The best of times or the worst of times?

We have failed to respect the natural world. Instead of seeing ourselves as custodians of this magnificent planet, we have viewed it as a "resource" to exploit and plunder for our own material short-term benefit - oblivious to the havoc we have created and continue to create.

We got to hear last week that we have taken to extinction the Western White Rhino. The news offered a fleeting chance for those of us who heard it to pause and grieve for our destruction of this magnificent being. Mostly we never hear. A hundred species a day are taken to extinction. Gone without any public acknowledgement, any regret, any awareness.

We make egocentric choices and see them as smart. Using drinking water to flush our waste in our dry land is a typical one. Yet, who amongst us even questions this daily habit?

As Geraldine Brooks, the current Boyer lecturer said in her first talk in the series, "Our Only Home," every niche on earth shows the signs of man. We have respected no place enough to stay away and let it be. We tamper with everything.

Arguably, our two most fundamental needs are food and water - things we have taken for granted. Food security is now top of the agenda for many governments. In order to meet our anticipated world population of 10 billion by 2050, we will be required to increase our food production by 70 per cent. This coincides with the cry of subsistence farmers worldwide that, with our climate destabilized, they can no longer rely on knowledge of their local weather patterns. This means, in turn, that they can no longer assure a food supply for their families.

Queensland is one of the world's most productive food bowls, but our government is now prioritizing coal seam gas over food, as it authorizes the rapid spread of mining over most of the state, including the Darling Downs. Do we really want our Sunshine State turned into an industrialized vista?

We hear predictions from future thinkers that wars will be fought over water. We already have dissention in Australia over water. As attempts are made to face up to our responsibility to return over allocated water to the once mighty Murray, vested interests prevail and yet again the environment is betrayed.

The best of times values natural heritage, equity, social justice and community as the cornerstones of a happy, healthy society. Without these four pillars, the minority who benefit from the resources that are extracted (either directly or indirectly) are able to delude themselves that they are in fact living in the best of times.

Unfortunately for us, that minority is in fact the majority in Australia. So our understanding of how the rest of the world is faring is very limited. It's not that collectively we don't care, it's just that the injustices that exist in the world are not omnipresent in our lives and therefore we are able to use our carefully developed and protected filters to great effect.

I live in hope that we can learn to live without these filters and then perhaps the best of times are just around the corner.