Learning by Training

By Arend van Campen

STAR STUFF

Last week I drove back from Rotterdam to my home town in Switzerland. When I reached the Vosges Mountains in the vicinity of Strasbourg, a dense fog covered the valley as if an ocean of cotton protected the land underneath. The sun appeared in the east as it was dawning. I was thinking: the sun warms us, this blanket of clouds protects us and I could not help a sudden thought from entering my mind that we are probably alone in this universe.

Our lives, work and loves have to be lived on this earth, which provides us all we need to live well, but only if we stay in harmony with her. 92 elements in a multitude of combinations form all life, even yours and mine. Cosmologists confirm that these elements originate from stars in the universe and somehow ended up on our planet, which miraculously happened to be exactly in the right position. We are literally made up from star stuff, or stardust if you will.

The sun that warms us, clothes us and provides us with the necessary means to survive, is at a safe distance from us at 149.6m km. If she were farther away we would freeze. If she came any closer, we’d be fried. Somehow these stardust atoms agreed on a right mixture of hydrogen and oxygen which formed the water to drink. This water, in combination with many of the 92 other elements, then formed our body, our brain and our blood.

Oxygen was designed because it pleased these atoms to combine two oxygen particles. These two atoms then cooperated in an exact equilibrium with millions of trees to keep up production of O² and clean our atmosphere, of course in collaboration with everything else in the environment and ourselves, as users and dependents.

This took and is taking time. A continued process of construction and destruction of combined elements provides life.

When I reached Strasbourg, I was wondering if policy makers such as EU Commissioners, their political friends and business relations would also contemplate how to sustain life on earth? I came to the conclusion that they either are not aware of the beauty and incredible creativity of living systems or refuse to see. Their agenda seems to be filled with the pursuit of political and business interests that in fact are harming and jeopardising the life-sustaining particles of our stars and sun.

Life on earth is being sacrificed for the interests of a few. Scientific evidence of harmful industrial production is being ignored. Pollution of seas and soil are condoned. Stephen Hawking stated that humanity will not survive another 1,000 years.

Perhaps I am a pessimist, but I’d like to think that I am a realist. We have to change our transportation, production, sales, marketing, manufacturing from their path dependency into a form which supports life. Perhaps we can all become stargazers so we don’t feel alone anymore.

This is the latest in a series of articles by Arend van Campen, founder of TankTerminalTraining. More information on the company’s activities can be found at www.tankterminaltraining.com. Those interested in responding personally can contact him directly at arendvc@tankterminaltraining.com.