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Lost Worlds' Loose Ends - Things to get back to one day

Lost Worlds usually has a list of loose ends to attend to. One project has been with preparing new information on "Vikings" – that project had a hard disk accident in 2004 and still hasn't recovered. Maybe a new instalment of that will appear one day? Nothing else much besides regular update is outstanding just now - This page is mostly reserved for longer articles which come the website's way. Enjoy! - Ed

The Case for
ZERO POPULATION GROWTH

By Eric Scott, Tamworth, NSW Australia (Recvd May 2008 - Ed)

What an amazing two years we have just spent!  At the beginning of this year [2008], looking back at 2006, I found myself feeling quite encouraged. 

How on earth could I say that, with world news dominated by disasters, pestilence, wars and brutality on every continent and gross examples of the depravity to which the human race can descend? 

Well, It seems to me that 2006 was the year that it suddenly dawned upon the world at large (both us ordinary folk and, more importantly, our elected governments) that we really do have to do something to overcome the effects that our generation of greenhouse gases are causing and to limit our overall ill-treatment of our environment.  Yes, I know that in recent years there have been many upraised voices warning us of these very facts, but from my observations it seems that 2006 saw, at long last, most of the voices of doubt quashed.

And then there was 2007!  The scientific community hit high gear with their instruments of measurement and prediction -- honing, correcting, reassessing -- conducting the processes that good science uses.  Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that we had a major election in Australia this year. 

Hey!  Don't laugh.  Both sides of the house were more or less forced to address the emerging problem, and fight about it in the media.  The result was that the realities began to sink into our collective consciousness.

The sad thing about this whole climate business is that it has taken something like 30 years to overcome our wretched human trait of denial. 

Denial might indeed be part of our species' protection mechanism, but in a modern society it is a "blue pencil" nuisance more often than not, and perhaps in this case a nuisance potentially fatal to our race!

Oh, we are very good at denial!  Anything that turns up in our too-hard basket or is contrary to our fondest beliefs, usually receives the determined gaze of our blind eye.

Believe me, I am not trying to castigate human beings for the past 30 years: far from it.  If that was the case, I should have to apply the cat-of-nine-tails to us human beings for nearly the past 300 years. 
One brave soul in the days of England's "Dark Satanic Mills" actually dared to raise the spectre of global pollution when he observed the filthy clouds of effluent pouring from the new factory chimneys and into the rivers - and that was in the early days of the Industrial Revolution nearly three centuries ago!  His name I can't recall -- I plead a "senior moment" -- but, what a shame we didn't start to think about remedial action, instead of laughing at him.

Allow me now to dare to suggest to you that we can not afford another 30 years before we deal with the equally serious problem that faces this planet -- THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY OF US!  This fact, coupled with our brilliant technology, is the primary reason we are facing the daunting proposition of climate change. 

*Climate change is but a serious symptom of the primary disease.* Another aggravating human trait is that no matter what the problem, we invariably treat the symptom and not the cause.  We also have an annoying habit of not looking at the total picture.  Think I heard this described in the other day by a Professor of something or other as our not having a "integrated approach."  Whatever you call it, at this point in our evolution our very survival may depend upon our gazing intently at the total picture and conducting a determined integrated approach.

The key element in our being able to control and hopefully reverse the disastrous effect we are having on our climate, is *ZERO POPULATION GROWTH.*

I might mention here that Professor Tim Flannery has been rabbiting on about the need for population control, perhaps for more than 30 years.  (Good on yer, Tim.)  At one stage, it was his estimation that the continent of Australia could sustain a population of 7 million. Oooops! Too late!  In 1950, when I came from England to this lovely place (and, I suppose, became part of the Aussie part of the world problem) Australia's population had already grown to 9 million.  What are we now?  Over twenty one million !!

Some years ago I heard one of our past prime ministers suggesting that we needed a population of 44 million souls!  Why he thought 44 and not 45 I have no idea, but at that time I thought him to be heading towards cuckoo land.  (Sorry Malcolm: I know you tried hard.)  Past Prime indeed.

Let me offer you my reasons for believing that global zero population growth (ZPG) is absolutely essential for the survival of the human race.

