tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post5265388802005058304..comments2024-02-11T19:28:27.997+11:00Comments on Personal Reflections: Agriculture, the environment and Australia's futureJim Belshawhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-3594285925228375702008-11-14T08:47:00.000+11:002008-11-14T08:47:00.000+11:00Ramana, there are a couple of points in your post ...Ramana, there are a couple of points in your post that, I think, deserve a full post response, in fact a couple of responses,to pull together some of the things that I have been thinking about. More then!Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-39314800377397902302008-11-14T01:55:00.000+11:002008-11-14T01:55:00.000+11:00Jim, I am now 65 years old. I have seen a bit of ...Jim, I am now 65 years old. I have seen a bit of the world and have personally experienced many ups and downs, insults, adulation, joys, sorrows and have participated in many 'worthwhile' interventions. I have however not seen the kind of madness that I have been seeing the last five years. If anything, with all the knowledge available, communication being as fast as it is, and well meaning people everywhere wanting to do the right things, I see deterioration everywhere. There certainly appears to be a lot of motion everywhere. I dare say however, that there is hardly any action to reach the utopia that you think is possible in our life time.<BR/><BR/>I have therefore reconciled myself to make the best of a bad bargain, do my little bit to the extent possible, and pass the rest of my life with as much dignity and joy as possible. I abhor what I am leaving for my son.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-50491632799010902022008-11-12T06:55:00.000+11:002008-11-12T06:55:00.000+11:00Yes, Ramana, I do remain an optimist in part becau...Yes, Ramana, I do remain an optimist in part because I see little other choice. <BR/><BR/>Unless and until we can get off this planet into the solar system, we know that the earth must end in the collapse of our own sun. So there is an ultimate end point. We also know that there is a statistically significant chance in the meantime that we might get wiped out by some planetary body. In the meantime, we just have to do the best we can.<BR/><BR/>I am not blindly optimistic. <BR/><BR/>When I look back over the last three generations of my own family I see two huge wars, multiple smaller wars, a cold war during which we sometimes came close to nuclear destruction, two major economic depressions, a global pandemic that wiped out 18 million, multiple cases of ethnic madness including Hitler's destruction of the jews and gypsies. <BR/><BR/>I have never expected that we will be able to avoid at least some of these things things in the future. <BR/><BR/>Objectively, the risks of catastrophe are higher today simply because our technology and sheer numbers gives us greater capacity to destroy ourselves. The biggest risk lies in events that may simply out-run our collective capacity to respond in any sensible way. <BR/><BR/>We can see this in the First World War. Here a series of misjudgements and tactical errors by the European powers led to mass destruction during which, if my memory serves me correctly, some ninety million died. <BR/><BR/>My hope, the grounds for my optimisim, lies in the human capacity to learn from mistakes.Jim Belshawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10075614280789984767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24338064.post-48265724630118867692008-11-12T03:33:00.000+11:002008-11-12T03:33:00.000+11:00Jim, you are an optimist hoping that we will be ar...Jim, you are an optimist hoping that we will be around in twenty years. I don't. There are just too many bombs ticking.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com