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Rosemary Jacob Born and initially educated in England, arrived in Australia, 1/1/71. She has always loved maths and graduated from Imperial College London with a BSc (Special) Mathematics in 1957. Early influences have made her a strong supporter of social justice, a feminist and a believer that education is a lifelong pursuit. In 2008 she was admitted as a solicitor and barrister, practising law until 2012, while she also became an accredited mediator, practising until late 2017.She is concerned for the future of her 3 great grandchildren under the climate emergency.

Death, religion and perspectives

This is a very personal piece, but on issues which affect us all.

Today is my 87th birthday and I had a mild stroke, almost exactly 2 years and a day ago (as I write) which has had a continuing impact on my memory.

I am a divorcée with no desire for another partner and my ex-husband’s second wife is caring for him as he suffers dementia.

My former mother-in-law was incredibly stressed when my father-in-law was suffering dementia – like father, like son! I am quite sure that prolonging his life, foreshortened hers!

And, having, late in life, studied law, I am well aware of the extent to which laws are influenced by religious beliefs.

In Australia, choosing to end one’s own life is only allowed to those of right mind who are suffering intense pain and for whom death is imminent anyway! That’s assuming that your State/Territory has already passed legislation!

Is this good enough?

IMHO – NO!!!

We are all taught that – except in war – killing another is wrong and, to be found guilty of doing so, deliberately, is punishable by the laws of the land.

Yet there is no adequate consideration given to the effects on the carers for those suffering from dementia, particularly when the carer and the sufferer share a close relationship.

What we ignore, far too often, is quality of life.

Most people in our society today who are already suffering from dementia, may live for a long time yet, but in doing so, their quality of life is not really good, and that of their most caring relatives is almost certainly worse.

My former husband appears to be unaware of how his behaviour is affecting others. He no longer recognises his 3 children and he accidentally knocks his wife over without being aware of having even touched her.

Constitutionally he is likely to have a good life expectation which is not, clearly, a good prognosis!

Although I am presently clear of dementia, my defective memory is an embarrassment, I only have one eye with an intact retina, my spine is collapsing and the latter is making it increasingly difficult for me to keep my promise to myself to keep weekly vigil outside Parliament House until the governments (NT and Federal) STOP using and exporting fossil fuels.

If I degenerate so far that I am a burden on my children and others have to care for me, I want to be able to die!

And I know many others share those feelings.

Why do our legislators ignore us?

I have no religious convictions and for me, having no quality of life makes life meaningless!

And I count myself as being currently of sound mind!

 

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Do we deserve to become extinct?

What follows is a letter to the Editor of the NT News which they will probably publish:

My apologies for failing to keep my regular 2-hour vigil on the last 2 Wednesdays outside Parliament House.

On Tuesday 13 December, the day before my first absence, I tested positive for Covid, so I was in isolation.

The following day I started a course of antivirals, which, added to 4 vaccinations, meant I tested negative the following Tuesday.

I played safe and cancelled the following week’s vigil, but at no time did I feel unwell.

(I hasten to add that everyone’s experience with Covid is different and I was extremely lucky.)

So – weather permitting – I shall be back next week and thereafter.

I promised myself that I would keep my weekly 2-hour appointments until governments in Australia takes serious action against using fossil fuels.

In England, from 1939 until the mid-late 1950s, we had distinctly limiting restrictions, with rationing and shortages while we concentrated on fighting WWII and began to recover.

We need to do the same now!!!

We have ignored all the scientific information on global warming for well over 50 years, and our descendants will be paying a stiff price in consequence.

Remember tobacco????

I grew up in a Christian household, in a Christian country and retain respect for the ethics of Christianity – selflessness, caring for others, doing as you would be done by – have you ever read Kingsley’s The Water Babies?

I now fully support Stephen Fry’s denial of a “good” god, but regret the desperate lack of ethics which drives our governments and corporations.

The rate at which inequality is growing is deplorable and mankind probably deserves to become extinct!

 

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Speed is of the essence – Prime Minister!

I think an element of caution in relation to political decisions – because of economic implications – has been impressed too firmly into the ALP.

