MenoAZering; C = Connections

For April, I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z, and you will find original images created by me and some ramblings to go with them. I will capitalise words that begin with the featured letter (on first use only). Let me know what you think of the pics, words, or both in the comments! For more of this madness, you can visit Blogchatter.

Everything, absolutely everything, is CONNECTED. Intellectually we all know this. For some, this applies only in the microcosm of their immediate lives; kneebone - anklebone - toebone stuff. Family and friends. Workmates. The daily COMMUTE might involve some skill to marry buses with trains, and so on.

Some are COGNIZANT of the connectedness of everything we refer to as 'nature' to ourselves. That we are, in fact, a part of that very nature. CLIMATE is a part of nature, and some accept the connection we have to its CONDITION, and others do not. Sure, the earth's climate has been CYCLICAL, and there have been many other big CHANGES to our environment over the aeons... but that is not the issue. The issue is how much faster and potentially devastating are the CURRENT changes due to our CONTRIBUTION as an industrial species. CAN we make a difference by altering our habits? The way nature responded when the world fell silent during the early COVID lockdowns is as big an answer to that question as anything. Not only did all other species seem to thrive, but the air CLEARED. We were breathing CLEANLY.

These days, just about everyone is also connected to the wider world via the magic of the internet. Modern COMMUNICATIONS systems have broadened our horizons (if not always our minds...) So reliant have we become upon such connectedness, it is now recognised that having access to the internet is as vital to society as the electricity that powers it. 

Ah, the power... how we source our energy needs has recently become a huge issue - not for the effects upon the climate, sad to say, but because our dependence on gas and oil has come under threat from CONFLICT. One would have hoped that the immediate response to such conditions might have been a significant turn toward alternatives best suited to each of our environs. Wind, sun, and water all offer brilliant sources of power generation but so many excuses and hurdles are placed in their way. But no, politicians dashed around the world to 'strengthen bonds' with other COUNTRIES which produce oil and gas. Countries, it must be said, equally as likely to fall into conflict themselves. 

We CRAVE connection, heat, cooling, transportation, global products... but at what COST? We are bound by our own dependence - we are addicted and withdrawal... unthinkable.

Today's image was CREATED from a photo of electrical pylons. My father spent his whole working life as an electrical engineer working on the building of such things. To him, bringing 'light' to the dark places in Scotland and the wider UK, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, was a vocation. He believed everyone has the right to be connected.