Consider the somewhat corny metaphor of our beautiful blue planet Earth as being a bucket, with us human beings and all the other creatures of the world drawing from it everything we need to live, exist and play with.  What is special about this Blue Bucket is that it constantly replenishes itself.

After a very shaky start on the road of evolution, we human beings began to prosper.  We heeded the advice of the various religions that sprang up and populated away merrily, no doubt enjoying ourselves immensely as we did so.  It didn't matter.  Being such a contrary lot, we squabbled and fought and killed each other off in quite a ubiquitous and spectacular fashion, and as a consequence our population grew in rather a tardy manner.  Also, every now and again, dear old Mother Nature decided we needed a plague or three to trim us down a little, and there was not a lot that we could do about it.

Our Little Blue Bucket was more than able to supply our every whim.

Then we discovered that if we tried very hard we could take from our bucket the various materials that would help us kill each other off more efficiently.  Wonderful stuff, these metals.

Our technology had also began to sully the contents of our bucket but it could still handle it.

But we human beings had also discovered that if we stopped emptying our chamber pots on the heads of unsuspecting passers-by, and instead chucked the contents in the nearest river, fewer of us contracted nasty diseases and died.  More importantly, we discovered that if we messed around with a few chemicals, we could prevent and cure a whole host of nasty beasties that had beleaguered our population since Adam was a boy.

Being inventive types, we spent 100 or so years mixing, matching, manipulating, mangling and mutating our chemicals so that we soon had the beasties on the run.  So, copulating onwards, there were even more human beings to draw from our Blue Bucket, and we were now beginning to crowd out the other creatures that needed their share.  We didn't worry too much.  Other creatures were not all that important (or so we thought) and anyway, we needed their habitat and we were _more_ important.

We made progress.  We found that by improving our tools we could indulge in our passion for fighting with one another without killing as many of us as before. (Well, mostly only those who were not fighting.)

Now the voracious crowd drawing from our Beautiful Blue Bucket was becoming immense.  The other creatures of the world were having one hell of a problem.  Not only were we taking their living space, but we rather enjoyed eating some of them.  And Eureka!  Our tools with which to catch them were becoming magnificently efficient.  For example, we could descend upon the bountiful seas, draw out tonnes and tonnes of the inhabitants to eat until the populations were decimated, then move on to another area and do the same again.  We humans demanded more and more!

An area like the east coast of Tasmania which produced copious quantities of scallops that provided culinary joy to both locals and visitors could be pounced upon by our floating machines, packed in factories and transported by flying machines to all corners of the earth ... (sorry) .... all corners of The Blue Bucket. No wonder scallops have become somewhat scarce there.  But we didn't worry.  Some of us were making a lot of money for a while.

Now, I am pleased to say, more and more of us are realising that our world is under terrible tension and persistent pressure.

Did I hear someone somewhere saying "so you would like us to return to the dark ages?"   P-er-lease!  I want us to look at the "Total Picture" as it is now and look for solutions to the agony that Mother Earth is presently suffering, particularly the burgeoning problem of there being too many human beings on this planet.  I want us to seek an "Integrated Approach" to the very many difficulties that we face if we are to correct the problem.  Fair dinkum!  If there was a higher species than us on this earth, then they would describe human beings as a plague.

Last century in Australia, we decided that we would be terribly clever and divert towards agriculture and the generation of hydroelectricity, massive quantities of water from our beautiful rivers, which had been regularly causing us much inconvenience by flooding.  Hey ... we would create great amounts of cheap energy and have good quality food, feed the world and ourselves, and make "a dollar".

And so 50 or 60 years on, and ....  Whoops ... who would have thought it -- in many rural areas arable land was being rendered useless by a rising water table which was bringing salt to the surface and ruining perfectly good land.  Decimation of our rivers and an inability to deal with a protracted drought was also a result, as was the decimation of the habitat of the creatures that lived on, in and around the rivers.  A little late in the day, we reluctantly realised that those creatures effect our own interaction with and use of the environment, and they are inconveniently essential to the preservation of an environment in which we can survive.

It is surely absolutely ridiculous to make attempts to reduce the impact that each and everyone of us makes on our environment, and at the same time allow an increase in the number of us making that impact.

Every extra person will need food.  Oh yes?  "They" say that it is possible to feed everybody in the world now.  Well, we are not doing a very effective job, are we?  Global warming is causing changes in what we grow and where we grow it.  Not a good climate (pardon the pun) in which to consider allowing (even encouraging) an increase in the number of human beings.

