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Tag: Ecology

When I was in South America, one place I missed was Easter Island. If you want to go here I believe flying LAN Chile is the way to go as they give you a free stop over if you’re flying from Australia. We flew Aerolinias Argentinas (one thing I hope to NEVER do again) and instead I got to see New Zealand Airport. You live and learn… Moving on… I want to tell you why Easter Island interested me so much.

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui (the native name), was discovered by a Dutch ship on Easter Sunday in 1722 inhabited by around 3,000 people in war over scarce food resources and surrounded by over 600 of the six-meter high stone statues (that occupy every photo and postcard that leaves the island).

How did it get like this? Well the first settlement on the island was by probably one boatload of 20-30 people 1,500 years ago, but as populations increased and became separate villages, competition arose in the form of ‘a recognizably modern form: competitive monument building.’[1]

Building and transporting the statues involved chopping down trees and more and more trees were cut down until they were all gone ‘quite suddenly, the society collapsed’ as without wood they ‘could no longer fish, make cloth, or build houses, so their diets became impoverished… [and] deforestation also led to erosion, reducing soil fertility and crop yields…’ so basically ‘population growth and increasing consumption of resources, driven by political and economic competition, led to sudden environmental and social collapse.’[1]

As David Christian notes, ‘the most horrifying aspect of this story is that the islanders and their leaders must have seen it coming. They must have known as they felled the last trees that they were destroying their own future and that of their children. And yet they cut the trees down.’[1]

What do you think: ‘Does Rapa Nui provide an appropriate parable for thinking about the larger trajectory of human history?’[1]

References:

[1] David Christian, Maps of Time. pp. 472-475. David sourced this story from Clive Pointing in Green History of the World (1992)

Top picture:

Moai at Rano Raraku |Source = from en:Image:Moai Rano raraku.jpg taken during January 2004

Second picture:

Photo made by de:Benutzer:Makemake and uploaded by him on 18. Dec 2004

Both pictures are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one. Official license

Peace, Truth Big History, Ecology

Redefining the “good life”

21 Apr ’10Written by Juliet Bennett

1 Comment

There is plenty of evidence that ‘the work-dominated and materially encumbered affluence of today is not giving us enjoyable lives, and that switching to a more sustainable society in which we work and produce less would actually make us happier’:

– the ‘stress, congestion, ill-health, noise and waste that come with our “high” standard of living.’

– the ‘rates of occupational ill-health and depression have been shown to be linked to the number of hours we work

All in all they have shown that ‘once a certain level of income is reached further wealth does not correlated with increased happiness.’

You can probably tell from the last few blog entries that my happiness (although still caught up in many societal-determined aspirations) it isn’t caught up in material wealth. I do not believe wealth equals happiness. And so you may ask: what is it that actually makes me happy? I feel at my happiest when I am dedicating my time to something I feel is worthwhile. It may be writing, reading, helping someone, traveling, exercising, cooking, spending time with family or friends – whatever it is, my happiness seems to be inseparable from (my perception of) the worthiness of those things to which I am spend my most valuable (and limited) asset.

One way we can increase the happiness in our own lives, and decreasing the damage we are causing to lives in developing countries and our environment, is to reflect on our conception of “the good life” and make sure it really is guiding us toward a life we desire. A redefinition of the “good life” would focus on the quality of life rather than quantity of “things”. It would begin by addressing the “time poverty” so often experienced in western society.

We would begin by decreasing our work hours, which would lower our incomes but would also mean less stress and less strain on relationships, less commuting, and would allow us to be rich in something else: time.

Photo:

Snapped in Bolivia on the Uyuni Salt Lakes. It was even more magic than it looks.

References:

Kate Soper, ‘The Good Life’, New Scientist (18 Oct 2008). p. 54. Soper is based at London Metropolitan University, specialising in the theory of needs and consumption, and environmental philosophy, author of What is Nature? Culture, politics and the non-human. Also see: Cultures of Consumption Project at www.consume.bbk.ac.uk)

‘How We Kicked out Addiction to Growth’, New Scientist (October 2008). p. 53.

Peace Ecology, Narrative, philosophy

Happiness and relativity

19 Apr ’10Written by Juliet Bennett

1 Comment

Yesterday I had a bit of a rant about the money people earn and spend in the world I live in comparison to the money people earn and spend in the developing world. Here people work around 8-10 hours a day, 5-6 days a week behind a desk (by one’s own choice) and spend their income on clothes and chocolate and cars and properties and parties and holidays. There people spend 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week behind a sewing machine or picking cocoa beans (no choice) just to put basic food on the table and hope their children can have some form of education so that they can enter our rat race too. We really have set up a horrible system that makes economic slaves of everyone… is it making anyone happy?

