by …. Jules

A couple of news items caught my eye this week. Well three actually. And somehow they all muddled together, when I was walking the dogs.

First there was an article in The Courier Mail, headed, “Koalas doomed”, by Brian Williams, Environmental Reporter.

According to Williams, Andrew McNamara, a former sustainability minister, was warning that, Koalas were on the road to extinction, because of their habitat destruction. This destruction of course, was not for fun, but because of the continuous growth of the human population. The article quoted him as saying that, “The more of us there are, the fewer of everything else there is (or will be)”. And he also went on to say how difficult it was to discuss population growth, or get it on the government’s agenda. He said, “It’s a massive blind spot”.

The reporter then referred to a 1994 report by The Australian Academy of Science that envisaged a population of 23 million as being a comfortable limit. Although an eminent Australian Scientist, Tim Flannery has mooted 8-12 million as being this nation’s carrying capacity.

(In the same newspaper were articles promoting the growth of SE Queensland ; and how it will become the fifth largest city, of Australia.)

Well that was one thing that got me thinking; and then driving to the park with dogs in the car, ‘a man came on the radio, telling me more n’ more’, asking listeners where they were when the Apollo Spacecraft landed in 1969 .

I remember clearly: I watched it on a black and white TV in a bar in Plaza Gomila Mallorca, where I was living at the time. I also remember where I was when I heard about Kennedy’s assassination, but that’s not relevant here. Nor is my location at the time of John Lennon’s shooting or Elvis’s demise.

However, digressing slightly, there was a man interviewed, who was part of the Apollo Mission Ground Team and he was lamenting the fact that there hadn’t been another effort to land on the moon. In fact he blamed it on the safety factor now and the drive to eliminate all risks. There are so many laws and regulations now, that there are virtually no serious attempts made to promulgate a new plan for planet exploration.

Then there were all the comments on the latest ABC Unleashed, religious article, with bloggers going hammer and tongs, without any resolution. In fact getting so befuddled that they were agreeing with each other, from what I could discern. Intelligent people arguing about an invented invisible God! I didn’t have a go. I mean what’s the point? Will I resolve it?

So after I got the dogs out of the back of my CRV and started walking toward the lake, my mind wandered.(By the way there are no Koalas in The Monaco Street Park- and there won’t ever be- so I have stopped looking now. I just think!)

I got to dreaming, that, if we could solve (get over) this nanny hurdle, for deeper exploration- and occupy another world- we could remedy our overpopulation of The Earth- and help the koalas. Not only that but we could start a new life without religion, one of the major stumbling blocks to meaningful discussion on population control.

Another bonus is that we should be able to eliminate terrorism, since it would be hard to smuggle explosives into a spaceship and then on to The Moon.

The problem with religion is that it could be smuggled in, in the mind.

 But, leaving that aside-isn’t it great to be an optimist?