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The Chinese have a curse. May you live in interesting times. It would be difficult to consider what is happening around the world at the moment uninteresting from the environmental and financial points of view.

The planet earth is a vast structure with complex natural factors which work in harmony when left to their own devices. Our current dilemma is whether we humans are interfering with that harmony and I'd like to explore this.

Those who maintain gardens in an organic way and compost all the plant material from their garden and the kitchen know that a wonderful thing happens and all the rubbish is turned into beautiful, sweet smelling soil. Nature has a way of conserving what is important. In view of that perhaps we need to look at how humans are using the materials of the world. Also to consider is that scientists have done experiments to find out if co operation is a winner or a loser. Those who chose to co operate won. Perhaps there is a message here that co operation with the natural world might make us winners.

My next point is about the future. Do we use up the earth's resources such as oil and leave future generation to have to find other methods of keeping warm, cooking and transport. Humans are selfish but these are our genetic descendants we are talking about. Do we want to leave them destitute? Or do we begin to consider that our scientists and engineers have the knowledge and capacity to replace oil with something renewable? Not using oil doesn't mean we have to go back to candles, no TV and walking.

This is where idealism comes up against the rock face of money. The big financial institutions and multinational businesses have one criteria. Make money. This is not a bad aim. Where the difficulty lies is how to do that without riding rough shod over the wishes of individual countries and the exploiting their resources. It's interesting that two British financial institutions which operate ethically are two who have survived the current financial crisis. One is the Co-op.

Morality and ethics are complex subjects. At one level they look straight laced and limiting but at another they are about being co-operative and that seems to work. At a personal level it's how families who care about their members work.

It is difficult to discuss such a subject as this without mentioning the religious input. Humans seem to have a need for something, someone greater than themselves. If that is the case it's how humans are. Here the difficulty is that men run religions. The ideas of those men are coloured by their experiences and view of life and they make diktats which they say have come from God or the Gods when they are actually inspired by that man's thoughts.

Perhaps a practical look at what input religion, big business and multinationals have on our lives and the ethical or otherwise way they operate is worth some time.

We do have a moral imperative to be ethical.

Learn more about this author, Rosemary Redfern.
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