The tectonic plates have moved. The earthquake and tsunami that have devastated Japan are a shocking reminder of the vulnerability of human beings in the face of seismic events that are constantly reshaping the world.
The Japanese Government is constantly vigilant and has some of the strictest building codes governing the construction of both domestic homes, offices, commercial buildings and most scary of all, Nuclear Reactors.
Nevertheless in this age of instant information the news has streamed in faster than the Tsunami itself and the world is left reeling at the sights and sounds of a devastated Japan.
President Obama describes the Japanese as 'friends' which in its own way is as shocking as it is encouraging. The Japanese since Hiroshima and Nagasaki have entered the community of nations as competitors, think cars and motorcycles, but also as friends.
Japanese investment has led the way for economic development in both America and the West. A friend of mine commented on the proposed investment in the North East in the 1970's, 'It won't work here, we're not prepared to live in paper houses'.
In fact it did work and the Nissan factory is a great example of Japanese investment promoting a renaissance in the British motor industry.
Tectonic plates of a different kind are also shifting and repositioning themselves in North Africa and it was interesting to hear David Cameron talking about the danger to Europe's Southern border. Interesting because previous comments about Europe have rather challenged the political and economic sense of Britain remaining a part of the EEC.
The social and political tectonic plates that have shifted in North Africa have raised a demand for democracy, for the rights of women and for the perceived freedoms enjoyed in and by the West.
As nature continues to reshape the physical world, so other factors, from technology, the internet, social networking sites such as facebook and twitter, indeed blogging and the freedom to publish without political interference or editorial oversight, have encouraged a desire for political and socio-economic reshaping in order that the poorer economies are able to share the worlds wealth and the worlds freedoms more equitably, rendering previous obscene divisions of wealth unacceptable.
We live in an era of huge change, huge risk and huge danger. We have lived through the grey days of rationing following the ending of world war two, we have seen the renewal and remaking of society in the sixties, we have seen the economic collapses of the seventies and the steady rebuilding of the economy up until the financial crash of 2009 and through all of these changes it seems we have learnt nothing.
It's as though we believe that all of this change is as natural and uncontrollable as the weather or earthquakes or tsunamis. Good people do bad things for the right reasons but with the wrong outcomes, and by the same token bad people do good things for the wrong reasons but with the right outcomes.
It may be my imagination but recently when I have set out to drive into town there seems to be less traffic on the roads; buses, lorries, vans continue to go about their business but there are less cars, it's almost like a permanent school holiday, the price of fuel is making people think twice about filling their cars at £6 00 a gallon or £1 20 a litre and rising almost daily, to pop to the shops or set out on an idle expedition.
But it's also noticeable that there are fewer people in the shops, the town centre is less busy, it is easier to park and to get around.
It is difficult to interpret these indicators or even to know whether they are right and whether my interpretation of them is correct but they do seem to offer some unscientific evidence to the view expressed by Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT that 'cutting back on economic stimulus .. is .. an experiment in failed policies .. that will inevitably .. cost individuals more'.
There seems to be a genuine difficulty between trying on the one hand to balance the books nationally and on the other promoting the idea of a bigger and therefore more open and generous society.
The headlines properly focus on the natural disaster that has struck Japan and the continuing dramas being played out in North Africa. That is after all right in the context of an inter-connected world but we need to keep the British economic experiment under review as well.
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