Global Warming, Peak Oil, Resource Depletion, and Sustainable Living

I don't know why on earth I didn't post this when I first found it in the course of my surfing. It is such an important  commentary from BBC Four in a film of four heavy weights in the environmental debate, David Attenborough, Jane Goodall, Richard Dawkins and Richard Leakey. Watch them in serious discussion as to what we have to do to save our planet, threatened as it is by environmental catastrophe, alarmed by global terrorism and disfigured by global poverty. And these three are all inextricably linked.

I would urge anyone who shares my concerns for the future of the world to watch this film in full. It lasts one hour and some very powerful comments and observations are made. Indeed if you are still sceptical about climate change and environmental issues, it is even more important that you spare the time to watch the film. I have jotted down a few thoughts and ideas from the panel:  We must level the world's population, we must alleviate poverty, and in some way persuade the developing parts of the world that they should not yearn for what we have, as we indeed and at the same time must reduce the perception of our own needs.
Dr Jane Goodall reminded the panel that Costa Rica has abolished the military - and the money thus saved goes to social issues. If we all did that, she pointed out that all the world's problems would be solved!! But of course we have national boundaries and coveted resources and greed and fear.
David Attenborough emphasised the need for everyone to accept the natural world as precious.

The one glaring omission in my view is the unanimous failure to recognize any spiritual element in the solution - I guess perhaps hardly surprising with atheist polemicist Dawkins on the team.

Global decline of butterflies

When I was a child and my hard working farmer father had any time to spare, he would take me for walks in the woods across the road from the farm to look for butterflies and moths. He was passionate about them and recognized them all. I remember his almost child-like delight at spotting a comma, a skipper or a painted lady – then on the South Downs of Sussex he would show us the different blues – such pretty and dainty butterflies favouring the flowers and other vegetation of those chalk slopes. The names of these beautiful insects even now flood back into my memory and evoke those long summer days that to a child seem endless.

And we were brought up to love and respect all the natural world around us, based on an understanding of the interdependencies of the different plants, animals, birds, insects that were all around us.

But even then, more than 50 years ago, alarm bells were ringing – there was already concern that butterflies were in decline in the British Isles. Now this concern is much greater and it has gone global.

There has just been a conference in the UK, (Reading), organized by the Butterfly Conservation Trust, a UK charity. attended by 300 scientists. And the conclusion is that there is still a long way to go to achieve the target set by the United Nations to halt the decline by 2010 of the world’s biodiversity. Biodiversity is the entirety of life on earth, birds, animals, butterflies, worms, fungi, bacteria, and including ourselves. David Attenborough has said that halting biodiversity loss is on a par with getting a man on the moon in its complexity, and an improvement in butterfly numbers would be a good indicator that we are winning.

Clearly in the knowledge that their target was in no way achieved, the UN have had to rethink, and they have declared this year as the International Year of Biodiversity to be formally marked on 22 May.

The UN wants to raise public awareness of the importance of biodiversity, and encourage organizations and individuals to support the rich diversity of life on earth. Gardeners and farmers are clearly at the sharp end of this initiative but we do not have to live in the country to make a difference – even the smallest plots will help, and allotments, ponds, community orchards, rooftops, parking lots, hedges and ditches, all can be nurtured to encourage biodiversity.

I am trying year on year to grow more flowers that attract bumblebees and other insect pollinators, butterflies, moths and other “bugs?” Because of course these then encourage other wild life. We can all go to a big garden, for example I go to the RHS garden at Wisley at all seasons of the year, to observe which plants the butterflies and bees like best and introduce them into our own plots.

Can we all pledge to do something, however small, to make a difference to our local biodiversity? Let's have some exchange of ideas. What will you do?