Do you ever get that feeling in the pit of your stomach, like you've just gone down the slope of the roller coaster except that you know you're sitting still? I've been getting it a lot lately. I get it whenever I'm reminded that the lifestyle I enjoy, and the feeling of security I have, is based on a global system that is profoundly unsustainable. I got it again last week. At the same time I was reading Albert Schweitzer's description of Jesus as a harbinger of the end of civilisation as he knew it, I was also reading Richard Ellis' s The Empty Ocean. Each chapter of this book is a variation on the one theme. Not too long ago, the ocean teemed with huge populations of cod, tuna, albatross, seal, whale, dolphin, herring, etc etc. Then within a few decades humans exploited the species to the point of extinction. Some species are rebuilding after strong conservation efforts, others are not. Undeterred, we plough on with our exploitation of the next spe
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson