Where will you go to my pretty one when the oceans come back to reclaim all they’ve lost Will you be lucky my little one to live out your days as you pick up the cost Of our faith of the truth of a destiny fitting of man and a legacy fitting of no man No child no land
We fill up the earth in our image we reach for the sky and what lays beyond We may not be there at the finish but know that we people were weak and our leaders were strong And they knew they knew we were making a destiny fitting of man and a legacy fitting of no man
No child no land And I was listening to the news where city men will air their views And progress is the word they take in place of greed or big mistake The growth we seek will soon return we’ve a hundred years of oil to burn And all those things consumers need six billion hungry mouths to feed We must succeed we must succeed Everything we take for granted everything we work for Every seed of life we’ve planted’s going to make it hurt more Time will come before too long ‘cause we’re playing contranature Time will come for everyone playing contranature
If you haven't heard it yet, you might like to listen to "White Sky Dark Earth", a collab put together with real style by Gabriel Sabadi and featuring his music and production and some vocal and guitar additions from Kephas and me. You can find it here:
http://www2.mixposure.com/Gabriel_Sabadi/song_focus_10530.php
The lyrics I wrote to go with Gabe's music were a sort of metaphor for the financial crisis that is going on right now - mankind climbs the mountain (because it's there) and then once at the top, tries to get still higher by fabricating stuff to build on top of it - but then the storm hits and it all comes crashing down again.
And having got into that frame of mind, I got to thinking:
There are 6.5 billion people on this earth.
Soon, there will be 10 billion.
Until about 1600, the earth's population was pretty much under control because of disease, famine, wars.
Technology put that right.
Right now, the world economy is having a bad day.
Everyone tells us we need growth, more of everything.
That will get us out of the pit the world is in right now.
Truth is, it all has to come from somewhere and there isn't that much of anything left.
We have enough oil for maybe 40 years.
What are you gonna do then?
Oh, and of course there's greenhouse gases.
Global warming.
Climate change.
I keep hearing the words "save the planet" like it's a mantra or something. I don't know why we worry so much about the planet, it's been here 4.5 billion years and it will still be here a very long time after we're all gone. It's shrugged off enough calamities in the past, asteroids, meteorites and the like - a couple of million years and everything's right as rain again. And for those of us who like playing with numbers, like me, in relative terms that's about the same amount of time that it takes a 45 year-old to recover from a cold, (i.e. a week) so what's all the fuss about?
It only really hit me the other day that when people say "save the planet" what they really mean is "save us".
The planet will be fine, but we won't.
Actually, I am one of life's major optimists, and I don't really believe in catastrophe. And I'm not turning into an eco-warrior, either. I'm just thinking here.
When you put timeframes into the perspective of the age of the earth relative to that 45 year-old, it looks like this:
Two years ago, there were dinosaurs walking the earth. Man's early forbears (Homo Erectus) appeared this time last week and men (as we know them) appeared for the first time late yesterday afternoon. The fossil fuels that we started to extract a couple of minutes ago and have now nearly exhausted had been there about two years.
The human population started to grow uncontrollably two minutes ago - about as long as it might take you to notice a fly buzzing round the room, find the newspaper and despatch it...
That's how fragile we all are.
And that's what my song "Contranature" is about.
http://www2.mixposure.com/chris_moore/song_focus_10715.php