We are now in a situation where wasting time in terms of climate change decisions is the worst possible error.

Anyone who understands exponential growth will appreciate that, not only are many parts of the world now experiencing climate change to an unprecedented extent, as far as human history in concerned, but indicators point to the rate and frequency increasing inexorably, UNLESS we take really intense and increasing efforts to slow and reduce the rising temperatures produced by climate change.

We do NOT need a gas-led program.

We need to stop using gas, oil and coal – ASAP.

It is our only hope.

We have got to stop manufacturing plastics, unless they are recyclable and recycling is genuinely practised.

We have been persuaded of the conveniences of modern machinery, yet those of my generation who lived through WWII in Europe will vouch for the fact that preservation through re-use and recycling is actually quite acceptable when it increases the likelihood of surviving a catastrophe!

So – PLEASE, Prime Minister – give strong support to rejecting fossil fuels as a danger to survival, rapidly encourage the use of electricity in all forms of transport, ensure that solar, storage batteries and all other readily available forms of renewable energy are installed as standard and as widely as possible.

We do not have rime for failing experiments like carbon capture and storage or nuclear power. We need to have made substantial changes before 2030 if we have even a faint hope of improving the hopes for our children.

I moved to Darwin at the beginning of 1971.

I know that temperatures are now significantly higher than when I arrived – not just 1˚C, either!

This is not an issue we can waste time discussing.

We have a multitude of scientists who are more than capable of developing plans that can be introduced as soon as possible.

We are surrounded by oceans, and any sailor will vouch for the power every wave can transmit.

Much of Australia enjoys many hours of sunshine.

Winds blow over the oceans as well as the land so, all told, we have an abundance of energy to harness.

And did we not want to create more jobs?

 

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Can we avoid mass extinction?

We only have one planet! And we each have only one life!

The vast majority of the current world’s human population is struggling to survive anyway, and dreams of populating another planet are, frankly, a waste of time.

Watching Putin trying to carve a place in history for a Russian Empire is painful, and the lives which he is destroying in the meantime are of more value to us than he is.

Mankind is basically presenting a very good case for allowing climate change to end in another mass extinction!

We are at real risk of losing any choice in the matter, because too few of the world’s real decision makers are interested in making the necessary – and life changing – decisions necessary to stop the rot.

I lived through WWII in England, with rationing, lack of choice and general restrictions – but we (mostly) survived, and owe thanks to thanks to those who didn’t, so I KNOW that governments CAN make the necessary changes to their decision making processes to increase the likelihood of achieving a desired outcome.

It requires hardship for the entire population, it requires acceptance by the people themselves that the necessary changes – NOW – are essential and totally unavoidable, and it requires those with massive wealth squirrelled away into tax havens to realise that they need to donate it towards ensuring that the necessary changes CAN be made – FAST!

After all – you can’t take it with you, but, if the world does, thanks in part to your generosity, continue to exist, you will be well remembered!

We need to STOP using fossil fuels NOW!

We need to harness the power generation possible by utilising sun, wind AND water – not just in hydro schemes but in the power of the tides. Australia is surrounded by sea which is currently doing us damage instead of helping us to survive.

We KNOW how to do this – but we just are not doing it! Check out @MikeHudema!

We need to develop vast numbers of practical electric transports – not as status symbols – I would be happy with a humble 3-wheeler – but as practical and low in power demands.

We have the means and the motives to do everything necessary but not, it seems, the will.

At 86, I am not concerned about about my personal future, but I do have 4, young, great grandchildren, whose future is looking pretty grim!!

Every day without meaningful action puts us that much closer to permanent destruction.

ACT NOW!!!

Time is nearly exhausted.

I am usually an optimist, but the massive number of heads in the sand make that really hard to maintain!

 

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Hope for the future – is there any?

The election of the current Australian government provides a small increase in hope for the future, but it is only small.

I am as guilty as anyone of ignoring the messages of global warming while I was still employed, and did not have time to understand how the whole world was entering the exponential increases in climate change.

And – as a mathematician – I understand the concepts underlying the word ‘exponential’!

