War and pestilence might kill large numbers of people, but in most cases the population recovers. But lose the soil and everything goes with it.

Nobody ever rioted for austerity.

Soil is an almost magical substance, a living system that transforms the materials it encounters.

Every time someone dies as a result of floods in Bangladesh, an airline executive should be dragged out of his office and drowned.

So, if you don’t fit in, if you feel at odds with the world, if your identity is troubled and frayed, if you feel lost and ashamed - it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You are a deviant. Be proud.

Like other lifeforms, we [humans] exist only to replicate ourselves.

Is the divine presence a Republican? Or is He/She/It running an inter-galactic fossil fuel conglomerate?...whatever the explanation may be, the Paraclete appears to be as determined as any terrestrial corporate frontman to prevent a successful conclusion to the climate talks. How I know? Because every time anyone gets together to try to prevent global climate breakdown, He swaths the rich, densely habited parts of the world with snow and ice, while leaving obscurer places to cook.