Sure nice cars, boats, holidays, parties etc are pretty awesome and fun. But are they making us happy? Why is the suicide rate so high in our “rich” world? Does the couple of weeks of skiing make up for the other 48 weeks spent doing a job we don’t really enjoy, that feeds the system’s ugly poverty/environmental consequences, and that leaves us too tired to do much else other than get pissed on the weekend and try to forget… is that happiness??? Does the result actually justify the means?

And when we get that car or have that holiday, does it actually bring us the happiness we expect it to? What about one month later when our friends tell us their buying an even better car than ours, or going on an even better holiday? Then are we jealous and resentful? How long does the happiness gained from materialistic pursuits actually last?

Psychologists and economists have found that the ‘correlation between absolute income and happiness extends only to a certain threshold’ – after that, it’s only our status relative to peers that determines how happy people see themselves.[1]

Buying an expensive car brings with it a message of status. It tells people whose opinions you care about, and it sends a message to yourself, that says “I am worthy”. But without that car we are obviously still worthy. I wonder where our lack of self-worth comes from? Why do we feel we need to compete and be seen by others as this or that?

I guess a perception of self-worth goes further than just material wealth. The relativity of self. We can only judge ourselves as relative to everyone else: How does our body shape compare to others? How about our eyes, our face structure, our skin? Our intelligence? Our creativity? We are constantly judging ourselves – where we sit compared to the people that surround us.

We are all beautiful, we are all special, we are all worthy. I believe this and yet I still find myself victim to the self imposed oppression that comes from societal superficiality’s. Why do I question myself?

Why do we feel a need to justify our worth, and have others confirm it? Where does this need for external (and sometimes the internalised need) for external justification come from? And how can we transcend it?

Photo credits:

Photographer: Gilbert Rossi

Styling: Erin Blick

References:

[1] ‘How We Kicked out Addiction to Growth’, New Scientist (October 2008). p. 53.

Peace, Truth Ecology, philosophy

Small talk. How will we be remembered?

18 Apr ’10Written by Juliet Bennett

Sex or chess? Peace, the world’s trump card

13 Apr ’10Written by Juliet Bennett

10 Comments

So yesterday I enjoyed a little rant about the game our governments, supported by the people’s consumer-driven values, are playing with military pawns, strategically placed towers, and other oil-powered weaponry. We established the difficulty in knowing what sources we can trust, but decided that either way whatever moral and immoral tactics the governments are using with their present day “war of wants”, it is the westerners that gain the lifestyle benefits of cheap clothes and food and transport and travel. I am absolutely a beneficiary of this, and I must say I’m glad to be on my side of the fence. But we also established that our state of being is temporary. One day, if we keep playing this zero-sum game, someone else will be the winner and we will be the losers. I left you with a hint of hope: is there another way?

I believe there is a trump card. And that trump card is PEACE.

Ok, ok, don’t close down your browser just yet. I know it’s cliché. And I’m getting to the sex bit.

I think that there’s a difference lifestyle and world system out there that is more satisfying for each of us both mentally, physically and spiritually. What I am talking about is a world system not based on consumption and capital acquisition and an excessive usage of our world’s resources. It’s NOT based on competition, win-lose, on war and violence. What I’m talking about is a PARADIGM SHIFT. A change of game.

A shift from win-lose to win-win; a shift from competition to cooperation; a shift from a world based on limited supply to a world based on infinite creativity. It is crazy that people in the developing world die from hunger while people in the developed world die from obesity. One party has too much, the other has too little. Over the last couple of hundred years or so we have quite ironically and erratically set ourselves up in a lose-lose situation.

It is ridiculous that people in the developed world suffer from self-imposed stress-related illness and depression, and the developing world suffer from lack of self-determination that comes as a consequence of our material and superficial values. They work 17-hour days behind a sewing machine to provide us with more clothes we do not need. They work 17-hour days producing wheat and sugar, to create more unhealthy “foods” to make us fat. WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE?

There are hundreds of ways that this absurd system can be fixed. And everyone has a part to play.

Governments: shift the billions of dollars from defence budgets, stop filling up your troops with McDonalds style BBQ foods, and invest in addressing the roots of the conflicts – invest in sustainable cradle-to-cradle designs of products, houses and transport facilities. Be transparent. Create a true democracy.

