WITH wars ever present have we become immune to their impact? The Russian invasion of Ukraine has now been going on for a year and a half. Thousands of lives have been lost. 

Villages have been wiped off the map. Every day bombs are deployed by both sides. Far too frequently innocent civilians are killed. It used to make headlines. Now other stories have taken the limelight. We are at war in an indirect way by supplying weapons to the Ukrainian army. There does not seem to be any end in sight to this idiotic special mission by the lunatic Putin. Nobody has a clue about how to resolve this senseless war. 

Ukraine is sadly not the only war-torn country. Yemen and Niger are but two countries where war is ever present. Political unrest is everywhere and we have come to accept this as the norm.  

We are entering yet another form of cold war with China as cyber-attacks and possible spies at the heart of government have recently been reported. With the world facing the devastating impacts of global warming with floods, wild fires and hurricane force storms you would think mankind would have enough sense to cooperate to stop the world from burning itself to death. 

Instead we are constantly seeing wars across the globe. The Libyan floods and the earthquake in Morocco should serve as a wake-up call that we need to stop fighting each other and work for the common good. That much needed aid is being held up because of rival governments is yet another example of the stupidity of conflict.

Daily now we see the ongoing loss of life from the engagement in war. The massive loss of life by the Russian forces has achieved nothing. They totally underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainian people. 

Mankind is destroying the planet and killing each other at the same time. Violence is not only confined to wars. A 14-year-old boy has just been charged with murder having stabbed to death a boy of his own age. Knife crime is now a daily feature of British life, violence in the USA is so commonplace that it hardly makes the news. With millions of guns readily available it is little wonder that people are shot and killed on daily basis. 

The American gun lobby is so strong that it can dominate common sense. Our own defence system is in disarray. We do not have enough aircraft to defend ourselves. We are sending millions of pounds worth of weapons to Ukraine, yet our defence budget is too low to meet our obligations. 

That we should need to invest so heavily in defence systems at a time when we need funds for hospitals, education and social welfare is a sad reflection of our times. We now see Putin meeting with the North Korean leader to discuss weapon supplies in exchange for technological support and food. These two maniacs have the potential to cause a world war. The nuclear threat has clearly increased. 

Increased efforts to explore the universe with outposts on the moon and eventually Mars may mean that plans to escape a destroyed planet are already under way.  The Greenham Common group has long been disbanded yet the threat of the impact of wars across the globe has never been more severe.  

Wars are costing everyone on earth a huge amount in terms of their quality of life. Worrying about climate change is understandable given the ever global rise in temperature and its impact on our lives. However it may well be that if we continue our desire to prosecute wars that we destroy the planet long before the impact of global warming comes to pass.  The world needs to “Love Your Neighbour”.