In my late 80s, with a compressed spine and having suffered a mild stroke in early 2021, I am unlikely to experience, personally, the full extent of the changes which are rapidly occurring.

My four great grandchildren will!!

Rivers in Europe are drying up – how much longer before our floods turn to droughts?

Helped by Putin’s mad moves to create a Russian place in history, more nations than usual are facing famine.

Too many governments are led by mainly older males who have yet to understand the main lessons of history.

Change is inevitable.

Power is no substitute for using the knowledge of experts.

A candidate for leadership should not think popularity is highly important.- whereas respect for a leader IS important.

We have already laid the foundations for a world wherein the greed of the ‘haves’ is destroying our chances of surviving and thriving.

In my lifetime, the wealth of the world, instead of being used for research and useful action, has been diverted into massive individual shares of wealth for an incredibly small proportion of the population.

Taxation is a means of enabling governments to have the ability to help all who need help – which is an incredibly large portion of the world’s population.

Instead, the ‘haves’ have enabled a view that small government and low taxes are to be preferred.

BS!

Examine the satisfaction levels of those in Northern Europe, where high taxes are providing high levels of government support, and extreme poverty is hard to find.

Anyway – I am not the first to try to point out the errors we are making and the paths we ought to follow.

None of us have succeeded in helping people to ignore the lies from the greedy.

Perhaps the extinction of humans might enable Earth to recover from the harm we have done and are continuing to do.

Sad!!!

We could have achieved so much!

 

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Fire, Flood and Famine

Sounds Biblical?

As it should.

Man’s inhumanity to man also features.

Talking to a close friend, I was assured that my concern with climate change – more particularly with lack of action to prevent climate change – was doomed because of the selfishness of humanity

And – reluctantly (because I am an optimist) I fear they are right!

The world is over-populated.

We have – at least in the developed world – become addicted to convenience, and we are guilty of high levels of waste and pollution.

Could we do what is necessary to save the planet from our depredations?

In theory – yes – but, in reality, not in time.

I remember what we experienced in the UK during WWII, with shortages – or unavailability – of so many items, rationing restrictions and recycling programs.

Everyone was affected, but we all accepted the need if we were to win the war.

Are we not now in exactly the same situation, but with a different enemy?

And is not that our own selfishness and inability to accept the inevitability of change?

 

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CLIMATE CHANGE IS HAPPENING – NOW!

Beware complacency!!

Yes – Morrison has gone, and, even though memories may linger like a bad dream, he is no Trump!

BUT – how positive is the ALP about climate change action?

If we were on the verge of an obviously necessary war, we would be ready to do all that is essential to support the requisite action.

But we have grown up believing in the idea that the world is there to serve us.

And we have recklessly abused its resources.

We have been deluded into believing that economic growth is eternal, that the environment in all its beauty and abundance is there for our benefit, and that we can do what we want with its resources.

Sorry!!

We have been grievously misled!

Every day that we fail to cut emissions – drastically – will be multiplied exponentially into the multiple of days in years to come when life on Earth becomes unbearable.

Do you really want to make your grandchildren’s lives miserable?

Action – NOW – is essential.

Delay is criminal!

 

 

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Hope!!

There are no magic bullets or instant cures.

Hard work, perseverance, judgment – these are some of the skills and tools to enable improvement.

The ‘Teals’ are a collection of small ‘l’ liberals who understand the need for urgency in acting on climate change.

They are not stuck in a time warp, like the nationals and the right-wing of the liberal party, because they are intelligent, educated much more highly and widely than many of the population and more than capable of getting honestly involved in discussion.

The new Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, would do well to use their skills to help him improve his plans for reducing emissions – fast!

Included in that we need urgent plans to re-educate the parts of the workforce which will become redundant as fossil fuels are phased out.

Australia is long overdue for a new plan for the future. So many issues are involved and intermeshed that it is a complex issue which requires really urgent attention.

We CAN do it but everyone MUST accept that the whole landscape of life is in processes of change to which we must adapt.

I grew up in war-torn England, and only realise, looking back, that we had massive shortages which we accepted because winning the war was essential.

Life is no longer ‘normal’.

Covid-19 has not gone away.

