Thursday, March 20, 2014

20 March 2014 Here be dragons


Cassi Creek:  Dragons graced the edges of old charts and maps, indicating the unknown nature of people and places beyond.  In such times, maps and charts were made as sailors and other explorers pushed the borders forward by actually sailing or walking across those borders and into new places. 
          Today we have charts and maps that cover most of our globe to a degree of accuracy and reliability that astounds even the map users among us.  We can chart the range of change for mountain peaks as they undergo erosion and up thrust.  We can chart the depths of local and remote seas, We can monitor the changes in coastlines and in icepacks, chart the retreat of glaciers, and see the ocean temperatures change. 
          The dragons are still there, lurking, waiting for us to overstep our boundaries by ignoring the extremely fragile atmospheric and oceanic conditions that allow life on this planet to exist.  We’ve eliminated the belief in mythical creatures belching flames and despoiling virgins for the benefit of knights errant.  The dragons of today are found living among us and refusing to accept that science and physics are cruel and unconcerned for the lives of people who ignore the truth about biology, geology, and all the other science disciplines that explain the nature of our world and our universe. 
          Today’s dragons don’t focus on despoiling virgins.  They have a much greater lust that encompasses entire continents and oceans.  They’ll quite happily use our world, abuse and destroy it, and justify it in the name off greed and profit. 
          Here’s just one example of the manner in which today’s dragons far eclipse the behavior of those great scaled flying myths from but a few centuries back.




No comments:

Post a Comment