Voters: vote for governments who put their money where there mouth is, that support the long-term future of humanity. Write letters to your representatives, tell them what you want.

Consumers: spend the extra on the products and services that are sustainable and buy less of the products that are not. Buy fair trade where you can. Write letters to companies and tell them what you want.

Shareholders: you are accountable for your investments. Your money has a consequence not only on the profit you receive in your profit, but also on the social and environment and political situation of your country, of the countries involved in the trade process – which will have an affect on you and your children. Tell the CEOs and MDs of the companies you are invested in what you want them to do with that money.

Bank account holders: your money you put in the bank is then invested in shares – so find out where your money is and make sure your bank knows your values.

Business decision makers: look at the outcome of your company’s actions and your decisions – not only in terms of profit for shareholders, but in terms of people and our planet. Where are your Inputs coming from? Where, after purchase and consumptions, are the remnants of your Outputs (including packaging) being disposed of? How could your product be designed better, so that it’s materials can be not only recycled but are “up-cycled” and used infinitely in the biological and industrial metabolisms? The aim is ZERO waste.[1]

Rich people: did you know that the 225 richest people in the world could provide the $40 billion needed to create a world where everyone has access to food, shelter, education, safe water, sanitation and healthcare [2]? So get off your ass and encourage mates to do so too. Invest in “social businesses” aimed purely at achieving a social or ecological objective. Your money alone can change the world!!!

Workers: look at the company you work for – what product are they creating? Is it good for the environment? Good for people? Where do they get their inputs? What toll does this have on people and the planet? Communicate your thoughts with your bosses. Think creatively – how can things be improved?

Media: try to report more than just the violence – tell people about the peace movements, give people the biggest picture you can get. I know it’s tough given your limited sources.

Basically we must THINK GLOBAL ACT LOCAL. We each can make a difference and together we can change the world.

Imagine if we can shift from looking at the world as game of chess, to seeing it more like, hmmm, more like SEX…

Imagine if the world was a place of making love – a game where there are only winners, and there are no losers. A game where each party feels more pleasure, the more pleasure they provide to the other. A game where energy is created, and not taken away. A game where the happiness and joy and creativity is infinite. A game of utter satisfaction and never-ending joy and happiness. And with no ecological footprint. Now that’s my kind of world.

Did my peace card trump your defense card? DOES SEX TRUMP CHESS? Is it time to change the game?

References:

[1] William McDonough & Michael Braungart (2002) Cradle To Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, North Point Press.

[2] L. Schirch (2002) “Human Rights and Peacebuilding: Towards Justpeace”. Paper presented to the 43rd Annual International Studies Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana, 24-27 March 2002.

Picture Credits:

Dormice® (click to see more of his incredible art) Sawan Yawnghwe – A very successful Canadian artist based in Panzano – Florence, Italy. My distant friend.

Peace Ecology, peace, Politics, power, Social Change, Structural Violence

Big History Blog Series: Ch2 – Star Formation and Another Big Explosion

9 Apr ’10Written by Juliet Bennett

2 Comments

To recap, in our first chapter of this Big History Blog Series, we learned that the Big Bang theory is based on the observation that our universe is expanding and hence that it must have once been smaller. Winding back time we imagined the infinitesimally small point of singularity. At the point in time we can call the beginning of time, we went from nothing or a something that lays beyond our understanding, to the existence of quarks and the laws of gravity and electromagnetism. This combination caused quarks to explode and become protons and electrons. Protons and electrons in turn combined to make hydrogen and helium atoms.

In chapter two of the Story of Us, we will look at how we transformed from hydrogen and helium atoms, to bunch more types of elements that make up all the atomic matter and energy in our universe.

First let’s put atomic matter and energy in perspective.

You can see in the diagram above, that only 0.4% of our universe is atomic matter and atomic energy that comprises stars, planets, and lifeforms such as ourselves. Most of our universe is dark energy and dark matter, two hypothetical forms of energy and matter that are largely undetectable but are inferred from their gravitational effects and from the increasing rate of the universe’s expansion. (Basically, I gather, dark energy and dark matter are names given to the who-knows-what and the who-knows-how that permeates and permutes the incomprehensibly huge universe.)

Okay, so now that we know what tiny slice of the universe the rest of Our Story is located in, let us continue. How did we get from a point of singularity to the complexities we observe around us today?

The first step (about 200 years after the Big Bang) was the formation of stars, a creation we owe to gravity.

