Peter C Bruechle

"Our Earth is a wonderful place and we humans are its prime animal product. We have the responsibility to look after it, to nurture it and to damage it as little as possible. We are the first inhabitants that leave behind anything other than rotting corpses and ant hills. How are we meeting our responsibilities?"In this companion volume to Dr Bruechle's Issues and Challenges - Matters for Consideration, Discussion and Consensus, the author revisits and updates some of his original themes, and adds new points for discussion. As the fate of our Earth and its inhabitants becomes more urgent, Dr Bruechle's work gains moment and significance. We must address his concerns before it is too late.

"Ordinary things are seen with different eyes and diamonds of thought well up, usually unbidden." Riding a motorcycle from Perth to Kununurra and back at the age of 72, Peter Bruechle's mind meanders from pressing topics like religion and politics, to past reminisces, to the charm and grandeur of our country.The inward and outward journeys come together to present a timeless reminder of what is important in our world, and the vitality and clarity that come from putting ourselves in unusual, stimulating and sometimes challenging situations.Readers will love the descriptions and photographs of our arrestingly beautiful landscapes as much as the digressions into the issues we all face.

In 'Issues and Challenges' I have presented my opinions about several matters I consider need unemotional discussion, not to cram those opinions into the minds of others but to introduce them to others, with the aim of provoking the needed discussion and, if possible, consensus.Looking disinterestedly at the current western democracies, it is difficult to be pleased with what one sees with their silly, almost childish, squabbles and, often, their concentration on emotional matters that are really of little importance to the future of the human race. Other leadership systems that have been tried - fascism, communism, religious leadership, hereditary royalty, and leadership based on wealth or military power - have all shown themselves to have even worse flaws than democracy in the past, and, where still practised as they are in North Korea, in China and in the Middle East, continue to show flaws. Is it possible that the main shortcoming with all these systems does not lie in the systems but with the human animals leading those systems, and those that give those leaders their power? Is it possible that the human animal is a squabbling, conniving, greedy, militant and inherently nasty creature, and that humanity living peacefully on our planet Earth, and advancing science, art and architecture, is only a pipe dream? On the other hand is it possible that the negative traits of humanity can be kept under control? Could balanced, universal education bring about a better humanity, a humanity that could live in productive peace for a fulfilling future on our one and only planet? Or are we doomed to continue despoiling the planet, and will we continue to kill each other with our ever more sophisticated weaponry? Humanity needs to examine these matters and to arrive at answers.