Excess, what price are we willing to pay?

With the year at a close and a new one ahead, social convention dictates that we mark this occasion with new and determined resolutions.
Most of these New Year resolutions will be forgotten by morning and the remainder are sure to wash away into obscuraty by the end of the week.

We so often inflate our egoes and continually remind ourselves how incredibly smart we are because of our technicological achievements, thus we tend to live massively opulant lifestyles.
Our so called leaders waste huge amounts of money on planes and houses furnished with the very best and latest of fashion trends while their people live in abject poverty the list could go on and yet come election time all we hear about are promises of change.
They squander their countrys natural resources for instant, often personal fiscal rewards.The madness goes on and on.

Even the grandest of city’s with huge skyscrapers with every five star amenties one could dream of would not last a week without living
in symbiosis with our natural world. Working with one another not against each other.

I decided a little while ago that I would do my part to try affect some sort of change no matter how small and seemingly insignificant.
I like to believe that our little blog including our videos do in some way help in this regard.
No matter who you are and what ever your social standing is, I believe that every action and choice we make has a trickle down and ripple effect.

Now days with the help of information sharing via the internet we are exposed to a powerful resource. We need to use it. Fresh ideas and uncensored reporting is available for the world to see if they choose to.
Coming from a country where even music was sensored for political reasons it is something that younger people take for granted.

I dont want this video to distract or demine the selfless acts that men and women perform in conflict.
No matter what colour, creed or religion you are, I am sure that we can all agree that it makes no difference. The motivation for the impending posilble loss of your life,for your cause/belief is the ultimate sacrifice. If nothing else we have to respect that. I dont want to get onto the who is right or wrong bandwagon but more the long term consequences of our actions as a war-ing people.

Sometimes we get so caught up proving a point that we can easly miss the wood for the trees.
Does it really matter who is right when we destroy everything to prove that point.
In the past we have faught for political agenda, gold and oil. If we continue along this path burning down our forests poisoning our water and polluting the sea.
The next major war we will face, we will fighting over food.
I would like to point out that I was not behind the camera for every bit of footage in this clip, so with this in mind I would like to thank the people who made the extra needed available to me. It is very much appreciated.
I would also like to mention a few sec of footage was taken from a patrol not so long ago.
(During this patrol the solders took small arms fire from all sides.Late in the day CPT James Nehl was hit by a enenmy sniper,The wound resulted in his death)
If we could spare a moment in thought of his family and friends he left behind.

I am realistic in that we have a huge mountain ahead with many twists and turns, not to mention no single blog no matter how good it is will not change the world.
However if this can persaude just one person to think twice about going on a canned lion hunt,choose not to order shark fin soup,or even just pick up that piece of litter that you would normally avoid.Then I think it is well worth the effort.
(I still struggle to understand how shooting a sedated lion that is in an enclosure can possibly be a sport. How can watching an intelligent and incrediably social mammal perform tricks in a tank be classified as entertainment. Or how is it possible that a zoo always seems to have cute newborn animals to drive ticket sales, where are the old ones… animals age right!)
I could make a much longer video showing you the senseless slaughter of animals and the shear devastation of our activities not to mention some of the natural wonders I have been fortunate enough to witness. It is not my aim to depress people into a hopeless state of depression.
I just hope I can add to the momentum of free thinking.
If you think anything that I have said makes a tiny bit of sense or has made you think for just a moment, please share this post/video in your social networks.
You may contribute in making that tiny difference, which counts.
As people will be lamenting the days gone by when you could safley drink spring water, see wild animals actually in the wild and be able to grow plants in dark rich soil.
These are not the ravings of a mad man unfortunatly this is soon to be fact.

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Perhaps this year we can start something new making our resolutions count.
Dan