Posted by
BLOGASSAULT on Saturday, May 05, 2007 1:16:24 AM
My wife loves the science fiction works of Frank Herbert who is most notably known for his series of DUNE books. After my wife read everything he wrote three times over and was looking for something new to read, I came across a book edited by Tim O'Reilly written in 1987. It is basically several essay's written by Frank over the years talking about everything from his writing to politics to religion. One thing my wife read to me is very fitting to today's discussion of war and the environment. I will have to type it because it is not available on the net that I can find.
"On the morning of april 20, 1970, commentator Hugh Downs opened NBC's Today Show with the first of five days programs focused on Earth Week. His guests for the series were to be some of the nation's leading figures in the field of environment, people such as Margaret Mead, Paul Ehrlich, Rene Dubose, Ian Mcharg, Canon Don D. Shaw, Mayor John Lindsay, Astronaut Frank Borman, Senators Edmund man Morris Udall.
That opening show shared the spotlight with many news events-the safe return of the Apollo 13 astronauts, disastrous tornados in the South and Middle West, the air war in Laos, President Nixon's announcement that he would report on Vietnam, a new assault on Cuba by armed Exiles, new fighting in Israel, heavy snows in Northeast Minnesota and Idaho, and freezing rain in Northwest Wisconsin...and gusty winds in southern California.
All of this, and much more, constituted the environment of April 20, 1970."
Frank Herbert The Maker Of Dune, Insights Of A Master Of Science Fiction
If you were to read further along you would find that he believed the Earth was doomed.
"The penalty is upon us. We are sentenced to breathe the air we have fouled, drink the water we have polluted, to have our consciousness crushed by views imprisoned in gray walls. Continued offenses will only bring down total capitol punishment-upon the guilty and the innocent."
What I found interesting in the first statement was the world situation in 1970. Warfare, communism, and fighting in Israel mixed with weather. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? History tends to repeat itself.
When the U.S. is involved in war and other significant countries are fighting their enemies, out comes the environmentalists. Why is that? Do people who hate war and death (which is really about 90% of the human species) look to turn the attention to something greater? Maybe they want everybody to look at the planet that we all inhabit and realize that we will all die if we don't do something now. Or, maybe they want simply to discuss something other than war. Who knows?
Doom and gloom is their game. They want to show us how, through our own stupidity, that we are all slowly killing each other. Is it really any different?
There is only one real difference. We must fight what is right in front of us. Evil people, governments, and tyranny. If those people rule, the environment will be the last of their concerns. And will not be free to voice our opinions or state the facts about what we as humans are doing to the planet, whether it's based on real tested science or hyped up scare tactics. On the other hand, if we can survive the evil around us and keep our priorities in order, we will live to fight the enviromental battle another day.