After millions of years of floating around in clouds hydrogen and helium, gravity pulled some clouds together. The huge clouds contracted and heated causing atoms inside to move faster and collide. Hydrogen atoms fused to create pure energy – creating massive atomic bombs – which became the first stars.

Again thanks to gravity, these stars collected into galaxies (like our Milky Way), which collected into “clusters” of galaxies, and the universe kept expanding and creating new clusters further apart, as it still continues to do today.

The second step in this process of increasing complexity was the appearance of new elements, like carbon and iron, to which we can thank the death of large stars.

When hydrogen atoms ran out the center of stars collapsed, temperatures escalated and now it was the helium atoms turn to fuse together to create elements up to iron, number twenty-six (ie it has twenty-six protons in its nucleus.)

The third step (probably within a billion years of the Big Bang) was the explosion of stars who had new elements floating around inside – a “supernova”.

Out of this ‘colossal explosion’ (as David Christian calls it), the supernova gave us another new sixty-six elements, giving us the periodic table (remember it from science class?) with ninety-two elements for the universe to now play with.

In sum, the elements from hydrogen to uraniumall our elements are made from different combinations of protons and electrons, which are all made up of quarks pulled together by gravity. These different combinations were created by the explosion of dying stars that contained elements from the death other stars that came from clouds of hydrogen and helium pulled together by gravity.

Where did the law of gravity come from? Who knows! But we should “thank God” that it did, because without law of gravity no-thing would exist.

And so, children of the stars, I bid you goodnight and leave you with this time-line. One billion years down, just thirteen billion years to go. Have a nice weekend!!!

References:

David Christian, This Fleeting World: A short history of humanity, Berkshire Publishing Group (Massachusetts 2008), pp. xx-xxi.

Picture credits:

Dark matter pie – pulled from wikimedia commons and which originally came from NASA online.

Periodic table – electrical resources.com (http://www.electrical-res.com/families-of-the-periodic-table/)

Cosmic time-line – I’m not sure where I got this, I found it in my old computer files, so if anyone knows its source please let me know.

Truth Big History, Ecology, supernova

Where are we, where are we going, and how?

29 Mar ’10Written by Juliet Bennett

2 Comments

‘I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.’ George Bernard Shaw.

The following snippets of youtube videos are inspired by an initiative called “Awakening The Dreamer” which involves a half-day seminar that uses these video and more to step through where we are, how we got here, where we want to go, and how we can move toward that goal. taking groups through these questions. I attended the seminar and was impressed with how succinctly these clips summed up the present human predicament that I had been researching last year. Their conclusions, the same conclusions as mine, combine sustainable living, social justice and spiritual fulfillment, and in the end come down to one thing: INDIVIDUAL’S MAKING CHANGES LOCALLY, WHICH ADD UP TO GLOBAL CHANGE. Their videos inspired me to put this post together, so that the message can get out there as fast as possible. You may have seen some of these already, but if you haven’t seen any of them then this sequence of clips will take about one hour… something to do over the (what in Australia is going to be quite a rainy) Easter long-weekend. Enjoy!

Where are we?

A world divided into the “haves” and “havenots” – where the “havenots”, almost half the world, don’t have a place to shit, and a growing number of the “haves” are depressed, dissatisfied with the fulfillment material consumption and acquisition brings, and more and more are becoming mentally ill and committing suicide.

A miniature earth:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvTFKpIaQhM[/youtube]

It’s just not fair:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0O2LMqnHGg[/youtube]

But this is not an accident. Inequality is designed into the system. That’s why we in the western world can buy lots of things for cheap, can earn more than we spend and save money to buy houses or travel.

While apologists of global capitalism still adamantly state that the capitalist model is the best path to eradicate poverty; economist and policy director Andrew Simms clearly proves this “trickle-down” theory nothing but a myth. Simms shows that on our current trajectory it would take 15 planets’ worth of earth’s biocapacity to reduce poverty to a state where the poorest receive $3 per day. In other words ‘we will have made Earth uninhabitable long before poverty is eradicated.’[1]

The “developing” countries are in fact a ‘transmission belt’ with value (for example raw materials) forwarded to the ‘developed” nations such that ‘the total arrangement is largely in the interests of the middle class.’[2] It seems that poverty is ‘no longer a side effect, but an intended product of globalization’ with its continuation ‘seen as beneficial for the middle class’ likely to cause a resistance to ‘change and redistribution.’[3]

It seems clear that while markets ‘won’t do the job by themselves’, and governments are ‘often cruelly short-sighted’, for the IPE structure shift to a sustainable model it will ‘be a choice, a choice of a global society that thinks ahead and acts in unaccustomed harmony.’[4] A shift in values from capital-accumulation to social justice and environmental responsibility is likely to result from a widespread realisation that continuing on our current trajectory will, without a doubt, end with devastating calamity. It seems that only a well-informed global population, with leaders and citizens of developed and developing nations acting out of “enlightened self-interest” and for ‘the wellbeing of their children and children’s children’, will allow the IPE structure to enter a sustainable paradigm. [5]

350.org:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5kg1oOq9tY[/youtube]

How did we get here?

