Innovation and aultruism first line of defence

Altruism took centre stage with the success of Shepparton’s recent Biggest Ever Blokes lunch.

Prostate problems are
 something men usually
 die with, rather than from.

The philanthropy ignited by the now annual event warrants applause, but probably even more important is the awareness it creates about prostate cancer.
There is an inherent reluctance among one half of the population, blokes, to discuss personal, physical bits such as their prostate gland.
Sexual prowess is of huge importance to men and difficulties with their prostate is inextricably linked to that aspect of their lives and so often is it something, for most blokes, not talked about or only referred to obliquely through black humour.
The Blokes Biggest Lunch draws what is really just another moment in the lives of men – sadly fatal for many – out from its shadowy existence and makes it a more acceptable, and understandable, human experience.
Beyond being a significant social event, which in itself is therapeutic, the lunch is about raising cash to help efforts to find a solution to prostate cancer and so in a broad sense is about the wellbeing of men.
I do wonder, however, if the even more pressing and sweeping difficulty of the damage humans are causing to earth’s atmosphere would garner equal interest and support. That being a rhetorical question, I know it would not.
Nearly 3500 men die every year in Australia because of prostate problems and as sad as that is, it is inconsequential compared to the decimation of people that awaits when human induced changes to earth’s atmosphere begin to illustrate that it is really nature that calls the shots, not us.
The same influential group the gathered to hear and talk about prostate cancer, need to again assemble and discuss their response to the fact that our planet is in peril.

Dr Graeme Pearman

Rather than simply dip in their pockets, they need to actively encourage a reduction in our dependence on fossil fuels and for the broad well-being of all who live here, they should act individually, or as a group, to make innovation of way of life.
Evolution is far too slow – just two weeks ago, the former Chief of Atmospheric Research and CSIRO Climate Director, Dr GraemePearman, told Melbourne’s Bayside Climate Action Group that in considering global warming, we have just four to five years in which to act.
Evolution takes time, time we don’t have and so in its place we need intelligent design – that is intelligent design of the entire human infrastructure.
Every company, from the smallest two-man operation to the mega-corporation, and everything in between, needs to continue doing what it does, but on a diet which will end its energy obesity .
Innovation may solve the difficulty of prostate cancer; innovation, and altruism, is the primary defence against global warming.