Emissions are being increased instead of reduced.

Savagely different weather events are destroying homes and livelihoods.

CHANGE is coming in many unpleasant ways.

We DO have the means to cope and improve our situation BUT we have to accept that we cannot have our cake and eat it.

We MUST be put on a wartime footing where our war is on climate change!

AND we ALL have a part to play.

 

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A last ditch attempt

Currently, very few countries are making meaningful attempts to battle against climate change, so their efforts, while valiant, will likely be wasted. But here, in Australia, as well as in the above-mentioned countries – and also in many other small to medium countries – we could start a peaceful revolution. Planning has been the obvious…

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This is really serious

The latest report from the IPCC has been carefully crafted to avoid being thrown aside as alarmist and therefore untrustworthy. It is actually telling us that action is not just needed urgently – it is critically important that we act NOW – where ‘we’ means the whole world. OK. So that is impossible. But WE…

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Planning for Change

For anyone in a managerial position, the ability to plan is important – as is the ability to recognise when plans must be changed.

When that position is as Prime Minister, there are actually far more important events than elections to worry about!

We came into the COVID-19 pandemic ill-prepared to handle the challenge.

Over the months since the Coalition selected Morrison as their leader, I have gained the impression that he has a very limited idea of what his role really is.

He has spent an enormous amount of time ensuring that he is photographed, in high-vis when appropriate, at every possible opportunity. He basically acts like a flamboyant pop star!

Behind the wheel of a truck, the controls of a ship or in any other innovative and eye catching situation is good for his self-promotional purposes.

He has had the red carpet rolled out at airports as if he were a President rather than only the current political leader – not even the Governor General – of a not very significant country.

Yes – we all love our country, but when you really examine the ranking of Australia, it is not that high up the list.

The people who have done most to help their fellow Australians are not our politicians.

They are our medical personnel, our carers in medical facilities and in aged care accommodation. Few of these get reimbursed or supported as they should be.

Not to overlook our volunteers in services like the fire brigades. who literally put their own lives on the line to help to save ours, and their families have to cope without their assistance when they are called out.

Since the initial concentration on the pandemic, the government has tried to introduce legislation to restrict the ability of registered charitable organisations to actually advocate where they perceive injustice. So far they have failed.

The introduction of JobKeeper was primarily for the benefit of employers. Those who claimed the benefit and were proved to have not really qualified for it have not been required to repay it – unlike the false claims for payments wrongly demanded from those who suffered through the illegal Robodebt campaign.

And hundreds of people were not eligible for JobKeeper and have had very limited – if any – assistance.

Education is clearly a bête noir for this government – despite the fact that many of them, thanks to Gough Whitlam, have never had to repay a HECS debt! Our universities have lost skilled staff and will take time to recover, and yet education is a major foundation of life!

Along with a growing number of people, most of them far more knowledgable than am I when it comes to climate change, I have agonised over our government’s repudiation of even the most basic attempts to make drastic changes in their plans.

I have absolutely no doubt that we have nearly wasted all the time which we should have spent planning to limit the damage we will most certainly incur from climate change.

Since 5 February, 2020, with possibly 4 or 5 exceptions, mainly due to weather, I have sat outside the NT Parliament House for 2 hours every Wednesday afternoon, protesting at the continued support for extracting, exporting and using fossil fuels.

Accepting the need for change is not readily available, and we are digging our own graves by refusing to take the necessary action.

PLEASE make this New Year’s Resolution:

I WILL DO EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO ENSURE THAT OUR GOVERNMENTS IN AUSTRALIA TAKE URGENT ACTION TO ELIMINATE THE USE IN ANY WAY OF FOSSIL FUELS, AND WORK WITH OTHER COUNTRY’S GOVERNMENTS TO ALSO TAKE ACTION.

This also means we have to think very carefully about how our views on the importance of politics or people’s lives should guide our vote at the next Federal Election!

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How greed and selfishness will doom the future for our grandchildren

I have enjoyed an enormously lucky life. It has not been without traumas, but, at 85, I am ashamed that I am so comfortably off when so many are denied any pleasure or joy in life.