Dawn of human conscious, collective learning, development of separate identities, and the industrial revolution. Our human journey:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRa60PLtnEs[/youtube]

The story of stuff, by Annie Leonard:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8[/youtube]

Where do we want to go?

Well, I know I don’t want humanity to go extinct. Nor do I want future generations of humans and animals to live on a toxic planet as a consequence of the chemicals we use to support our consumption and acquisition…

What alternatives do we have? We need A NEW DREAM… one that is environmentally sustainable, socially just and spiritually fulfilling. (See the Awakening The Dreamer initiative).

The new dream begins with the realisation that “success” is really about the amount of happiness in your life – not the amount of money in a bank account. People are starting to value creativity over capital, experience over “things”, and time over consumption and accumulation. Is there any better feeling than the one felt when you make another person happy?

The new dream is based on an identity that transcends our individual self, appreciating our connectedness to all people, to all life, to our land, and our universe. Our new dream does not fear change, it embraces the transitivity of everything that exists, seeing everything as a process. Life will never be static. Reality is dynamic, and as humans we each have a part to play in creating a sustainable and peaceful planet for ourselves and future generations.

How are we going to get there?

Invest in Cradle to Cradle design – turning waste into food:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iJGK-Rs4UQ[/youtube]

Invest in “Social Business”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C3XQ3BTd4o[/youtube]

A “Global Mindshift”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFpDvh2z5Tw[/youtube]

Hold our governments accountable to the Millennium Development Goals:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JnIJypPL-Q[/youtube]

Other exciting ideas and initiatives: www.goworldlink.org/

Why should we care?

Our planet is alive. We have adapted to live as part of her ecosystem, if we destroy this for ourselves, we have no where else to go:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBH7uIjhlE4[/youtube]

Her resources are limited, our needs are expanding and infinite:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDn0-xdE9bI[/youtube]

Whatever we do to our web, we do to ourselves:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7oRk986HLs[/youtube]

The world is not made up of me and “the other”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl6fHYywQNM[/youtube]

Listen to the wombat – “all is one”:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHyH3MPgZDo[/youtube]

Where should we to start?

Reflect on our world-view and question our assumptions.

Rethink our values and communicate them with others.

Ask ourselves: what is my role in making the world a better place?

Be the change: know that one person can make a big difference:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QzjqOl2N9c[/youtube]

And then don’t hesitate, make plans and put them into action!

“FOUR YEARS. GO.” A campaign to shift humanity onto a sustainable, just, and fulfilling path … by 14 February 2014.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_6iTCo5Ci8[/youtube]

Want some ideas about what you individually can do, check out this page on the Awakening The Dreamer website

Start by sharing this message – let’s change the world in the next four years!

References:

[1] Andrew Simms, ‘Trickle-Down Myth’, New Scientist (18 Oct 2008). p. 49. Andrew Simms is the policy director of the New Economics Foundation in London. In this article Simms steps through the mathematics to show the system is designed such that for the poor to get ‘slightly less poor, the rich have to get very much richer’. This means it would take ‘around $166 worth of global growth to generate $1 extra for people living on below $1 a day’.

[2] Ibid. p. 84.

[3] The Hague Institute of Social Studies, Collateral Dammage or Calculted Default? The Millennium Development Goals and the Politics of Globalisation, 2003. p. 35.

[4] Jeffrey Sachs, Common Wealth : Economics for a Crowded Planet (London: Allen Lane, 2008). p. 81.

[5] Ibid. p. 5.

Peace climate change, Ecology, peace, poverty, Worldview

Big History Blog Series: Chapter 1 – The Big Bang

25 Mar ’10Written by Juliet Bennett

8 Comments

Once upon a time, in the land of Quantum Nothingness, there was a BIG BANG and an infinitesimally small something started to expand, possibly faster than the speed of light.

