THE WORLD is in a state of flux: we have come out of a phase in our life where we have claimed to know infinite knowledge and where we have and continue to be, endlessly, proven wrong. Now we are reacting, making use of every communication development – the television; websites and social networking; independent film and video websites such as ‘ÝouTube’ – to shout our messages out loud:

“Peace, not war!”
“Stop global warming!”
“Save endangered species!”
“Give a hoot, don’t pollute” (United States Forest Service)

The financial crisis; water shortages; fossil fuels versus renewables; political correctness; overpopulation and ageing…

We have been wrong time and time again and yet we keep on going.

“The world is flat” – “no, it’s not.”
“It’s impossible to walk on the moon” – “no, it’s not.”
“Unsinkable” – “Actually…”

We sent a Concorde soaring into the air on account of its ability to break world records – and pulled it back 27 years after public use began, on account of horrendous deaths and overwhelming costs. We developed nuclear weapons, framed as “technological progress” and then accidentally blew one up, blasting the undeniable effects decades into the future.
We have thought we are right and we have thought our knowledge is unbeatable except by computers – and yet something in us, some instinct of pleading to not be alone is calling out through our obsession of searching for others in the universe.

We are now seeing our mistakes, first-hand. And we have been for some time: Aids in ‘developing countries.’ The overweight populations in ‘developed countries.’ We removed ourselves of diseases, as many as we could.
And now we have allergies.

We treat our Earth-mates, the animals, wrongly, make them live in a way which is economically viable for us, for the purpose of our food.
Now we’ve diseased ourselves with the filth we put in them.

We are humans and we have made mistakes. Now we rise up against each other, campaign against the apparent causes, the perpetrators of our misery; believe that to stop global warming we must despise of the loggers and the governments that do and allow it.

Is not the real reason, the real cause – if you will – ourselves? Is it not the fact that we had a belief, some time ago, in “finders-keepers” – that anything we stumble across, unless bureaucracy has already written a name on it, is ours to take? So we took. We took and we took and still we took more – oil; coal; trees; animals; plants – anything living and anything not; anything that was not one of us – that was not a human. Specist. Anthropocentric. We did as we pleased, believing that what we were finding was new knowledge, was going to help us, to further our genius.

This was our mistake. “Finders-keepers.” That childhood slogan we’d chant quite stubbornly away. That belief, woven in throughout generations. Never questioned. But the inevitability was there: the very phrase would steal the words from the facing child. Speechless. There was nothing you could argue in return. Even the truth: “That’s mine!” was only an equal argument, useless against such fiery words. And on the bigger scale the adults did exactly as we did. “Finders-keepers.” (Except of course, without the obvious phrasing.) They did. And we still do. And what we take cries out at us and stamps its feet on the ground to declare: “That’s mine! Give that back!”

Our ears are useless.
Only now do we hear. Only now do we question.

But it is not the loggers’ fault, who do what they do to collect money and provide for the West. It is not the Governments’ fault, who allow it to happen because otherwise they’d have a backward and unprofitable community. No – I propose that it is the very nature of us, if it has to be anyone at all except for the blamelessness of mistakes and attempts’,  fault – it is that we train and are trained to declare: “Finders-keepers” at the first shiny object in sight. It is the fact that we still say this that shows we have not changed.

You can place bureaucratic labels on every tree in the Amazon to stop this behaviour if you wish. You can place legal requirements at every cattle-ranch across the world if you feel it’ll help. But the belief will still be there: this basic and crude belief that makes us stare at everything new, interesting and beneficial to ourselves; at everything shiny and say: “I want that.”

We can do all the above, but all we’ll get is an unsatisfied population.

Charities today are interested in sustainability: what will make the world a better place and keep it like that? If we continue to find alternative methods of energy and ways that mean the loggers don’t have to log but also have an income then, yes, we will be on our way to sustainability. But if we really want to secure our future generations in a life where they can make new mistakes, not the same ones as us, then we must change this crude belief. Only then will we have a hope of overcoming our mistakes and recovering in sustainable ways. “Finders-keepers”? – No. Not any more.

We can’t all take a rock from a mountain, for they’ll be no mountain left.
We can’t all take a handful of soil from Earth, for they’ll be no more Earth.

NOTES

‘The Age of Stupid’ is an independent film which has seen massive publication. Set in the future, it addresses the human mistakes which have led to global warming and looks back to see if there was anything that we could and should have done. Please visit their website where you can watch a trailer of the film and find out how to watch the whole thing at: www.ageofstupid.net

Bruce Parry’s ‘Tribe’ and ‘Amazon’ television documentaries addressed some of the issues discussed in this article, in particular deforestation due to logging. The programmes were shown on the BBC some time ago but ‘Amazon’ can be downloaded from ITunes; the DVDs and books can be brought from amazon.co.uk and clips can be watched, along with much information found, on the BBC’s website.

To support charities with their work in trying to find sustainable solutions to the developed world’s way of life and correct some of our mistakes, please feel free to use the Which Charity ‘Find a Charity’ search system where some of these are currently listed (more on their way soon!).

Please be aware, that, unless otherwise stated, the opinions presented in this article are just that – opinion. If you wish to comment in return, please click the ‘add a comment’ button and post your views; alternatively you can contact the Which Charity team via the contact page on our website – http://www.whichcharity.org/contact/

Watch this space for more articles relating to charity-giving and topics of interest, as well as possible future multimedia content!