Every extra person will need water.  Do I need to say more?  We are noticeably short of this particular commodity now.

Every extra person to join us will need to be housed.  Okay -- every two extra people -- although recent statistics show that more and more of us in Australia are choosing to live alone in houses in which we rattle around! Strange though it may seem, all of the bits and pieces that constitute a home as we know it, require the use of energy to obtain, process, transport and fashion.  And even in our (hopefully) more thermally efficient future housing, most of our extra people will demand some degree of air-conditioning ... more greenhouse gas emissions when we need fewer.

Every extra house will need some land on which to be built ... self-evident of course, but as the suburbs creep out, so the serious farmland retreats, and you may recall that with increasing salinity the available arable land on which to produce food has also been retreating, even if we had the water to grow it. 

(Yes, I do know that in our part of the world the drought will pass, but the prognosis is for there to be far less rainfall then we have been used to in past years.)  I wonder if in the future we will require to import more and more food.  Oh dear, more transporting, more ... you guessed it.

Every extra person to join us will desire to have toys.  Now here is a point for controversial discussion.  Most of us, I suspect, make regular visits to "El Cheapo Stores", "Coleworths" or "Happy Charlie's Bargain Basement" and end up leaving with a few items we need and truckload of items that we don't.  This little activity is a thumping great two-edged sword, believe me!  Sure, every one of these items that we purchase and don't really require, helps nations like China to develop, and themselves to consume more and release more greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. Not only that, every one of these items we don't really need has had to be transported halfway across the world because it was made in a low labour cost country. This perhaps might not be too undesirable if these unneeded items were not likely to end up as landfill within a year or two.

Then there are the necessities for this modern life ... the "his" and "her's" cars ... and the real toys, the boats, the multiple TVs, the home music systems, the computers, etc, etc, etc. When you think about it, the more of us there are, the more our Blue Bucket will be asked to provide. 

But we are already drawing more than it can continue to give. That doesn't make much sense, does it?  Each extra human being will require more electricity, more food, more goods, more services and will be adding more to the generation of greenhouse gases whilst we are now urgently trying to reduce them.  That doesn't make much sense either.

The least that we should be attempting is to hold our world population steady.  In the Australian context, with our water supply almost certain to reduce in the next few years, our arable land perhaps reduce in area and our sustaining a high standard of living/consumption, Zero Population Growth is essential. Right now!

There is a myriad of problems and objections to overcome, and most of them are not to do with the science, but many of them are to do with the attitudes and traditions of us human beings - and necessitate the urgent changing of our attitudes. We ignore the need for ZPG at our peril.  The slogan "populate or perish", in vogue in the 1940s, is no longer viable.  The slogan should now be "if we populate, we perish."

CULTURE

There are many groups in Third World countries where the begetting of children has understandably been considered essential for the caring of the parents in their old age.  The disgustingly high infant mortality rate has meant that the more children one has, the better.  Before we change the culture, we have to change the cause.  Not easy.  It must be said that the world is now making progress in the lowering of infant mortality in these countries, and I can think of very little that is more desirable than this.  However, it must be accompanied by attempts to change the culture so that we don't have a sharp increase in population.  I believe that at the moment, world population has stabilised and may even be slightly declining.  How it is declining doesn't bear thinking about!

GOVERNMENTS, TAX, PUBLIC SERVICES AND SIMILAR UNDESIRABLES

Our beloved leaders in government have these past few years come to recognise that there is a looming problem with the ageing and stabilisation of the Australian population. 

The latter bit I am suggesting is desirable and it we should continue to encourage.  The solution to this "problem" was suggested to be to encourage people to have a child each for mum and dad and one for the country.  (Sorry Peter -- you had been a bloody good national treasurer, but you didn't think this one through.) Unfortunately, this would be a very, very short-term answer.

All these beautiful bouncing babies will eventually require more of the aforementioned goods and services and toys and houses and ........... get my drift?  As they too, in time, will become older and require even more young taxpayers to pay for their care, the problem will never go away -- mathematicians have a name for this type of equation -- I'm not sure what it is, but I am sure it has the word "recurring" in it.

