We are obsessed with our own manipulative utilization of nature to expound upon our needs and feelings. Lovers of words dedicate years to understanding the emotive metaphorical allusions of pathetic fallacy created by previous lovers of words; scientists and literal thinkers dedicate lives to manipulating the earth into providing the needs of those populating it; early risers and late risers dedicate coffee-fuelled mornings listening to the weather forecast and deciding upon outfits, watching the news and deploring over nature's effect on humanity. I lie on my bed as evening passes and morning is born, searching for co-existence within these two drifting worlds. The industrialised, bustling and busy beating of humanity slows to a whisper as the blanket of night warms it to sleep, and the magical yawns of nature fill the air as the world herself awakens from the superimposed sleep of mankind. Out of her slumber she emerges with songs translated and reproduced by humanity's best composers, lights and colours attempted by their best artists, stories reinterpreted by their best story tellers. She was alive before the conception of time; breathing before man's first breath; supporting life before the first child wailed in the orange haze of the afternoon sun.
And yet with humanity's progress and development, she has been forgotten. Suppressed. Owned. Humanity no longer has time for her beauty and power. There are other worlds to visit and conquer. It is the utilization of her beauty and power to fulfill their whimsical desires and needs that is of importance. Nature has been underestimated.
The world is awake and alive. Fuelling our hedonistic obsession with self-fulfillment, nature is responding with her own pathetic fallacy. Seas are drinking islands and coastlines; storms are consuming infrastructural entities; heat is cancerously tanning farmlands. 'The world' as a term copiously connotes both humanity as a population, and the earth herself. It is not a constitutional ideology of two seperate spheres; it is one. Whole. A unified depiction. What has been lost is the unification.
I wonder. Do we, society, ever stop to think? Close our eyes, breathe in the earth and open with eyes untainted by egotistic lenses? Society is an extension of ourselves; we all, individually, constitute and validate societal ignorance. The earth is alerting us of the need to change. To unify. Nature is not to be controlled nor extricated; it is to co-exist with. Amongst.
As the human world awakens once more, subconsciously forcing the natural to sleep, will we continue to obssess over our manipulated interpretation of nature? Or pay attention to the growing whisper of the inspiration behind the studied pathetic fallacies, the source of the scientific studies, the curator of our news; the environment?
Is Global Warming/Climate Change a myth? Or is this a manipulated view which suits our sedentary preference for not having to actively change and accept our wrongs?
Read William D. Nordhaus' article, 'Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong', and the findings of researchers at the University of Cambridge ('Greenland Ice Sheet More Vulnerable to Climate Change than Previously Thought'), especially in light of the recent Climate Change marches and the sporadic weather of the UK, and three things gain momentum in your mind:
1. This is a very real thing.
2. Those, like me, who seemingly don't contribute dramatically are just as guilty as those who explicitly contribute to the problems. It is not merely an objective issue, but a subjective one too.
3. This is environmentally, socially, economically, politically, UTTERLY unsustainable.
A rather more poetic post than usual, but I feel sometimes that in issues so publicised as Global Warming, facts and figures become exhausted. (Plus, I was in a literary mood after reading Palin's beautiful depictions of nature in his novel 'Full Circle'). I in no way meant to subjectively romanticise the issue in any facet.
The intricately dynamic relationship between Physical and Human Geography is something that enthuses me endlessly. I hope that the denial of this relationship is dispelled, especially in areas of immediate concern like Climate Change.
Until next time,
C
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