The SNJ’s new columnist Karen Eberhardt-Shelton was born in California but grew up in England.

She now lives in Stroud and is currently working on an education project called Learn, Think, Act and is hoping to develop an eco-community land trust.

Her thought-provoking columns will focus on how we all have to take responsibility for our actions and for our planet.

SPEAK up or lie down?

I READ The Guardian on Saturday and The Times of Sunday (and the Stroud News & Journal on Wednesday).

In every edition there are stories about the extraordinarily bad behaviour humans should have figured out how to eliminate by now.

That huge number of girls up in South Yorkshire’s Rotherham being sexually abused, going back years.

How could so many aware people have done nothing to expose and stop it?

The stupid warfare, destruction and killing going on in Syria, Iraq, the Ukraine, Gaza and Israel, the massive polluting desecration of the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada, cutting down Amazon rainforest so you can have palm oil for your cooking.

Don’t we still have active brains?

Couldn’t those most angry and upset sit down in a nice flowery room with a team of mediators and take turns laying out all the points that have driven them to fight?

“You did this, I lost that, you wouldn’t listen, it’s not fair, why didn’t you, how come that was ignored?”

On and on, those most vitally involved listing their issues, the causes of their anger, what drove them to turn to cruel weapons of death and destruction, rip families apart, destroy animals and ecosystems.

Blame doesn’t cure anything, but actually getting to the roots of the matter can make a genuine difference.

Everything has a reason.

Why did that bloke murder that poor old woman?

Why did that mother smother her baby?

What are the real reasons Dubai continues to grow, expand, waste natural resources on trying to impress the world with what it has to offer?

You don’t worry about your car if it’s running okay but when something breaks down or stops working, you get it repaired, or else... If your dog goes unconscious, you rush him off to the vet.

If the roof of your house starts burning, you would call the fire station straight away.

When something in our everyday life falls apart, we usually try to fix it.

But in the wider world, travesty, destruction, elimination, ripping apart, any bad thing we are capable of will happen in numerous places.

Maybe we read about it in the paper, hear it on the news, and life goes on.

But why don’t people in every country demand that we get to the roots of issues that are unravelling the tapestry of what holds all life on Earth together?

I had a mediated divorce, and mediated property settlement – they both went smoothly and ended without friction or blame.

All the main points were brought to the surface and dealt with by neutral parties.

I feel it is hugely important to speak up when major wrong-doing, cruelty, or injury are taking place and could ultimately be stopped by bringing the situation to the attention of negotiators.

If it’s part of an on-going process, call in the “doctor” to pinpoint the whys and hows.

If it goes beyond “local”, independent assessors (or mediators) should step in.

There’s a reason for everything.

Just get to the bottom of it and offer a likely remedy.

l Do you agree with Karen that we don't speak up enough about wrongdoing? Comment at stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk