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&nbsp;and featuring his music and production and some vocal and guitar additions from Kephas and me.&nbsp; You can find it here:<br /><br /><a href="http://www2.mixposure.com/Gabriel_Sabadi/song_focus_10530.php">http://www2.mixposure.com/Gabriel_Sabadi/song_focus_10530.php</a><br /><br />The lyrics I wrote to go with Gabe's music&nbsp;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 -&nbsp;but then the storm&nbsp;hits and it all comes crashing down again.<br /><br />And having got into that frame of mind, I got to thinking:<br /><br />There are 6.5 billion people on this earth.<br />Soon, there will be 10 billion.<br />Until about 1600, the earth's population was pretty much under control&nbsp;because of&nbsp;disease, famine, wars.<br />Technology put that right.<br /><br />Right now, the world economy is having a bad day.<br />Everyone tells us we need growth, more of everything.&nbsp; <br />That will get us out of the pit the world is in right now.<br />Truth is, it all has to come from somewhere and there isn't that much of anything&nbsp;left.<br />We have enough oil for maybe 40 years.<br />What are you gonna do then?<br /><br />Oh, and&nbsp;of course there's greenhouse gases.<br />Global warming.<br />Climate change.<br /><br />I keep hearing the words "save the planet" like it's a mantra or something.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; 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?<br /><br />It only really hit me the other day that when people say "save the planet" what they really mean is "save us".<br />The planet will be fine, but we won't.<br /><br />Actually, I am one of life's major optimists, and I don't really believe in catastrophe.&nbsp; And I'm not turning into an eco-warrior, either.&nbsp; I'm just thinking here.<br /><br />When you put timeframes into the perspective of the age of the earth relative to that 45 year-old, it looks like this:<br /><br />Two years ago, there were dinosaurs walking the earth.&nbsp; Man's early forbears (Homo Erectus)&nbsp;appeared this time last week and men (as we know them) appeared for the first time late yesterday afternoon.&nbsp; The fossil fuels that we started to extract a couple of minutes ago and have now nearly exhausted had been there about two years.<br /><br />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&nbsp;and despatch it...<br /><br />That's how fragile we all are.<br /><br />And that's what my song "Contranature" is about.<br /><a href="http://www2.mixposure.com/chris_moore/song_focus_10715.php">http://www2.mixposure.com/chris_moore/song_focus_10715.php</a>