Thread: Rainforests – The Burning Issue

“If we the battle against tropical deforestation, we lose the battle against climate change. Please join me in trying to save the rainforests – for the sake of our children and grandchildren.”

The Prince of Wales



Humans are like termites. We are marching along stripping the planet of it’s natural resources and destroying it. We do it knowingly and lazily. When it’s too late and we are drowning, or frying, we’ll say ‘damn, we should have stopped but who knew that it would get this tough?’

The majority of us are lazy, selfish and greedy. We have forgotten how to give and we only know how to take. We have become insular and inward looking. We are fighting each other about who is right and who is wrong. How to live. Who to be. Being right is the most important thing, whilst all around us we are eroding our planet and destroying our host. We are ignoring it because it’s simpler to to do the easy thing and live our selfish lives and not do the right thing.

For me, it’s time to do the right thing. I am going to learn how to live more sustainably, more responsibly. I want to give something back to the earth as the earth has given to me. I am throwing off the shackles of materialism and consumerism. I am saying ‘I am a tree hugger and proud.’ There it’s done now. It’s out there. My name is A Modern Military Mother and I am a pacifist, lentil loving, hippy who is getting back to nature. This is the beginning of a pretty, crazy journey of which I am completely un-qualified and un-skilled to deliver. Please wish me luck.

So I ask you to take some positive action against de-forestation, please, at least, visit RAINFOREST SOS and have a read and see what we are doing to Mother Earth – perhaps think about it and maybe even make a positive contribution to the planet. I think that would be a decent thing to do. Do you think we should live more sustainably? It’s hard though. Especially with my fear of bugs!!!!!




More from a Modern Military Mother's blog...

Deforestation isn't the big saving-the-planet issue. It's over-population and consumerism!

All this returning to Mother Earth is like reading middle-class angst churned out by the Femail section of the Daily Mail! If you really want to do your bit, stop using the car, stop buying clothes every fashion season (make do and mend), build your own toys, grow your own food, stop using disposable nappies, compost and recycle, reduce the temperature of your thermostat, stop consuming so much stuff and if you have to buy, buy British! Then we can take the moral high ground with other countries.

It's hard work being properly respectful of our planet and modern life has developed far beyond the wistful musings of our foremothers. Modern worshippers of Mother Earth have struggled with this paradox of modernity and earthy tradition for years.

The best way - as my old mum would say - is to put as much back in as you take out: a thought those (usually) women writing in the newspapers would do well to remember as they climb into their gas guzzling car to do a mile-long school run with their mass-produced latte in the drinks holder.

Interesting...

Having grown up amongst the hippie community, and having gone to a self-professed 'hippie university', I'm incredibly curious as to what exactly you're going to change in your life. Sell the car and get the family bicycles? Turn your back garden into a permaculture farm? One family I know sold their house and built one out of old tires and compact earth, it's a BEAUTIFUL house, and completely off the grid. I'm curious, because it's a really difficult transition for a lot of people to make; I wish you the best of luck. But...you know the planet's going to be fine, right? That comic should really read 'WE ARE DESTROYING OURSELVES". Short of falling into the sun or some other cosmological event, the planet will (eventually, in millions of years) recover. Humans...not so much. So, not so much a 'Save the Earth' campaign as a 'Save the Humans' campaign.

I think it's sad that the majority of the people you know are lazy, selfish and greedy. That must suck. I was very lucky to get to grow up in a community where people genuinely cared about each other AND their environment, and furthermore, ACTED on their feelings of love and protection. Of course, that being said, the most selfish jackass I've ever met was a level five vegan from Sweden, who was majoring in human ecology (takes all kinds).

Well I guess that's the end of holidays to Dubai and the 4 x 4 - air travel and gas guzzling vehicles presumably no longer featuring in your plans? Deforestation specifically to give land over to cattle means you'll be joining we veggies too. Enjoy!

Heli, you're a veggie? You realise this means we can't be friends anymore, right? Lol.

