Like many people who experienced World War 2, I realise that the scene I observed then and society’s general behaviour since, is chaotic, irrational and confusing.

I’m still trying to make sense of it. We need to bring some common sense and imagination to bear upon our problems.

Following Covid-19, there’s never been a more appropriate time in the world’s history for us all to unite together and create a future different to the one we have conspired to invent.

Looking at the proposal to build 3,500 unnecessary houses on land in Dorchester and other similar enterprises, I foresee an unpleasant and largely self-fulfilling destiny; one we will eventually regret when we survey the ruins of what was once a green wonderland already turning into a polluted graveyard of birds, animals and fish.

Our reluctance to abandon coal mines, ‘car-share’ and use public transport knowing how exhaust fumes contribute to global warming, is ‘just sticking our heads in the sand’.

Over time, we have moved from community-inspired hominids to large-scale agriculture, fiefdoms, crypto-currencies, colonialism, slavery, territorial and politically motivated wars, genocide and ‘ethnic cleansing’, to being almost completely preoccupied with the virtual realities of our mobile phones.

Greed, deliberately-designed inequalities of income and opportunity and personal ‘senses of entitlement’ to power and wealth, now transcend sharing, altruism and equality.

Depressingly, perhaps they always did!

Our politicians seem more interested in their careers than making rational decisions.

Their ideologies consist of mantras rather than common sense.

We are sleep-walking to a climate change catastrophe and words of protest fall on deaf ears. The world has become a playground for the rich in which lies, fake news, deceit and the worship of Mammon determine the poverty of billions in favour of a few.

We need something to commonly believe in which will empower us to both reshape the Universe and as a consequence be reshaped by it.

Hope and religious expectations won’t be enough to protect this wonderful planet for those who succeed us.

When we learn to respect Nature and take some urgent steps to protect it, it will respect and reward us. It has no promises or threats to make; perhaps just the message - ‘What goes around comes around’!

MIKE JOSLIN

Dorchester