I really can't suggest what the answer that particular conundrum is, but there has to be one which does not involve more people!  Better brains than mine are sure to be able to come up with one.

To demonise the word "growth" is only necessary in terms of population. I am sure economists could discover a path we could take to allow a stable population (that is a two legged population, not a four legged one) to exist happily in Australia.  You never know, with no population growth, we might even eventually catch up with our pressing need for hospitals, schools and public transport.  I acknowledge that it probably would be harder and take longer, but better that then the drama of population escalation and massive climate change.

MAJOR RELIGION

Then there is major religion, and what a minefield that is!

The Roman Catholic Church still insists that the practice of contraception is "not on". If it is part of the "go forth and multiply" instruction or not, I am not qualified to say, but I can suggest that "Himself" would not be silly enough to say it today. Such an exhortation is horribly out of date.  It might have made great
promotional sense 2000 years ago, but it certainly is not appropriate for this day and age.  Unfortunately, in many of the poorer countries of the world the utterances of that church are regarded as "the inviolate word of God", and it would require an embarrassing about face by the Boss Man in Rome to effective a change that would help our beleaguered earth survive.  It could be suggested that it is an insult to the Roman Catholic God that that we believe he/she would wish us to continue to copulate away merrily, willi-nilly. (Oooops .. poor choice of  word there, perhaps.)

Abstinence?  Get real!  God/Allah/Jehova/Great Architect of the Universe/Whoever did a pretty good job of creating the impulse for men and women to get together in a cuddly mode, and I feel rather glad he/she/it did.

I am even less qualified to pontificate (interesting choice of word, there) on the Muslim religion, but it appears to me that the Muslim male is a pretty macho individual, where the fathering of children is pretty important to the maintenance of his ego, let alone anything else.  Somehow I can't hear the mufti in the mosque saying at prayer "steady on lads, our earth needs fewer Muslims."

THE BUILDING INDUSTRY

I expect that one of the greatest opponents of Zero population growth would be the building industry.  I can hear the bleating about loss of jobs, already.  Maybe there would be; maybe there wouldn't.  We need to apply the "C" word -- CHANGE.  Of course, the change in the building industry would not be immediate.  The stopping of growth in population would not be sudden. I can see that major builders would turn towards replacement of major buildings rather than the building of new ones.

Local builders would probably do likewise, and also renovations.  I won't argue that there would not be any shakeout or reduction in numbers: that happens with all industries and has happened as long as there has been industry.  At the end of the 19th-century, the massive horse industry moved into rapid decline (and with it the village blacksmith) when the dreaded internal combustion engine burst upon us. 

In historical terms, that change was almost instant.  (Note the "C" word, again.)

Take the example of the recording industry in which I have had 40 years personal experience.  In the 1950s it was a big deal for any music artist to make a record.  With the advanced technology, in the 2000s around the world, all of the middle sized recording studios and a great number of the large ones had gone out of existence and it seemed that every man and his dog had a recording studio in his lounge room or bedroom.  All the dedicated audio people who ran these studios certainly didn't commit suicide or whither up and blow away. They changed.

I suggest that most industries would be significantly impacted by a Zero Population Growth policy.  Most wouldn't disappear. They would change.

  I admit that change is a very uncomfortable necessity, and human beings don't like it one little bit.  However, if we are to seriously and swiftly address climate change and avoid a catastrophe which is already on the march, then we will have to change -- a huge amount of what we do, and a huge amount of what we believe.

BIG BUSINESS

Of course, we must not forget Big Business.  The mantra of big business is "grow the bottom-line" come what may.  That wasn't a bad attitude 100 years ago.  It was one of the prime causes of the high standard of living which we enjoy in the western world.  I guess the way big business went about it was decidedly dodgy, but that is different subject altogether.  In the year 2008 our earth can not sustain an uncontrolled increase in the production of things we don't really need, nor of the human beings that want them.  I have always challenged the correctness of the business cliche "grow or go backwards."  Perhaps it should be "change with the times or go backwards."  At any rate, it will have to change whether we like it or not.

Just in case you were thinking that such a change is an absolute impossibility for business, let me remind you that halfway through the last century many of the country towns had a fairly slow moving increase in the populations and had privately owned shops and corner stores which quite satisfactorily gave their owners a steady income -- in many cases a very good income.  A good tradesman in his own family business could eventually employ people.

