Green Means Stop

Week Thirty – five: Sunday 27 May – Saturday 2 June

Planet earth is warming up. Depending on who you listen to and/or what you choose to believe, the human race is either solely responsible or nothing to do with it all. Well, what do I know? Not much, and that lessens every time I learn some more; the more I know the more I know there is to know.

One thing I am fairly sure of is that the numbers of humans on planet earth has quadrupled, from roughly one and a half billion to six billion, in around 250 years. That's four times as many people generating heat. Add to that the fact that a hefty percentage of us now generate far more heat than humans ever have before and it is hard to escape the fact that the human race is contributing heavily to the rising temperatures.

Who wants to slow down? Lots of people, it appears. But who wants to give up the cars, the central heating, the factory manufactured goods, the availability of goods from around the world, the air travel, the electrical gadgets, et cetera? Few, if any.

So what's going to happen? Again, what do I know? But as more land is concreted over, as more of the earth's natural habitat is removed, as more other living species disappear, as more and more people desire the capitalist dream, hasn't something got to give sometime?

And what is the return for what is perceived as increased prosperity? Does more and more money and consumer goods make you any happier? Are people more, or less, depressed than in times gone by? Are people more, or less, dysfunctional than in times gone by?

There is an uneasy feeling in the western world that all is not what we say it is; we have become prisoners of the money myth. Charles Handy, the world renowned management guru, said that, not me. And he said it ten years ago. Are we getting more deeply imprisoned, or are we freer? A constant theme of D.H Lawrence's novels was the way in which the hard, mechanistic world of the industrial west was sucking the life out of the human race. Are we just having it sucked out of us even faster, or is less being sucked out of us?

Whether we are damaging the planet or not, is the life that exists for most of us really the life we would choose to lead? Slow down, you move too fast, got to make the morning last. So said Simon and Garfunkel.

A friend of mine has been a taxi driver in Edinburgh for over 25 years. He's a friendly guy who loves to chat to his passengers. Over the last few years, he tells me, he hears more and more from professionals that he collects from airports, train stations, hotels, et cetera, about how unhappy they are with their jobs. The pressures, the hours, the demands, the stress, the constant travel. They want simpler lives. But they're on the gravy train, in the rat race, on the hamsters wheel, and they're afraid to get off or out. Their salaries and perks are great, on paper. But when you work out the hours they are forced to work, it doesn't look so great.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I think we need some balance.