According to James Hansen, the renowned American climatologist, we are very close to the tipping point for the planet.

And in the mean time politicians are opening shopping centres and getting given bottles of Grange. Really quite tragic. Because the people just sit there like dumb animals and continue to consume flat panel TV's. Was it Karl Marx that said that religion was the opiate of the masses? He was wrong - it is media that provides the soporific environment for people to sit snugly and consume while the planet goes to hell in a handbasket.

Wake up, people!

I haven't blogged in a fair while. Been busy doing things in the real world - mainly working on the house and the garden. Actually beyond the garden... I have been planting trees.

I got an olive tree as a birthday present from my older daughter. So decided that one wasn't enough and went out and bought eight more this morning.... Prepared the ground and planted them today.... with a lot of help from Robyn.

That meant that first I had to do some serious mowing. The grass in that part of the property is about two foot tall and the slope on the hill is about 15 degrees, so it really took some effort to get the area cleared and ready for holes to be dug.

As I was digging holes for the trees our neighbour, Bill, called over the fence and offered us a couple of macadamia seedlings that his sister had grown from seed. So that meant expanding the area for the orchard or grove.... and a bit more digging.

The conditions were perfect for planting today after a week of good rain - the topsoil was soft enough to make it easy to dig holes and it didn't rain during the time we were out working.

So that was today's effort...

The relevance of this is that living now out of Sydney, I am starting to think that the city really is like the proverbial case of the frog in the saucepan with the water heating up.  I find it totally amazing that people are not being motivated to actually do something worthwhile about the changes that are taking place that are impacting society. Some of these are the totally lacklustre performance by the politicians in both the state, the country, and the rest of the world. Some of them are about the breaking infrastructure. And some are about the changes to the environment.

Perhaps the biggest problem that we all face is that the whole self interest meme still has a way to go before people will perhaps start to realize that we are all in this together and we have to start making do with less and doing it for each other and not just for ourselves.

But let's just look at the local situation in Australia and New South Wales for a moment...

We have a state government that wants to privatise the power industry. We all know what that will mean, surely. Power stations will have to become more efficient. That will mean that a lot of people will lose their jobs. Maybe they deserve that. Maybe not. But the by-product will absolutely be that there will be less people apprenticed to become electricians. Every time an industry is privatised or manufacturing moves off shore to China it means that the human skill base of the country is diluted.

It's hard to remember all this stuff when you are in a place like Berry and planting trees!