"News" from Uganda

 Last night I viewed this short clip courtesy SBS TV NEWS

The guts of this "news item" was about chimpanzees being squeezed out of their forest habitat by their close relatives: humans! It also mentions how sad the humans are that the chimps have killed some of their children, and that this terrible behaviour has caused people to give up farming "their land" and flee to the big cities.

It is really a complex set of ideas presented here which includes the "disappearance" of the Ugandan forest, home to the chimps. Like the rainforests of Brazil, this reserve provides oxygen which is important for the lives of both chimps and humans. 

We are a terrible species. When I see clips like this I am convinced that we are beyond hope. All the species which we have displaced from their habitat and all the species which are facing extinction have been well documented and yet it just keeps rolling along. As a species, despite being able to achieve wonderful things, we are so primitive, so merciless. 

We are killers.

We are very good killers. We have shown that throughout our history on the planet, it is something we do well. We have taken over this planet at the cost of a wide range of other living species, at the same time reducing the gifts of the planet for our own children and grandchildren.

Is there any hope that we may turn this around? 

Maybe the clip you see here is just another bit of fake news designed to make us feel guilty and hopeless. 

I think the chimps are entitled to defend their habitat from the incursions of humans, to force them to abandon their farms in the diminishing forest.  

The problem is that they just have not developed a good range of sophisticated weapons to get rid of the invaders so they go around killing children... something we humans would never do.

 pt