At the smalltown/city level there is an obvious dichotomy.  On the one hand we rejoice in a gentler life then we could enjoy in the metropolis, whilst on the other hand we seek greater population.  As anybody ever thought to ask why we need a greater population?  I think I know the answer that would come from real estate agents and builders and business, but what about the rest of us?  Are we so well off for services in these small towns and cities that we have a surplus for any new citizens?  (For those who would raise the refugee debate -- forget it!  I said "ANY new citizens.")

Sorry to be such a spoil sport, but we really do need a major change in our thinking.

You know, I have a strong suspicion that the pressure to change will not come from our leaders -- will not come from our business people -- will not come from the movers and shakers in our society -- but will spring from the grassroots -- that's us!  All through history, major changes have been instigated by ordinary people like us who eventually recognise the need for a change that will not come without pressure being brought to bear on those who purport to lead us.

I fervently hope that it won't take us another 30 years for the "penny to drop", because by then it will very likely be too late. 

My best wishes to you, where-ever you live ...
Eric Scott, Tamworth (Australia).

Dilemmas for Islam today

Lost Worlds: Some Christmas reflections 2006: This website has never before reflected-in-public at Christmas, sat down and thought, wondered more deeply. Usually at Christmas we are busy socializing. But this year's disgust with Muslim clerics around the world, especially Sheik Hilali at Lakemba Mosque, Sydney, has made us sit down, pore over collections of newspaper clippings, and ponder various conversations and readings the year brought us. Unfortunately, a great deal could be said, far too much, that is just one of the problems. The main problem seems to be this, and it's a paradox, more so for Muslims. If Islam, a religion of submission to God's will, is going to survive as a religion, and even more so if it is to survive as a religion, as is claimed, of peace, then it is going to have to submit. It is going to have to submit, not to God, but to the dictates of men, via some kind of democratic process. Perhaps, many Muslims will see this as impossible, or intolerable, intolerably paradoxical, more so if they interpret Islam as a theocratic religion. However, the ugly fact is, that if Muslims allow themselves to become too radical, too fundamentalist, too vehement, they are all too easily induced to kill. The non-Muslim world, obviously, is not interested in this unfortunate tendency.

The obvious way out of the dilemma would seem to be, that the religion is adjusted somewhat, presumably by Muslim clerics, obviously, those who are best fitted for the task due to their intimate knowledge of Islam What is likely to happen if Muslim clerics fail to undertake this task, and see the paradox through to its logical conclusions and outcomes? Presumably, “the war on terror” will go on in some form or other. That is, Muslims will either stop killing, or the rest of the world will punish them by one means or another, till some kind of submission is accomplished. This could easily become a kind of realpolitikal interpretation of the situation. It is all too easy to see the world situation 2001-2006, in just this way. But quite simply, the world is not interested in a religion which fails to discourage violence, to vehemently discourage violence. And only Muslim clerics can discuss this openly, in a candid way. For anyone else to mention it, feels almost embarrassing, embarrassed that it might be said, embarrassed that it have to be said. So, there, it's said: the conclusion is, that one way or another, Islam is finally going to have to submit to democracy. And why would this be in the least surprising? Christianity did it!

We may as well say some things we happen to think and number some of them as we go. (1) Around the world, Muslim clerics need re-education. They are supposed to be in charge of a religion, but if we believe newspapers, all around the world, and chronically, Muslim people are simmering or boiling with unhappiness. Some of the unhappiness is due to present or past exploitation of various countries by the major western powers, it is true, but those are questions more secular than religious. Some of the unhappiness seems to arise from a self-inflicted victim mentality.

Where do Muslim clerics fit in, or fail to fit in? In Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA, some Muslim migrants seem happy enough, some are unhappy, alienated, it is fear they will become terrorists. Here, just imagine, if all around the world, we found that Chinese people, either new or old arrivals, were restless, unhappy, on the verge of becoming terrorists. But around the world, Chinese people are not unhappy, and mostly they cheerfully get on with their lives. And yes, they aren't Muslims. So it rather seems the case, that the way Islam is being presented by Muslim clerics is due for a sea change, both in Middle Eastern countries and in the West. Interpretations of Islam evidently need a re-think if faithful followers of the religion are to become happier. One problem seems to be that Muslim clerics remain very prickly and defensive about criticism of Islam, or how Islam is presented. If Christian clerics, Catholic or Protestant, were as defensive about their religion, or as provoked by neglect of the religion, they would all have died of depression decades ago. That is, Islamists seem to be worried about the survival of their religion.

