Have you ever wished you had a master reading list that told you what books you may want to read before you die?  Do you find yourself wandering the book shelves in your local book shop and wondering what the next book will be?

I have had that problem for the last six months.  I have been starting and stopping books far too often and have yet to complete even the smallest novel since I last completed.  I have decided enough is enough with the stuttering between novels.  I wish to insert new adventures and experiences into my head.  In order to get this "reading ball" rolling, I have chosen the BBC's Big Read as a starting point.

The first 21 books are as follows:

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell

Anyone wish to read along with me?  If you haven't checked out the Big Read, I would.  There are some incredibly interesting selections in there that should not be missed.

Tags: the big read, bbc, books, reading, novels

I have had several conversations in recent weeks about how we may be friendlier to the environment.  Discussions ranged widely from feeding starving masses to recycling lead batteries properly.  Long talks about using more efficient light bulbs, growing our own food, using less energy, generating a smaller "footprint" and human genocide have also been had.  (I believe I was the one who brought up genocide.)  Of course, global warming also made several appearances. 

So, what scares you the most?  Global warming?  Using up oil resources?  Destroying the ozone layer?  I suppose such things may be scary but those things can repair themselves given enough time.  If we destroy this planet - wipe it out entirely - microbes will still survive.  Cockroaches will still survive.  We believe this planet will be killed off but always with the human context of our own survival foremost in our conclusions.  Must humans be in the picture for a healthy planet?

I fear the population growth of humanity.  Over one hundred and ten billion and counting.  According to Carl Haub, a demographer in the United States - that is how many human beings have been born in the last 50,000 years and we continue to multiply.  By 2050, there may be close to ten billion living here.  This will continue to increase and, without some way of leaving this rock, the planet will suffer.  The world can survive most of what we can throw at it.  What it won't be able to survive is our own population growth.

I fear population because no matter what inventions are created and designed to help the environment, at some point, the Earth will not be able to handle us.  It will start to kill us off.  Crazy weather, bizarre diseases, or some other disasters meant to return the planet's balance.  Invention will be useless.  Innovation will cease to help.  This planet will decide to cut us down to tolerable levels.

I mentioned this to someone and they said this was too depressing a topic.  That the reality I spoke of was far enough in the future for us not to worry about it.  I suppose it may be somewhat morbid but it is a reality the human race will face.  We will worry about what kinds of light bulbs to use until then.

Tags: globalwarming, human, population