One Finite Planet

“driven too far by issues that he’s suffered”

First Published:

Are we really dealing with the root cause of domestic violence?

It occurs to me that our society may itself also engage in ‘victim blaming’. The quote above refers to the tragic case of domestic violence that resulted in the death of an entire family.

When I first heard that a police spokesman raised the question as to whether the crime had involved a person ‘driven too far’, the thought of victim blaming did not even occur to me. Any suggestion that any act of domestic violence could in some way be blamed on the victim – just seemed too ludicrous to contemplate. What I did think was that given the horrific nature of the crime, and the suicide, some case could exist to argue the involvement of a person “driven too far”. Any suggestion of blaming the victim is abhorrent and beyond contemplation. With the victims removed from the equation, where do we look for what drives a person to the point they will commit such acts? Can our society wash its hands of all blame for turning a human being who assumedly started life as “an innocent child” into the monster that would commit such an act? Society accepting that something about the nature of a society where these events occur all too often requires serious reflection and action, in no way reduces the guilt of any individual offender. But nor does the guilt of the offender exonerate society.

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A different perspective: Humans maybe the greatest threat to life on Earth but also the only hope.

The title ‘one finite planet’ can be mistaken to be yet another proclamation of how we live on this amazing planet which could even be unique, and we humans are foolishly placing it all at risk. Boring.

No. Instead, the perspective is we are living on a planet that is naturally hostile to humans, where nature dictates only a limited total amount of life, can only exist for a limited time, and that time is almost at an end. When seen from this perspective, even the environment mission changes from just not interfering, to the more complex task of tackling the challenge of overcoming nature, while yes, quite importantly, not bringing life to an early end in the process.

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COP27: Climate change action sabotage?

Reports from COP27 seems indicate the key initiative this year to make wealthy nations cover the cost of the damages poor nations will incur as a result of emissions that have main originated from those wealthy nations.

The proposal as it stands has a missing an essential piece, and trying to cover for that essential piece, appears most to likely to increase emissions, and move COP away from a focus on solving the climate crisis and instead toward just fighting over the cost.

This is a troubled look at the key flaw in what has been put forward and the real solution that should be in place.

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Can Peter Dutton repair the democracy ‘loyal opposition’.

Democracy is under threat, and a significant part of the problem stems for the distortion of the current model of ‘opposition’. While the politics of division and polarisation of the USA Trump republicans vs Biden democrats attracts most attention on the world stage right now, what happens in Australia following the recent election which saw democracy strike back (page coming soon), has the potential to provide the world with an alternate blueprint for the role of the opposition party, which could reinvigorate democracy and spread to the US and elsewhere.

Is there an alternative to the current Republicans vs Democrats style, where ‘opposition’ is about each party demonising the other?

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News In Brief.

It is now war until the end for Putin. If Putin is to win in Ukraine, he would simply have to start a new war elsewhere, as relations with Russia could never again return to ‘normal’ without charges of war crimes being held.

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