Commentary

True to ourselves

April 2, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Our screens are covered in gossip and nonsense, untrustworthy stories, and so much about the private and public lives of people who are called celebrities because they are filling the space on our screens.

Do we really and truly care how close to topless a female celebrity was, wearing “suspenders,” as one might call them, only covering her delicate bits, when she came to the latest gala?

The fascination with the wealthy, the stars of the arts, sports and politics is eternal. Be they rude, strange or notorious, we seemingly need them in our lives. We live vicariously through their stories, many times cheering them on; sometimes offering, at a distance, our concern for their own sad news or even, truly grieving at their deaths.

Sitting at a desk with the rain and thunder moaning threats outside the window, one might almost do little else but dally online, reading the pettiness in some of the world and the crazy, crazy dangers in other parts far from here and not so far. There and over there, the truly insane chuck weapons of big-enough destruction as though they were no big deal to the heads of the folk bearing the initial brunt of fire and fear and also those not far enough away either, to be safe.

Like a global competition, a universal reality board game – blowing people up – what do the insane masters of the weapons do next? Go for dinner or drinks with friends?

What is the true cost of oil?

Then, there are the longings to get off the planet – fly us to the moon! And the push for that has been increased with new plans and dates. Indeed, Canada is jumping into the space race, too.

So, talking about new “hoods” on the moon should be easily compared to plans for Mars. However, a brand-new crater on the moon, 225 meters wide and 723 deep – won’t happen again for 134 years, so they say, but this recently discovered crater nevertheless gives pause to the firm idea of safe housing solutions on the orb.

Scientists reckoned the object that created the new crater did so later in 2024, but it took them until now to see it.

The whole space race is a puzzle for me. Humanity is not good at meeting anything it doesn’t recognize. Our first reactions are to overwhelm it, colonize it, or, if appropriate, consume it to extinction. We dared to cross the oceans 600 years ago, and look what happened when we got here! Until there is sanity and less self, this species cannot go anywhere, with the ideas and philosophy we carry now.

I realize that the notion of caring for this very rare, perfect planet, that hokey idea of taking care of the beings living on it, including ourselves, if we are too dull to rule by simple kindness and logic, and we must be ruled by others who immediately become crazed with power over others… it has all been said before and dismissed.

Yet and yet, the money spent on space travel pretense and endless wars of all shapes and sizes – what are we doing, letting untold millions of people die of starvation and causing the rebellion of the planet against the abuse it is suffering?

This species, we human beings, will never build, colonize, live or even successfully land on Mars. We do not have the required intelligence, philosophy, and self-understanding to achieve such a mission. All the men spending this money should stop right now, turn it all back to the earth, and begin healing, such as can happen.

All the men chucking those weapons should be jailed, and the money given to the few who will use it to heal people and begin a new regime without individual power. Without unbridled wealth.

Putting aside the ambition to travel, the science of exploring the universe from Earth via Hubble and the James Webb Telescope may well contribute to our knowledge of what else is out there to a very limited extent. Science has tried to contribute, but we, monsters that we are, allow science to always be corrupted as a weapon.

Luckily, the universe, it is now agreed, is endless.

The latest email newsletter from the David Suzuki Foundation (March 27) reads with such passion, such emphasis about how extremely our dependence, our fervour for expansion on oil, is proving itself as more wrong thinking as the brooding exchange of bombs and missiles dominate the news.

The subsequent bouncing price of oil is playing havoc with our economies and proving every minute that the time to grow up and move on to sustainable sources of energy, which are all invented and ready to use.

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