There are many sayings and phrases that remind us not to leave problem solving until the last minute. They amount to the same advice, largely based on our biological and natural clocks. As in, nobody is getting any younger. We only age, then fade away. It is up to the individual to make the best of their time as living breathing engines of change. Apart from the biological burden of reproduction.

We take it for granted there will be a tomorrow as we know it today. But, why do we believe it will be the same as in history books, when we are in the anthropocene age, the human epoch. The age where humans are so populous, they are changing the natural world for the worse. Upsetting the natural balance. Raising sea levels and melting the ice caps. Turning arable land into deserts. Wiping out thousands of species, as the earth's temperature increases. The list is long and not at all distinguished.

This is because there are so many of us on the one small planet, that we believe is huge, and so, large enough to absolve us of all sins. All of our transgressions of nature. Like hunting the Dodo to extinction. Fishing out fisheries on the US east coast, almost wiping out the North American Bison, Humpback and Right whales. All of these events are proof that humans will exploit natural assets to extinction, if not prevented by positive action. It is in our nature. A good thing in one way, and a terrible flaw in our makeup; the other.

Exploitation is all about money and profits. The invention of money was bound to lead to exploitation, by Ponzi schemers. Creating a currency that is not natural and is unsupported by any natural brake. Such as the Gold or Silver Standards, that limited lending and borrowing. In the modern world we should not be able to just print more money. A fiction, that the world can support that extra injection of artificial wealth. Where, politicians sell continuous growth. A physically impossible scenario, that for some reason, they are allowed to preach. Leading to huge National Debts, that are simply un-repayable. Something akin to the famous South Sea Bubble. Or the dot.com booms and busts. And now crypto currencies and bitcoin, based on nothing but hot air. Millionaires one minute, bankrupt the next. But still such pyramid selling is legal?

Printed money used to say: "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ????"

The words ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of five [ten/twenty/fifty] pounds’ appears on British banknotes. This phrase dates from long ago when banknotes represented deposits of real gold bullion. At that time, a member of the public could exchange one of those banknotes for gold of the same value. For example, a £5 note could be exchanged for five gold coins, called sovereigns.

However, the value of the pound has not been linked to gold for many years, as a deliberate ploy to be able to lend more than you are offering security for. So, the meaning of the promise to pay has changed and is misleading in both consumer protection and advertising standards. You can no longer exchange banknotes for gold. Bank of England banknotes can only be exchanged for other Bank of England banknotes of the same face value. And that is just a fancy piece of paper. Nothing more, nothing less. The good news being, shop and online vendors accept such promissory notes, or the digital equivalent. You can probably see the danger. We are moving away from reality, to a pie in the sky society.

The Bank of England (as just one example) claim to maintain public trust in the pound sterling through monetary policy. But where monetary policy is demonstrably unsound with inflation eroding the real value of savings and pensions, the promise is more a fraud. Savings are being devalued year on year, unprotected. The electorate are being sold into financial slavery, or servitude to banks. Whereas, if currency was in gold, or grain or energy bonds, and linked to something tangible. Something real, the banks could not destroy the value of whatever currency they are trading. And, make no mistake, it is a trade. They are trading your lives. Then, savings and pensions would be safe. Not so at the moment.

We harbour no intentions politically, and absolutely no pretensions to change fiscal policies. We'll leave that to economists and perhaps, the United Nations, with their Sustainability Development Goals: SDGs.

Exploitation is greed, a natural extension of drying grain and storing nuts in good times for lean. The unfortunate thing being that exploitation for money, as greed, is not the same as making provision for bad times. Like a squirrel storing nuts. Simply because those billionaires who exploited the financial loopholes, and that include banks in over- lending, do not give back to society. They are not storing enough nuts to get them through the winter. They are taking the nuts of millions of workers, and keeping them for themselves.

In nature, dead trees return to the soil. The natural world is cyclical. We should like to emulate the natural world, with a Circular Economy. Or, sustainable practices. This, we cannot get involved in.

But, we cannot afford to let the planet suffocate from fossil fuels.

That is something we can get involved in, because the solutions are right in front of us. We simply need to pluck the fruit from the tree, and use our amazing technological achievements to make it happen.

TEMPUS FUGIT

Tempus fugit is a Latin phrase, usually translated into English as "time flies". The expression comes from line 284 of book 3 of Virgil's Georgics, where it appears as fugit irreparabile tempus: "it escapes, irretrievable time". The phrase is used in both its Latin and English forms as a proverb that "time's a-wasting".

Tempus fugit is typically employed as an admonition against sloth and procrastination (cf. carpe diem) rather than an argument for licentiousness (cf. "gather ye rosebuds while ye may"); the English form is often merely descriptive: "time flies like the wind", "time flies when you're having fun".

The phrase is a common motto, particularly on sundials and clocks. It also has been used on gravestones.

Some writers have attempted rebuttals: "Time goes, you say? Ah, no! alas, time stays, we go." by Henry Austin Dobson (1840–1921)."Hêd Amser! / Meddi Na! / Erys Amser / Dyn Â" on sundial at Univ of Bangor, North Wales. says the sundial was commissioned by Sir William Henry Preece, and offers an English equivalent: "Time flies, thou sayest - Nay! Man flies; Time still doth stay." Another English version is: "Time Flies, Say Not So: Time Remains,'Tis Man Must Go."

