User:Cadar

Biographical outline

Born and raised in Zimbabwe and Malawi, currently in South Africa; a child of Africa. Involved in conservation most of adult life; one of first four civilians in SAAF history to receive a commendation for work with endangered African Penguins; online activist, freelancer, editor, award-winning writer and film maker; have worked on climate and related documentaries. Fully aware of and deeply concerned about the climate crisis, biodiversity crisis and environmental crises which face the world today. Wikipedia editor since 2004; edits generally follow interests, which are wide and catholic. Excellent command of English; working understanding of French; can read Cyrillic.

Relevant quotes

NB: All of these quotes are taken from my own writing. If they strike a chord, you may use them, but be polite and (a) credit me and (b) let me know, with a link to their use.

• The problem is not the inability to solve the crisis. The problem is the inability to care about the crisis.

• The human race is collaborating on what may well be the single worst atrocity in the history of the universe: the systematic destruction of an entire planet.

• I've said it before, and doubtless will again: Make no mistake, we've created a sad world for our children. I hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive us. Assuming, of course, they are aware enough to realise just how badly screwed up it really is. So how do we change it? We teach them to think for themselves and to trust basically nothing that anyone tells them, least of all the government or social media. We teach them to have respect for themselves, their bodies, their fellow men, their fellow creatures, their environment, and not just to respect them, but to actively defend them. We give them a set of real values, not ones rooted in some ludicrously outdated toxic theology or ideology, but ones that are based in the real world, on provable science and facts. We teach them to speak out about the wrongs they see, and to never back down in the face of intimidation. And we teach them the value of voluntary work with disadvantaged people and endangered wildlife and the environment. We teach them to put something positive into the world and make it a better place than they found it. We teach them to be aware and informed of the world around them, and to research and read, always to read. And we roll up our own sleeves and we show them by example. And maybe, just maybe, we can make enough of a difference to make those changes happen.

It's not all hopeless. Not yet. But the clock is ticking, and time is short.

• We've moved on from debate about whether or not climate change is real. It IS real. We've now moved onto debate about what we're going to do about it, and concrete action to fix it.

• We don't deserve this planet. We give ourselves airs as the allegedly most intelligent species on Earth, but if that's the case then we're meant to be its custodians, not its rapists and its murderers.

• People need to get over the mindset of us and them, black and white, male and female, gay and straight. We need to understand it's not "us and them", it's "we" and WE are all humans. Otherwise we are all doomed.

• We're sacrificing our own children's future and the only inheritance which really matters on the pyres of capitalism gone feral. That's not rational behaviour from a species which has the conceit to call itself "Homo sapiens" - "wise man".

• We spend money we don't have on things we don't need to impress people who don't matter, and we think we get a good deal when we buy something we can't afford which isn't even marked down because there's a sign over it saying EVERYTHING MUST GO. We're destroying the planet - not just the place we live, but our legacy to future generations - and it's all in the name of short-term profits and greed. I've said it before and doubtless will again: we've made a sad world for our children. I just hope they have the greatness of spirit to find it in themselves to forgive us. Not that we deserve it.

• We share more than 95% of our DNA with our closest living cousins, the chimpanzees. More than half of the chemical reactions that take place inside your body also take place in a banana. The fact is that all life on this planet is more alike than it's different, and humans especially so. We have far lower genetic diversity than most other species. Yet we don't focus on the similarities between us, we find the few differences, focus on them and use them as an excuse to be prejudiced and bigoted towards one another. We use them as an excuse to separate ourselves into "us" and "them" and then pretend that our differences make us better than anyone else.

• If we understand how other planets are structured, we can understand how they formed, and that teaches us things about how Earth formed. And going to other planets gives us a chance to search for other life, because right now there is exactly zero evidence of any form of life whatsoever anywhere outside of Earth's own biosphere. Which is kind of weird, considering how resilient it is. They recently took swabs of the outside of the ISS and found it tested positive for the DNA of Earth bacteria. That's 250 miles off the Earth's surface. If bacteria can manage to get up there, then why can't we find life anywhere else, so far? These are questions we need to answer, and they will feed directly back into helping to preserve whatever's left of Earth, which is vanishing with every second that goes by.

And the amounts of money that get spent on space travel are trivial compared to the money we throw around on other things. For instance: NASA was budgeted a total of about $500 billion dollars between 1958 and 2011. That works out to a little over $9 billion dollars a year. On the other hand, black women in the US spend $9 billion dollars a year just on their hair (mostly artificial), and a further $7 or $8 billion on their nails. But if you dared to suggest that might be a waste of money, you'd be called a racist.

The US military budget in 2017 was $523 billion. They're spending $180 billion between 2010 and 2018 just on upgrading their nuclear arsenal. And Trump increased military expenditure by $86 billion for the fiscal year ending 2018, which is more than Russia's entire military budget put together. So really the money spent on the entire space program, with all its technology and probes, is pocket change and utterly trivial by comparison with some of the monumentally stupid things we waste money on, and it actually provably benefits mankind.

It's pretty simple. I'd rather spend ten times what NASA spends on a space program just to satisfy our curiosity about what's out there, than spend one tenth of it on improving methods to kill other people. But hey, that's just me.

• If there's one thing that Facebook has taught the world, it's that you can lead a mind to the facts, but you can't make it think about them.

• It amazes me that we haven't killed ourselves off long ago. It's time we stopped finding reasons and rationalisations to keep destroying our environment and our fellow creatures, and stepped up to be the only rational, moral beings we possibly can be: the custodians of the one place in the entire universe where we know life exists. Not only is it the most moral thing we can do, it's what we need to do in order to ensure our own survival. Any other mode of being is not rational or sane behaviour from a species that has the conceit to think it's the pinnacle of creation. Some of us think we're a god's chosen people, but we behave as though we're a sociopathic species. We murder each other's children over beliefs, we systematically destroy our environment for profit, we murder our fellow creatures for food and for sport. We have no respect for anything else except ourselves, and we don't have much of that. We're meant to be this planet's custodians, not its rapists.

• You can't prosecute a decent war on terror if you have nobody to be terrified of. And if they won't cooperate and be terrifying for you, then you need to take steps.

• There's actually one simple ingredient which is missing from the mindset of virtually all human beings: respect. If everyone had true, deep and abiding respect for themselves, for other people, for all life in all its various forms and for the world in which we live, none of this approaching catastrophe would have even been imaginable. Instead we've invented stupid ideologies and belief systems that we respect and defend before other people, and we focus on the few differences and use them as an excuse to behave like bastards to each other. Our decision making is not based on rationality and facts and positive outcomes, it's rooted in selfishness and greed, lust for power and prestige and wealth; in fear and loathing, ignorance and stupidity and bigotry, all of it with a massive serving of self-righteousness. The longer I spend living on this planet, the worse I see the situation becoming and the more divorced from reality human beings are becoming with every day that passes. And I no longer have any illusions about the future and our ability to save the planet.

• It's very simple: respect people, not beliefs.

• Trying to shoehorn ultimate meaning into a universe that doesn't need it and has no use for it is just a sop to human fear and human self-centredness. It's time we stopped finding reasons to keep destroying our environment and our fellow creatures, and stepped up to be the only rational, moral beings we possibly can be - the custodians of the one place in the entire universe where we know life exists. Not only is it the most moral thing we can do, it's what we need to do in order to ensure our own survival. Any other mode of being is not rational or sane behaviour from a species that has the conceit to think it's the pinnacle of creation.

• Control your government before it controls you.

Initiatives supported on Wikipedia

This user participates in
WikiProject Climate change.

This user is interested in
Climate Change

This user supports the Wikimedia Sustainability Initiative