Prophets of Doom was the name of the program on the History Channel (history.com). Well done too. Six contemporary and well-informed individuals sat down together to take a real hard look at our present situation: Economic implosion, overpopulation, water pollution, food shortages, and the drying up of world oil supplies, the possible terroristic use of atomic weaponry, Artificial Intelligent (AI) machines leading to the demise of humanity. Their point: “Wake up America!” These are not future threats, they are here and now.
There point is well taken. One does not have to be a scientific, economic, or ecological guru to see the writing on the wall. It’s pretty obvious. Take the question of oil. As we go about our daily commute we are confronted with continued rising oil prices. Why? Because China, India, Europe, and the Americas are all bidding for and drawing from all the same oil wells on earth, and they’re finite. They will run dry soon enough. And then, Poof! No more oil.
What will life be like without oil? Who knows? But we know this much, all petroleum products, and our use of them, will be affected by its lack. Not in our lifetime? What about our children and our grandchildren? For them this will not be a theoretical question, it will be immediate and potently urgent.
What about water? I thought it was crazy that people so easily bought into the idea of buying bottled water when it was first introduced. Why buy something that was already available in drinking fountains wherever you went? All businesses and public places had water available and for free! Yet, we so readily accepted a beverage company’s idea that we should pay a premium price to purchase our own personal bottled water, packaged in throw-away containers to boot.
“Ridiculous!” I thought, “Why waste good money on something I can have free for the asking at any restaurant or obtain from any drinking fountain, or bring with me from my own faucet at home?” But what was the selling point? “Natural, fresh, clean, pure, unadulterated spring water!” And guess what? Real, actual pure, unadulterated and unpolluted water is getting harder and harder to come by. Why? Because we have been polluting our water sources for decades now, the unpleasant side effects of our modern lifestyle (factory waste, chemical and medicinal waste, etc.), and not only are we polluting our water sources, we are running them dry. Look at our Western States, especially AZ, CA, and NV. They are desperately trying to keep up with their water needs. For them water shortages are not in the future, it’s here and now.
The message is clear: we have a huge problem at hand, but we are not tackling it with the attention or urgency that the problem calls for. Why not?
First, we lack the economic and financial will to make the hard choices and deal with the possible sacrifices that will be required of us if we are to change things for the better. We do not want to change our lifestyle. For example, we do not like the idea of possibly going backwards. Remember when we use to use glass bottles before the introduction of plastics? Glass is heavy. It breaks. And when it breaks it cuts. Plastic is so much more convenient. But plastic has its own dark side. A large percentage of all plastics used are not being recycled. Plastic waste is causing much havoc to various aspects of our environment: e.g., plastics are often found in the stomachs of starving animals, birds are often caught in plastic mesh, etc.
Secondly, akin to the first point, there are large powerful stakeholders that have a huge economic investment in keeping things as they are, and this includes us. Jobs are at stake. Our lifestyle is killing the planet yet we are too invested and enmeshed in the present economic system—a buy, throw away, wasteful polluting lifestyle—a system that has created the doomsday crisis that we are now being warned about. Thus, we feel powerless to stop this self-destructive train that we’re riding on, even if it is heading for a cliff; we seem to be damned if we do, and damned if we don’t.
The third reason is the most critical and damaging in my opinion: disbelief! Disbelief on the one hand and too much faith on the other—too much faith in ourselves, in our “can do scientific, technological knowhow.” On the one hand, we seem to be quite resistant to accept the fact that we really are heading towards a catastrophic train wreck, respecting our modern high-tech lifestyle and the damage that we are doing to our ecology in having it. We don’t seem to believe that there are in fact limits to the planet’s ability to sustain such a lifestyle worldwide, given our natural resources. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution we have come to assume that things will always get better. We still hold to this assumption. Might we not have too much faith in our abilities, our sciences, and our skillful knowhow?
It is called hubris. “Hogwash, this is foolish talk, ignorant and naïve, causing unnecessary worry” defiant deniers will say. But I ask you, as sound minded, honest and open hearted people, is it? Is it really? When the first lifeboats were let down from the Titanic they were only partially filled, half-filled at best, even though there were not enough lifeboats to save all the people that were on the ship to begin with. Why? Disbelief! The very idea that the Titanic would actually sink was considered “Foolish, ignorant, and naïve talk.” After all, everyone knew that the Titanic was unsinkable. I ask you, was there ever a ship made that was unsinkable? No, and there never will be.
And finally it just seems too overwhelming, too big. It is a problem of size. It’s not just us, this state, this nation or even this continent. The need for oil, clean drinking water, food quality and availability, and other basic recourses necessary for sustaining our present lifestyle is a global problem. Resources are diminishing even while the world’s demand for these is increasing.
I do not wish myself to be a fear monger or a prophet of doom and gloom, but I do want to be proactive. I do think that we should be a step ahead of the game, not two steps behind playing catch up. That is, it is better to forestall and prevent a crisis than to simply react to a crisis only after the damage is done. I appreciate the History Channel for presenting a program like Prophets of Doom. We need more programs of this kind to get our attention. We, the general public, too easily lull ourselves to sleep about these critical challenges by thinking that we can leave such concerns in the hands of the so called experts and specialists.
Can we make a difference? Did you see that commercial about the amount of plastic bottles (from our purchasing of bottled water) we waste each year? We’re told that if you line them up end to end, they can circle the globe many times over. That’s us! We’re the ones buying these plastic bottles. Yes, we can make a difference just by the little choices we make on a daily basis.
No comments:
Post a Comment