For some unknown but much talked about reason, matter in the form of quarks (the basic building blocks of protons and electrons) and dark matter (we don’t actually know what this is) appeared, and with it came two forces: gravity (that draws everything together) and electromagnetism (that draws opposites together and pushes the similar apart). At first this combination caused the quarks to annihilate themselves – turning into pure energy. It was from this hot chaotic mixture of quarks, energy, and electromagnetic and gravitational forces, came positive charged protons and negative charged electrons.

As the universe expanded it cooled and the protons and electrons joined to create the first atoms – Hydrogen atoms (made up of one proton and one electron) and Helium atoms (two protons and two electrons). These were electrically neutral and so they were no longer affected by electromagnetic radiation.

Cosmologists estimate the beginning of the expanding singularity, when measured in our earth-centric concept of time, to have occurred around 13.7 billion years ago. Since this time our universe has grown to contain 100 billion galaxies, which contains (taking a conservative number of 100 billion stars per galaxy) approximately 10 sextillion stars (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) – that’s more stars than grains of sand on earth. Traveling at the speed of light it would take 20 years to travel to our sun and 5 million-years to travel to the nearest star. Ok, you get the picture, our universe is huge! How we got from the first appearance of matter and energy, to this massive universe, will be the subject of chapter 2. For now let’s return to the Big Bang.

It seems it is at this point of singularity that we discover “the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything”. That would be NUMBER 42. What was the question again? (You’ve seen Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy haven’t you?) What does the number 42 that mean??? Hmmm… absolutely nothing…?

For me, the “Ultimate Question” is: how the heck did something come from nothing? What caused “the big bang” to occur? And WHY? Scientists are yet to answer these questions.

Ok, so if we do not how or why the big bang occurred, then how do we know it actually happened?

1. Because we know our universe is expanding. Astronomers observe and measure other galaxies moving away from us – detecting it with the “absorption line” of frequencies in a light spectra. This is called a Red Shift (red light shows parts of the galaxy moving away while blue light shows objects moving closer to us.)

2. You can still actually see the CBR energy released about 380,000 years after the Big Bang. Turn on an old television set – the static you see is “CBR” – Cosmic Background Radiation.

3. The universe is still largely Hydrogen and Helium (99% of all atomic atoms); looking into the universe stars appear “younger”; also nothing seems to be older than around 13 billion years. (It is interesting to note that atomic matter is only a small slice of the universe – the rest of it is dark matter and dark energy.)

If something is getting bigger it must have previously been smaller, right? That’s the key logic behind the Big Bang. Winding back time we imagine our universe contracting back down to an infinitesimally small point of singularity.

Did something exist before this point of singularity? Maybe.

Does something exist outside all that we know exists? Maybe.

Maybe the universe we experience is version of “multiverse” – with all possibilities existing in universes sitting side by side.

Maybe Big Bangs are happening all the time – creating new universes in a space we will never know.

Maybe our universe is like a computer game programmed from inside another universe. Maybe a group of such programmers are competing to see whose universe self-destructs first. Maybe there’s just one programmer to whom some people call “God”.

Maybe the universe is “God”, continually going through a process of expansion and contraction – “God” breathing in, and “God” breathing out, with each breath taking billions or trillions of years.

We may speculate as much as we like, I do not believe I shall ever know these answers. Does that matter? Not to me. I would rather focus on what we do know. What do we know? We know that we are inside a beautiful expanding universe. We know we are a part of a magnificent process of increasing complexity, and the fact that we are intelligent enough to be aware of it, to observe it and discuss it, puts us in (if I do say so myself) the most exciting place any human has ever been.

An extra little interesting note on the Big Bang:

Attempts to observe the early stages of the big bang are occurring at The Hadron Collider on the border of France and Switzerland and also at Fermilab in Illinois – using “Accelerators” to make sub-atomic particles move at close to the speed of light, and smash together… what will this reveal? We have to wait and see.

References:

David Christian, This Fleeting World: A short history of humanity, Berkshire Publishing Group (Massachusetts 2008), pp. xx-xxi.

Picture credits:

The Birth of the Universe, The Kingfisher Young People’s Book of Space, TIME Graphic by Ed Gabel.

Truth Big History, Ecology, Meaning of life, religion

Adventures with Ideas: Truth, Beauty and the Paradoxes of Life

Tag: Ecology

The evolution of “Man’s Best Friend”

The parable of Easter Island

Redefining the “good life”

Happiness and relativity

Small talk. How will we be remembered?

Big History Blog Series: Ch2 – Star Formation and Another Big Explosion

Where are we, where are we going, and how?

Big History Blog Series: Chapter 1 – The Big Bang