My then husband’s career brought us to Australia, to Darwin in the NT, just over 50 years ago on 1/1/71. I am still here.

Within my first 6 months, I knew I was born to live in the tropics, and I have no desire to leave, even though I am fully aware that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of severe weather events.

Having been here for Cyclone Tracy, and remembering how, in its wake, the city looked as though it had been bombed, I have no illusions about what we might look forward to.

Along with many of my generation, I was late in coming to a realisation that mankind’s actions needed to be re-directed if our grandchildren’s children are going to have a habitable world.

Extra free time in retirement has enabled me to understand the science – and the sordid venality of those who put profits before people.

I grew up in a Christian household and country, and have no quarrel with an ethical system which asks us to do as we would be done by.

But our so-called democracy does not share those values.

To see a need to help others is to be scorned as a so-called leftie.

We have statistics praising the billionaires and their assets, but less well advertised are our poor and under-privileged.

Even less well advertised is how badly we treat them.

Hardly surprising then, particularly in Australia, is the refusal by so many of a vaccination designed to protect lives. After all, given how little the current government really cares about the poor and their needs, who would think they were genuinely trying to help?

The COP26 has just ended – badly.

Australia is a developed country which has contributed more than most, on a per capita basis, to the emissions which are – ever more rapidly – destroying the world as we have known it.

Yet we are one of several, totally selfishly governed, countries which are demanding to be able to continue to mine, sell or burn coal – source of one of the most damaging greenhouse gases.

In fact all fossil fuels should be left in the ground until we have stabilised the greenhouse gas situation.

In fairness to some countries, their leaders lack the power to legislate necessary changes, despite their certainty that they are vitally important.

I do not believe in causing harm and loss to others, but I deeply sympathise with those who feel driven to violence in their disgust with governments which refuse to acknowledge the fact of climate change and its dangers.

Since 5/02/20, when COVID-19 really reared it head, I have sat outside the NT Parliament House every Wednesday afternoon for 2 hours ( I have missed a few through rain and health issues) to remind anyone who stops to chat of the urgency of action on climate change.

I shall continue doing so until all Australian governments have recognised that failing to take action is dooming our descendants to a world which will be increasingly destructive of life as we have known it.

Many Australians – probably more than 50% – would largely share my view.

Sadly we have elected politicians, a majority of whom do not.

We have an election coming soon.

There is only one issue of importance.

Are the candidates prepared to take serious and appropriate action on climate change?

We still have time – just – to change the future.

Another 3 years of Coalition government will be pretty certain to seal an unfortunate fate for life on Earth.

I do not trust Labor, either, although I think their actions will be less damaging than those of the Coalition.

And please remember that the Coalition, with help from Clive Palmer, has already made it crystal clear that they will happily lie and distort the truth if it helps them discourage people from voting for the ALP.

So please use your preferences with extraordinary care!

Our best outcome would be a sufficient number of climate conscious independents on the cross bench!

This next election will be more important than many people realise.

 

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Can we still avoid Climate Catastrophe?

Clearly, the people elected by the Australian people to govern them are either stupid or insane.

If I read the science correctly, we need to be well on the way to reducing our greenhouse gas pollution by 50% by 2030 – NOT 2050 – to have a real hope of bequeathing to our descendants a world in which they have a hope of enjoying life.

Have you been watching the ABC program ‘Fires’?

It is not fiction.

And many of the people who lost everything in the 2020-21 fires are still waiting for real help.

We cannot fight climate change unless we change.

We have been failing to do so for too many decades, and now we are running out of time – fast!

 

 

 

 

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Why is our government holding us back?

So far as I can see, most of those who claim to be ‘Christian’ are actually adhering to a cult.

I grew up in a Christian (Presbyterian) household, I studied the Old and New Testaments at a C of E school, (as well as Comparative Religion) and am now sufficiently uncertain as to the existence of a loving God as to regard myself as an agnostic.

I am, however, totally certain that no one can truly regard themselves as being Christian unless they clearly follow the teachings of Christ. Selflessness and honesty are two virtues which I fail to detect in many, like our PM, who falsely and misguidedly claim to be guided by a Christian God.