Oh no Bakes! How about I just eat cake?

Well, I don't know where you'd get it... I'M certainly not making you any cake, you... veggie...person... nah, ran out of insults. Lol.

Carrot cake, surely!

A trip to Dubers is still ok as long as you give up the car for a couple of months.

Gas guzzler sold. Moving out of quarters. Soon to be starting new life in country.

When's the internet connection getting switched off?

Taxi for one to hell please!

Originally Posted by Heli

Well I guess that's the end of holidays to Dubai and the 4 x 4 - air travel and gas guzzling vehicles presumably no longer featuring in your plans? Deforestation specifically to give land over to cattle means you'll be joining we veggies too. Enjoy!

Totally, totally agree.

me
x

Originally Posted by Tootsie_Le_Coq

Totally, totally agree.

me
x

Yep - absolutely is that! I can't wait to learn more about it and discover how to deliver this life. I might have to go to Dubai on business on occasion but that is far in the future. I still have to earn money so I can't switch internet off but might browse differently. It's early doors and I wasn't raised this way so I am on a massive learning curve - I am not frightened of hard physical work so I am really excited about it. I worked for 7 years as a sailing instructor - working on beaches, lifting boats, driving and sailing in high winds. My high point was a catmaran instructor, teaching on Dart 16s, in 40 knots plus every day, teaching off the wire whilst others powered the boat. My dad is a railwayman. He worked in freight logistics. He had never stepped foot on a boat in his life. I learned to sail on the gravel pits of Westbury, in a topper, paid for by the wages I earned. I have worked since I was 13 years old. I have never not worked I have always delivered and funded my own life. I moving to a community that can exist wholly on produce grown and farmed within it's perimeters and I can't wait to learn about what they have to offer and work within it.

Dubai was done on a budget - flight was air miles, stayed with a friend, we did some cool things for very little money. I think in total I spent around £300 including the flights - that included taking her out for dinner and paying for groceries. The massage was free and they did it in return for the blog piece and the article.

Back to basics and frugal living. Can't wait to start soaking the pulses again. Dahl anyone?

Erm, forgive me but if you're going green, a flight's a flight whether it's on a budget or not. You're still polluting the atmosphere and leaving carbon footprints all over the clouds.

Be very careful of being green and earth-loving when it suits (have you tried relying on rural public transport over a weekend?). Pulses aren't very British, peas and parsnips are

If I was an old cynic, I'd be thinking that AMMM is being bunged a wodge of cash to do a 'courageous RAF wife manages to live on potatoes whilst husband fights for country' style blog*.



*insert any media outlet here.

*Daily Mail or Daily Express

Why do you need internet for work? If the "plan" is to return to a "better way of life" then internet be gone would be my cry. Living off the land and all that entails.
Are the children and husband to be part of your "new way of living"? Or is this a wheeze paid for by someone in the hope of a well written/balanced view point?

Originally Posted by bootifull

Or is this a wheeze paid for by someone in the hope of a well written/balanced view point?

They'd be waiting a bloody long time.

Somehow I just knew that out of all the remarks and comments posted it would be mine that AMMM re-quoted. The sad thing is that all I had done was quote a post of Heli's and agreed with it.

me.

'If I was an old cynic, I'd be thinking that AMMM is being bunged a wodge of cash to do a 'courageous RAF wife manages to live on potatoes whilst husband fights for country' style blog*'.

Bodger -Could you please refrain from hitting hilarious nails on heads when I am drinking tea over my keyboard!

Originally Posted by Heli

'If I was an old cynic, I'd be thinking that AMMM is being bunged a wodge of cash to do a 'courageous RAF wife manages to live on potatoes whilst husband fights for country' style blog*'.

Bodger -Could you please refrain from hitting hilarious nails on heads when I am drinking tea over my keyboard!

I agree Heli its just plain inconsiderate! I almost chocked on my vanilla Latte (spoilt me!)