PROVERB: TIDE AND TIME WAIT (STANDS STILL) FOR NO MAN

The opportunities of life will pass you by if you delay or procrastinate in taking advantage of them.
You've had so many chances to get research grants or earn a master's degree, but you never get around to applying for any of them. You're going to end up stuck in the same dead-end career for your whole life, if you're not careful - time and tide wait for no man.

One must not procrastinate or delay, as in Let's get on with the voting; time and tide won't wait, you know. This proverbial phrase, alluding to the fact that human events or concerns cannot stop the passage of time or the movement of the tides, first appeared about 1395 in Chaucer's Prologue to the Clerk's Tale. The alliterative beginning, time and tide, was repeated in various contexts over the years but today survives only in the proverb, which is often shortened (as above).


CARPE DIEM

Carpe diem is a Latin aphorism, usually translated "seize the day", taken from book 1 of the Roman poet Horace's work Odes (23 BC).

Carpe is the second-person singular present active imperative of carpō "pick or pluck" used by Horace to mean "enjoy, seize, use, make use of". Diem is the accusative of dies "day". A more literal translation of carpe diem would thus be "pluck the day [as it is ripe]"— that is, enjoy the moment. It has been argued by various authors that this interpretation is closer to Horace's original meaning. Latin scholar, and Saint Joseph's University professor, Maria S. Marsilio points out, “carpe diem” is a horticultural metaphor that, particularly seen in the context of the poem, is more accurately translated as “plucking the day,” evoking the plucking and gathering of ripening fruits or flowers, enjoying a moment that is rooted in the sensory experience of nature.

Perhaps the first written expression of the concept in ancient literature is the advice given by Siduri to Gilgamesh in Mesopotamian mythology, telling him to forgo his mourning and embrace life, although some scholars see it as simply urging Gilgamesh to abandon his mourning, "reversing the liminal rituals of mourning and returning to the normal and normative behaviors of Mesopotamian society."

In Horace, the phrase is part of the longer carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero, which is often translated as "Seize the day, put very little trust in tomorrow (the future)". The ode says that the future is unforeseen and that one should not leave to chance future happenings, but rather one should do all one can today to make one's own future better. This phrase is usually understood against Horace's Epicurean background.

MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

Take advantage of any good opportunity. This adage, dating from the early sixteenth century, alludes to the need for dry conditions in order to cut grass. R. C. Trench, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was quite specific about it (On the Lessons in Proverbs, 1852): “Make hay while the sun shines is truly English, and could have had its birth only under such variable skies as ours.”

The saying is of course true, you cannot dry grass to make hay, if you leave it too long. Or, the rain will come and spoil the crop. Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticated animals such as rabbits and guinea pigs. Pigs can eat hay, but do not digest it as efficiently as herbivores do.

Hay can be used as animal fodder when or where there is not enough pasture or rangeland on which to graze an animal, when grazing is not feasible due to weather (such as during the winter), or when lush pasture by itself would be too rich for the health of the animal. It is also fed when an animal is unable to access pasture - for example, when the animal is being kept in a stable or barn.

Hay production and harvest, commonly known as "making hay", "haymaking", "haying" or "doing hay", involves a multiple step process: cutting, drying or "curing", raking, processing, and storing. Hayfields do not have to be reseeded each year in the way that grain crops are, but regular fertilizing is usually desirable, and over-seeding a field every few years helps increase yield.

Thus, making hay while the sun shines is to:

- To take advantage of favorable conditions; to make the most of an opportunity when it is available.

- We finally have the full group assembled, so let's make hay while the sun shines and get this thing done.

- The skiing conditions won't be this good for another several months, so let's make hay while the sun shines.

- If you have an opportunity to do something, do it before the opportunity expires. Jane: While my husband's out of town, I'm going to watch all the movies he wouldn't take me to see. Jane: Why not? Make hay while the sun shines.

- Take advantage of favorable circumstances, as in Car sales have finally improved so we're making hay while the sun shines. The expression literally alludes to optimum dry weather for cutting grass. [Early 1500s]

You take advantage of a good situation which is not likely to last. With house prices at an all-time high, both property developers are making hay while the sun shines. You've got to make hay while the sun shines — and it doesn't shine long in a sporting life.

GATHER ROSEBUDS WHILE YE MAY 1648 TEXT

"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" is a 1648 poem by the English Cavalier poet Robert Herrick. The poem is in the genre of carpe diem, Latin for "seize the day".

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to day,
To morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a getting;
The sooner will his Race be run,
And neerer he's to Setting.

That Age is best, which is the first,
When Youth and Blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

First published as number 208 in the verse collection Hesperides (1648), the poem extols the notion of carpe diem, a philosophy that recognizes the brevity of life and the need to live for and in the moment. The phrase originates in Horace's Ode 1.11.

THE ELIZABETH SWANN - OUR MISSION:

"Construction of a long range vessel with the objective of demonstrating Atlantic, Indian and Pacific ocean, and Mediterranean sea crossings, by way of a world navigation in under 80 days fuelled by hydrogen or hydrogen compounds. To be implemented in stages, Mediterranean and Atlantic as initial demonstrations. Proving long haul, blue water operation, to rival diesel bunker fuel fleets."