
'Market forces are a fiction' - oh boy, where do we start on this piece of arrant nonsense? Does Mr Khalid assume there was some golden time when no-one bought or sold, and all was peace and love? Twaddle.
I'm kindly assuming that Mr Khalid means well - it's unfortunate his mind is filled with pink candyfloss.
"Nowhere else to go..."
ReplyDeleteWell, so the story goes the Easter Islanders chopped down all the trees and then found they had nothing to make boats with to get off the island when the food ran out.
Presently we need vast amounts of fossil fuel just to get half a dozen of us off the surface let alone anywhere else. Unless someone comes up with real Cavorite we are stuck here for some time to come, so the question is can we find a way before time runs out.
Talking of time that's another problem. Because of time relativity there's no way back to tell us who remain that a pleasant or dangerous place has been found.
The explorer could get there and back in a lifetime, but several thousand years will have passed here on earth.
But I suppose Einstein could be wrong?
When Khalid says:
ReplyDelete"the common denominator however is growth based on fictitious money"
he is no doubt talking about fiat currency and fractional reserve banking. These risky practices can have grave consequences when taken to extreme, as they are nowadays. The history of these financial inventions is neatly outlined in the entertaining film "Money as Debt", available online.
I posted this in the post below, but it has just as much relevance here....
ReplyDelete"Green Taxes" are just another excuse to lift money from the pockets of everyone...
That, and "Think of the Cheelldren"
I'm with Lord Lawson on this.
The planet heats up in summer and cools down in winter, cycles of cooling and heating have been going on for millenia.
Man's presence on the planet has had minimal impact over the last 200,000 years, despite what any beardy claims...
The Sun is getting bigger, closer etc, in a few million years time WE WILL NOT BE HERE, as the sun will have toasted all life on earth.
Unless of course a Metorite smashes into earth first, just like this One a while back....
"I posted this in the post below, but it has just as much relevance here...."
ReplyDeleteSo does my reply!
"The planet heats up in summer and cools down in winter,"
What total Bx. You’ve failed to spot that when it’s summer here it’s winter in the antipodes, which sort of cancels out. There is no planetary “summer” or “winter”!!!! There are cycles, yes, but not that one.
And we have rather more than a “few million years” before the sun goes out, if we want them, but I grant you that that we probably won’t get even a few thousand more or even a few hundred with twerps like Lawson and you around.
“Man's presence on the planet has had minimal impact over the last 200,000 years, despite what any beardy claims...”., More total Bx.
You don’t have to be a beardy or wear sandals to spot the impact we’ve made and I’m not talking about the areas we’ve covered in concrete. Just look at the change in the landscape caused by an earlier development – agriculture. That’s the big difference. Oh and then there’s the seas; have you spotted where all your precious fish have gone?
I will grant you that so called “green taxes” are simply a mechanism employed by the Grey parties to ensure the rigged markets of business as usual continue to keep them in power.
But they are not the green taxes of the polluter pays principle.
There is a price to pay for the exploitation of the natural environment and pollution and we will have to pay it sooner or later. Mother Nature is ruthless and unforgiving and is not the sort of person you should default on a balance sheet debt.
B21, I still am not convinced, "green" types have been banging on about this for years, any "unbeliever" is treated as a heretic.
ReplyDeleteWe will have to agree to disagree.
Newbie
"... "green" types have been banging on about this for years"
ReplyDeleteIndeed we have, and as time has been steadily ticking away, matters have been getting steadily worse and worse.
Climate change is only one issue Newbie. There's also overpopulation; urbanisation; soil erosion and salination; deforestation; desertification; extinction and loss of biodiversity, both wild and agricultural; over-exploitation and pollution of fresh water; poisoning and acidification of the seas; collapse of fishing stocks, and so on.
Some combination of these problems that we have been so stupidly busy making for ourselves will easily undermine and bring our civilisation down like the house of cards it is, because we depend absolutely on our environment to keep ourselves alive.
Mankind has made some of these problems before, albeit on a considerably smaller scale, and they have brought other civilisations down before ours.
Are you really so sure there is such a wide marging for complacency?
Are you really willing to stake your children's and grand-children's future wellbeing on it? As the WW1 posters went ... "what did YOU do in the war daddy?" ...
I'm still down as a sceptic.
ReplyDeleteI'm not complacent and relise that in the pursuit of profit man has indeed "cut some corners" in relation to the "well being" of the planet.
I believe that the planet will recover, nature is indeed a powerful thing.
I do have issue with the "green" taxes being used as just another vehicle in which to empty our pockets.
What did I do in the war?
I bought a bigger car with a bigger engine, paying more fuel duty, and a higher band of road tax, (fortunately that is still my choice, though for how long is anyones guess)
Mind you by not flying, or having children and only consuming what I actually need, I think I am doing my bit....
Newbie