The whole world is finally waking up to the fact that Earth is under threat from climate change – but not yet sufficiently awake to realise how massively – and hastily – we need to act if our descendants – ie the grandchildren of the latest generation of parents – are to be able to enjoy a life which is not being destroyed by fires, floods and famine.

Selfishness seems destined to destroy mankind, and it is certainly accelerating species loss and biodiversity.

Many of us have already installed solar power, and will – when we can afford to – purchase a battery. But these are luxuries for most of the world’s populations. And it is totally wrong – morally and really – for the wealthy to be able to survive in comfort, while the poor are pushed aside and ignored. It is absolutely NOT Christian behaviour!

I am denied access to an electric car because of a government which refuses to accept the desperate need to reduce emissions.

Australia is both one of the wealthiest and – in too many ways – one of the most backward countries in the world.

We have manufacturing facilities which could be revived to build EVs and the knowledge to ensure that re-charging is readily available.

We also have a Coalition government which appears to lack any ability to plan for a viable future.

Today, schoolchildren are demanding that governments take action as a matter of urgency, as their whole future is at stake.

In the very near future the existing government will draw on the selfish instincts of the electorate to seek a further term in office.

I am deeply unenamoured with the alternative government, but would still rather vote them in, than risk seeing the future for my grandchildren and their children destroyed by the selfishness of those currently at the helm.

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Why are ‘religious’ organisations given tax free status?

There would have been few people who were not deeply shocked by the revelations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Now we have similar concerns revealed about the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I spent a considerable part of my school years studying the Bible, followed by examination of Comparative Religion, at a C of E secondary school in the UK.

The picture that this presented to me was that the Jews, followed later by the Muslims, and unlike the Greeks and Romans, chose to believe that there was one god, and that he effectively existed for the Jewish people.

Muhammad, of course, did not acknowledge that Jesus was, as claimed, the son of god – he saw him as another prophet, and, originally, maintained a more favourable view of the Jews than might be the case for modern Muslims.

Jesus’ message, that the god of the Jews loved everyone, was not accepted by the Jews, who did not oppose his crucifixion by the Romans.

The process followed by his disciples has resulted, over the centuries, in increasing numbers of groups developing what have, in many cases, become cults, which have enabled mainly men to exert a level of unholy power over their flocks!

The essential message, that Christ wants you to love your fellow beings, has been warped and distorted by many of those cults, and the longest enduring of them, the Roman Catholic Church, has concentrated on developing a level of power which has proved highly destructive.

Pope Francis would, it seems, if left to his own devices, try to bring the church into the 21st century, but, even for former Catholics, the attitudes of the church seem to implant guilt rather than love.

The conflict between much of Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament, and the practices of most of the so-called Christian sects, leave me totally puzzled that anyone could genuinely believe that could say they were spreading his words.

And all of that assumes that a god actually exists.

I became an agnostic decades ago!

The recent examination of the Jehovah’s Witnesses throws grave doubts on the extent to which its existence is actually desirable.

The Pentecostal branches, like that to which our Prime Minister adheres, seem to love money more than the people outside their organisation, and my personal feeling is that religion should be a private matter and receive no support from governments.

For many that might seem too radical, if not actually blasphemous, but, given the appalling behaviour which has been revealed in so many of these sects – including just a few like the Catholic Church, The Plymouth Brethren, Scientology and the Pentacostalists – I seriously think we have to ask whether they deserve the favours they are granted.

Same sex marriage has been a major bone of contention for many of the ‘religious’, who cling on to ancient biblical messages, ignoring modern science.

And recent events in Afghanistan have highlighted the fact that many religions refuse to recognise that the knowledge of the founders of the religions were ignorant of much that has since been revealed by scientific research.

We have to stop living in the past, teach science properly in all schools, let people follow any beliefs they choose – as long as they do not harm others in so doing – and teach ethics in all schools, while the money saved from ceasing to give tax benefits to existing bodies – except for genuinely philanthropic activities – should be used to help all the people who are currently struggling to survive.

Far more important than religion, is ensuring that all can survive, and that demands attention to climate change!

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