Global Warming: The things we did to change the world!

What is it? Why is it? Can it be fixed? Or will earth just eradicate us like it has so many before that we are now just waiting at the exit door for it to be opened and to be let out?

It has been said recently that one of the best places to find answers is at TED’s. A website for the talks put together each year by what I would call the smartest people on the planet. The wisest people on the planet. The most consciously aware people on the planet.

For those of you out there that feel that you can’t make a difference, that feel no passion for what needs to be done or no turmoil in your stomach’s at whats already been done and isn’t being stopped, there are voices to be listened to, and there are voices that must above all else be heard.

Here are just four of what I would consider the best talks at TED’s in recent times. These are by the way, not only great ideas, but also great solutions that we are all capable of doing. In fact I say we can do at least one of the ideas ourselves from this videos without any outside help. We can not only just choose one either if we so desire, but if only one idea is taken up by all of us, it would make a huge impact on things to come.

As Al Gore states “I wish I could find the words to convey this” when talking about the heroes that we need to make a change for the better and the fact that we have as humans and as people living in a democratic society(here in Australia and in the USA) the capacity and ability to make the choices that will change the world for the better, I too believe that deep down, we can do it. I deny anyone who thinks otherwise.

Please watch them, listen to what they have to say, acknowledge in your minds what exactly is achievable and most of all, find ways in your own lives that mimic if not copy some of the ideas put forth by the following speakers.

Ollie Remember, there’s no life quite like your life!

To start,
Al Gore: New thinking on the climate crisis

Shai Agassi: A bold plan for mass adoption of electric cars

Willie Smits: A 20-year tale of hope: How we re-grew a rainforest

Kamal Meattle: How to grow your own fresh air

Fruitful Epiphany

Oh you know how it is….its 1990, you are young and you have a really bad cold and are unable to attend school/work. You have your soup and your flat lemonade at the ready, cause it works!!

There is nothing on tv because in the middle of the day there is always nothing on tv, except of course Days of Our Lives. You have no idea what the story is, but within a few days of coughing and spluttering you know exactly everything that is going on.

Fast forward fifteen years, it’s now 2005, and yet again you have your feet up and are wrestling with a horrible nasty cold and flu. The same one you probably had ten years earlier, except it has travelled all the way around the world and ten years later is has come back to haunt you.

Of course you have upgraded your soup and flat lemonade for several doses of cold & flu pills along with a good 12yr old single malt whiskey and you have nothing other than feeling sorry for yourself but to sit and watch tv all day. Of course it is the middle of the day and as usual there is nothing on the tv except Days of Our Lives. You wonder to yourself, I wonder what has changed? Its been years since I last looked at the show and I was really starting to get into it. I mean I did learn the entire storyline and plot in only three days, but it was catchy. Kind of like that damn chicken dance song they play at almost every function ever organised by mankind himself. *click* goes the remote…..

Suddenly you are having flashbacks!! Your mum walks in the room and hands you another glass of flat lemonade! Your siblings tease you as they run out and grab their school bags and your dad gives you a stern look as if to say, man up son, and you can already hear his “when I was your age” lecture! What’s happening??

Then it dawns on you, nothing has changed. Not a thing. You vaguely remember the characters looking a lot younger, but you do remember them. They are all there!! Even the one that you thought they had killed off and dismembered and thrown into the sea, he is back!! And some girl who was a daughter of a man who ended up being her brother but wasn’t really and they fell in love and then got married, they were there too!!! Along with what you guess mustn’t be their kids but are but are not. Its a little confusing.

It’s this sudden realisation that brings you to a rather fruitful epiphany! Your life has stood still for 15yrs and you haven’t moved forward in the slightest.

Think it might be about time for a career change. Put down the bottle. Sleep better and longer at night. And for the love all that is pure and sacred in this world, take a sleeping pill and sleep through the middle of day time television. You don’t want another groundhog day do you?

Ollie

Remember, there’s no life quite like your life!

Moral Empathy

I hate people who take advantage of others in the form of ridicule and self promotion amongst their so called followers. I hate it when a company puts profits first before its members of staff, and I hate it even more when leaders of such companies get big payouts right before things go belly up and everyone loses out.

But why do I hate these things and other such choices people make that seem to be all done on a level of self promotion and self indulgence? Why do I despise people who try to get ahead in life at the cost of others? Morals? Empathy perhaps? Or a bit of both? And where do I get these from? The bible? My parents? My teachers? My friends?

Can I take any of these aspects of my life and still feel so strongly about what I see people doing and would I still consider it as being inherently bad? Does my moral compass become skewed and twisted?

Take for example the argument that if we didn’t have god and/or the so called word of god, known as the bible, we would all fall into chaos and start to annihilate ourselves bit by bit till there was no one left. Now to me this seems a little absurd. For starters, self preservation at the very least would compel us to not fight. For the fear of losing to an enemy who has no fear of death or retribution from any greater power or otherwise is most likely something that we wouldn’t want to confront, so staying away from such individuals would be our main goal. Why? Because we value life. Those that do not, hold far less value for their own, so at the very least we would want to keep on living for as long a we can by avoiding these people.

A second reason would be because of what I call Moral Empathy. Something I am not sure if has a meaning elsewhere, but to be it means this. When you get hurt, you feel it, physically and mentally. Its not something that you ever wish to deal with again, yet at the same time it isn’t something that you can fully remember in both physical form nor mentally either. Yet it is these experiences that we have gone through, that help us to understand the sufferings of others. To feel on a much a deeper level their hurt and anguish.

Take for example the person who gets beaten up after school by bullies. Straight away, those with any kind of Moral Empathy will feel for the person. Like somehow they can feel that person pain. This pain we feel through others, like a surrogate receptacle of emotions that get hurled at us, is the same pain we feel when we go through the same situation ourselves. Now you are thinking we are just empathising with the person, saying to the person for example “its ok, I know how you feel” . But its more than just empathy. Empathy only comes along when your moral compass is set right. Without the moral side of things, the empathy holds no value.

Which brings us back to the question of how could we survive without such moral dictations as those found in the Bible? Easy? No one likes pain and therefore no one would push upon another any pain for fear of pain being pushed back upon them. Avoidance of cruelty is the deterrent that is used to keep our moral compass in check. Sure there will be some who will think to themselves that there isn’t any point to it all so why bother, and just go on a chaotic rampage, but they will soon find that the majority would prefer peace and will more than likely find themselves removed from society. Just like it is done already today.

We simply can’t have morals without empathy and we can’t have empathy without morals. And we get these two aspect of our makeup through the conditioning of thousands of years of trying to get it right, and trying to do right. Sure such books as the Bible may have pushed some of these morals, but they came about well before it was written. So no won’t fall into chaos, and we won’t destroy ourselves in some archaic Neanderthal way.

I am not sure if I have explained my point of view here in the best way possible. I just hope that if you read it you understand that to care about others you have to first care about yourself, and that sometimes you have to feel pain to know that you are both alive and human. Because being human is all about living your life to the fullest.

Ollie

Remember, there’s no life quite like your life!