A BLEAK scenario. Let us create another.

A child has been born who will witness the end of this world as we know it.

Before then the waters that make up two thirds of our planet will rise, inundating the coastal areas on which are built many of the major cities of the world.

This will not happen all at once, nor will the droughts and the dramatic increases in rainfall in other regions of our globe.

These weather events will cause mass migrations of people and great loss of life.

Wars will increase in frequency as fear, tyranny and lack of life supporting essentials force displacement.

Even if you don’t believe that global warming is occurring, refugees from war, genocide, starvation etc are increasing by thousands every day.

Glance beyond our moat of a channel.

We are within this time and have altered hardly any of our profligate habits that are contributing to the catastrophe.

It is not a picture that encourages much hope.

There are many that put faith in science to save us and others who do not believe it is happening and there are those who believe God, in his various forms, has it all in hand and are doing his bidding.

We carry on, not quite blithely, but unable to make the right choices.

We drive our cars, fly off on holidays, throw away much of our uneaten or out of date food, watch on our screens the plight of refugees and bombed cities, and wring our hearts.

Not much hope but we imagine we will be spared the inevitability or that the consequences of our profligacy and selfishness will not affect our corner of this beautiful planet.

All could be fed and even housed for there remains, in most of the human species, a quality of concern for others, diminished or evaporated entirely in some places.

If allied with trust in our capacity to care about others, this concern could lead us to be prepared to unify and apportion the remaining riches, not only of natural resources but also our deeper sensibilities.

We could save what is left and those who have nothing left.

In hope.

Rick Vick

Stroud