Why would this be? It's possible to think of several reasons. One is that Islam, as a religion, seems to be excessively dependent on the use of the Arabic language. The Prophet delivered his view in Arabic; The Koran is written, it is said, very beautifully, in Arabic. (And Sheik Hilali delivered his objectionable sermon in Arabic) The question is, does Arabic cross over well into the modern world, dominated as it tends to be by English, French, German, Chinese, Japanese? It seems, Arabic travels rather badly. Unhappy Muslims in the West seem almost to suffer from a strange kind of involuted reverse racism – they heed religious instruction delivered from an Islamic-Arabic point of spiritual altitude. But does this in itself become a kind of linguistic racism? Views about God, about The Deity, have been delivered in every language on earth since time immemorial, what is so special about Arabic for religious discussion?

In the 1960s, and not without internal debate and controversy, the Catholic Church decided to abandon its traditional reliance on a dead language, Latin, for the conduct of its religious services, The Mass, Benediction, and so on. (There are still old-fashioned dissidents about this religious decision from The Vatican – and the father of actor Mel Gibson is one of the most famous of such dissidents. Protestant Christianity from inception, was always taught in the ordinary language of any country where it was adopted.) And so, Catholic priests use the language of the country they happen to be working in. Let's hear the teaching of Islam, then, in Danish, German, French, English, in Indonesian, not in Arabic! But who would supervise any such language revolution?

Here is another problem. Islam is a decentralised religion, its chief authority is a book, The Koran, not any group of men, and certainly not any group of both men and women. There is no central body, widely recognised, globally-recognised, which has the duty of properly interpreting Islam, which can be criticized if the purity of the religion is abridged. This leaves Islam open to multi-interpretations, which is exactly the problem that the religion has today. Only responsible Islamists, or clerics, can take care of this problem. So far, Muslim clerics show no signs they are aware of any such problem – if they do not centralise their authority on the teaching of Islam, the religion risks being fragmented. It already is fragmented, especially between moderates and non-moderates. Quite frankly, this website is going to declare its own war on non-moderate Muslims, and quite frankly, most of the world fails to care about the views of non-moderate Muslims, so they are simply going to have to wear any unhappiness they feel; it's their problem, not my problem.

Here's a language problem for everyone to consider. In Arabic, the word “jihad” means “holy war”. But is there a word in Arabic for two easy words which are easy to conceive in English, an unholy war? In the sense of a war being unjust, ill-conceived, sinful to be part of? (In Britain, it is widely thought that the first British-Chinese Opium War was an unjust, an unholy war.) If Arabic has a word for a holy war, does it have a word for an unholy war? If not, why not? This throws into relief, then, a fresh view about jihad, today, and the word we find is used far too often around the world, never mind who uses the word. Today, is it realistic to consider the conduct of a holy warm anywhere, for any reason? And no, it isn't. Today, the world is such, that the very idea of a holy war, a concerted crusade about religion, is just plain nuts.

In the West, the Iraq War, or the war resulting from the US invasion of Iraq, is widely regarded as unjust, ill-advised, based on bad information and decision-making, insanely expensive, we may as well call it an unholy war. Why would a holy war, conducted asymmetrically, or conventionally, be any less insane? So here is the problem that non-moderate Muslims have in too many parts of the world – the word jihad has become obsolete, it is no longer possible to conduct a holy war. So why on earth is the word jihad even being used? Modern attitudes, politics, economics, communications and technology resemble the very idea of conducting a holy war, untenable, impractical, plain impossible, and obviously, plain unwinnable. This is partly why Western observers tend to think that non-moderate Muslims are cloaking merely secular, or political aims, in Islamic religious language and imagery, which is outdated. If the US war in Iraq is ill-advised, so is the very idea of jihad. So basically, if anyone today is speaking of jihad, they are obviously out of touch with reality. (What is the Arabic word for an unholy war? Are suicide bombers engaged in an unholy war?)

