Tuesday, August 01, 2006
July Update and Longleat
I've read quite a few blogs from other people about Peak Oil recently, and it all seems to make sense to me. I've always felt that humans were bleeding the earth dry, and that something would go wrong somewhere at sometime. And now it seems like it might be the oil running out sooner rather than later, instead of global warming, which causes a major change in the way people actually live their lives.
I spent the last weekend visiting Longleat, which is a safari park in England set in the grounds of a large stately home (a massive house, with even larger grounds around it). The park has various animals in it such as lions, tigers, giraffes, rhinos and monkeys, and you drive around in your car through the large fields to see the animals. The whole thing reinforced my knowledge that the whole of humanity is stupid, and must go down the drain sooner or later, and drove home the fact that humanity was just way too stupid to try and save itself.
Longleat is notorious for the monkey enclosure. In this field you drive through in your car, the monkeys are free to roam, and often climb onto the cars as they slowly drive through. The monkeys are well known for pulling anything they can get hold of off your car - such as windscreen wipers, aerials, bumpers, or any rubber trimmings. They have put up signs warning you of this, and saying you enter at your own risk.
Being a summer weekend, the park was packed full of cars, all moving slowly. Well, half way through the monkey enclosure, the monkeys get onto a couple of the cars in front of me. No problem I think. As long as the drivers keep on moving, the monkeys will get bored and get off for the cars following behind. But NO! The drivers of the cars about four in front of me decide to stop, and block everyone behind them. So now these monkeys are free to roam over all the cars stuck behind these two IDIOTS at the front, who have decided to stop for a full 5 minutes in one area where car damage is virtually guaranteed. At this point I just could not believe the STUPIDITY of these people. What were they thinking at that moment? Were their minds so totally blank that they were unaware of the monkeys climbing on all the cars behind them? Did they not realise that they were blocking ALL the traffic, so that NONE of the cars could move forward. Did they not see the long queue behind them extending all the way back to the entrance? And the open road in front of them?
Luckily my car did not get damaged significantly. They did pull on the back wiper and the washer jet where water comes out of, but nothing was damaged irreversibly. But other cars did have things pulled completely off them, while these IDIOTS at the front just sat there. For me this just drove home how completely stupid humans are, at all levels, and how unaware they are of everything going on around them. No matter what happens, humans just seem to ignore all they can see and the information around them, and carry on doing what they want to, regardless. And these idiots driving the cars at the front, so unaware of everything happening behind them and the other drivers having their cars attacked, are deemed legally fit to drive cars on our roads. That made me really worried. If these people cannot even drive around a one way system in a safari park properly, what are they going to be like on a public road with many other cars moving much faster, and in both directions? At that moment, as I said, I realised that there was no hope for humanity, and it was just full of stupid people messing things up for the small percentage of those who wanted to do the right thing.
The other thing that drove home the stupidity of humanity, was the conditions of the animals at Longleat. I am not on about the general conditions they are in - this is all very good, and much better than a zoo in my view, as the animals are not in cages, but in fields they can roam about. In many respects these animals are in more natural surroundings than those confined to much smaller enclosures and cages in zoos.
No, the key difference that I immediately realised is that the animals in their native habitat would be be breathing in the relatively clean air in Africa or India or wherever. But here in Longleat, they breathe in car exhaust fumes! ALL DAY LONG! This place is crying out to have electric buses put in place, to replace all of the individual cars driving around and spewing out pollutants directly in the faces of these animals. Instead of having thousands of cars drive through these fields every day of the summer, they could have the cars all park outside the park at the entrance, where all the people would board electric buses, and be transported around the park pollution free. And then there would be no traffic jams in the park, caused by IDIOT drivers! And they could supply a commentary on the bus, providing information about the animals and how they live, which I am sure would be much more interesting to the children, rather than being couped up in a car for 2 hours.
Yes, 2 hours to drive an internal combustion engine driven car around a few fields, polluting constantly for 2 hours, just to look at a few animals sitting in some fields. CRAZY! If Longleat REALLY cared about the health and well being of these animals they would have put in electic buses years agos. Clearly the people running Longleat are more concerned with their ability to generate money and stick it in the bank, than they are for their animals. Why else would they not invest in a fleet of electic or even hydrogen buses? Why do they continue to let these poor animals breath in car exhaust fumes day after day after day? And add more pollution to the planet in general? None of which is necessary for want of a few buses.
Anyway, that's all for now. I'm off on holiday for the next few weeks, so I'll try and post something interesting one way or another when I get back.