We think, suicide bombers, anywhere, are profoundly insane, the terribly insane fruit of a Muslim Fundamentalist Death Cult, they are not legitimate followers of Islam. From which, we conclude, If Muslims can't see these factors at play in world affairs, what can they see? It seems to us, that Islam also presents a holistic outlook. We rather fear, that the state of the world today is such that a holistic religious outlook is simply untenable. Concentration on any such holistic outlook only creates extra stresses and strains when that outlook conflicts, as it inevitably well, with non-holistic outlooks, the outlooks of most of the world, in the West, in India, the Russias, and in China. Oddly enough, the Ancient Egyptian religion of the pharaohs was holistic, and theocratic, and it embraced views of proper life on either side of the grave. The religion of Ancient Sumer (Mesopotamia, Iraq) was far less theocratic, more pluralistic, In ways, Islam is similarly holistic, theocratic, precisely why it is conflicting with Western outlooks. This is also a reason why, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, Muslims feel that Islam is under threat. The deep-lying, holistic elements and assumptions underpinning Islam are indeed under threat from the West.

But this is not deliberate on the part of Westerners, and oil supplies are merely an economic aspect of the puzzles – these are differential matters of philosophical evolution. Our views of the world have become so complex, and sometimes so contradictory, partly due to the wild onrush of technology, the ways technology is hooked unequally into economic activity in different parts of the world, that a holistic outlook simply cannot survive. So to the extent that an interpretation of the purity of Islam is at issue, any holistic aspects of the interpretation will remain at risk. So the keepers of Islam have problems – if the holism of their religion is under threat, as it is, what will they do by way of adjustment? For there is an even worse problem confronting our world, our entire planet, and a holistic outlook is not going to help any of us with challenges to come.

That is climate change, global warming. If climate change becomes severe, as it threatens to do, any effort we make to apply a holistic outlook about ways of life, ways of being spiritual, about ways to converse with and relate to God, are going to be contradicted by nature, if by no other set of influences. In this sense, and more so in the longer term, it matters not if Islamists think that the West is decadent to the point of representing a widespread moral, economic, social and spiritual disease. An enormous number of Westerners think much the same, for any variety of reasons. (Catholic popes have been routinely warning about excessive materialism since after the end of World War Two. University people, newspaper writers, in the West have been worrying about excessive consumerism for this writer's entire lifetime – there is nothing new in the least about the need for criticism of Western decadence, so why do Islamists think they can contribute anything extra?) But if climate change persists, all this is going to change anyway, say in 50 years.

Meaning, if Islamists feel that Islam is under threat, things will get worse before they get better. If climate change becomes really severe, an enormous number of people are going to remain challenged by two main threats – the need to survive economically, and resisting the aggression of other people equally feeling threatened by changes in nature. This time, resort to religion is going to solve fewer problems, since we know this is not a matter regarding God, it is simply the planet undergoing changes, some of them caused by humanity. Humanity cannot be predicted to behave well in such circumstances. So this website also wishes to know, what do gatherings of Muslim clerics propose to recommend in the likely event of serious problems arising from climate change? Issue a fatwa against Mother Earth for her misbehaviour? Conduct a jihad against Mother Nature? Yes, indeed, it is high time a few Arabic-Islamic words here, fell into disuse. Islam is a religion which is having trouble adjusting to modern-day realities.

No amount of discussion of the role of God in the conduct of human affairs is going to change the severity of any climate-change situations. And the role of God in the conduct of human affairs brings us to the issue of Sharia Law. On the futurism page of this website is a copyright-free image of a man in space, made available years ago by Microsoft for users of one of its operating systems. What should be the spaceman's relationship be with God, and with Sharia Law? Does the question not sound a little unrealistic? One wonders if a Muslim cleric asked this question, will the spaceman will provide his own answer? And so what should be the answer be for areas of territory on the surface of Planet Earth? Islamic Sharia Law was first propounded when it was not even thinkable that a man might float in space. ...- Ed

Meanwhile, below is the most idiotic email this website received during 2004! It was dated 16-11-2004... and LW hopes it was a prank! "Hello, I am a student of history. My question is this; Is there any evidence to suggest that the Egyptian pyramids were artificial mountains/ mountain ranges which were used to support sophisticated ecologies?"

Below may be some new items for upload to Lost Worlds' pages in due course

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