And boy is She getting our attention!
Of course, like many, I don’t view all of what is happening around me as a bad thing at all.
I’ve long predicted such an outcome of the outrageous unregulated economic engineering system we have adopted, and also the fact that it would happen just as soon and be as suddenly cataclysmic. No time to breathe with the coming meltdown - it will be overnight, I said as long as two years ago.
(And it will be the same with oil. Another year for accessible, reasonable and available oil is my guess, with an equally overnight shock of none available.)
The time to address the gross imbalance of wealth came and went and Gaia had to be appeased sooner or later. And here She is. In all our faces.
Our incessant obsession with gathering, guarding and grooming our Walmarty stuff and our isolation from a sense of community and a complete indifference in the well being of all who share this tiny rolling ball had to come to a sad and sorry end. Our boundless greed served no one else. Just ourselves.
So what now that She has got our attention? I predict two outcomes. The first would be violent and traumatic civil unrest, resultant military intervention, genocides and incarcerations. The second would be more community involvement: gardens, smaller homes (I already see it started here – beautiful two room cabins), community root cellars, off the grid living, a return to slow food, home cooked, healthy. Forget air travel. Bring back trains and boats. I’ve recently seen horses towing a wagon here. It did my heart good. A sustainable, manageable existence for everyone, leaving no footprint behind.
But of course the sad fact that remains of our rampant consumerism is that very few are willing to give up their "pony" or give up the idea of some day owning their own "pony".
But small up beat moment: I am heartened to read that even New York City is considering vertical farming.
We need to do this, ro rid ourselves of the pony idea for once and for all - and immediately - before Gaia shakes Herself more thoroughly next time and rids Herself, for once and for all, of the pestilent and parasitical fleas that we’ve become.
I'm sure many people are already tightening their belts and reassessing their lifestyles, given that the massive consumption and credit bubble has finally burst. It would be good if people start slowing down and enjoying what they already have rather than rushing after the next trendy thing. Except that the people who were already badly off are now worse off and their lifestyles, spartan in the first place, will be even more so.
ReplyDeleteYours is a very different perspective to mine, but both meet where you talk about community. I think that is right. Since the 60s western societies have become more atomised, which became worse in the 70s and 80s, so the sense of belonging to a community, the allegiance to something larger than individual gratification has been profoundly weakened. But we do need a commitment to something outside our immediate needs and that's why environmentalism speaks to us so strongly.
ReplyDeleteRegards
OF
The outlook is bleak, and nobody seems to know what to do about it, even with all the technological advances we have. I don't understand why more progress can't be made to safeguard the planet.
ReplyDelete$$$$$, I guess. Too busy spending trillions on war.
In the 19th century with no technology to speak of countless inventions and discoveries were made for the good of us all - or so it seemed at that point in history. Now all that creativity seems to have ground to a halt. Space flights, as used at present don't really help, though we might have to migrate upwards one day, I suppose.
The Hadron collider thingie might throw up something helpful as a side-effect, if they ever get it working properly.
@Nick:
ReplyDeleteYes the poor get even more impoverished, they are the ultimate victims of our profligate ways. We are not civilized when we do not take care of our weakest and most vulnerable.
@OF:
Oh I so agree with you, I see community working here where I live and I think "everyone should live this way".
@T:
Follow the money as always. In today's paper I read where children's chocolate coins are being recalled. Melamine. we outsourced our children's souls and wellbeing to China with no oversight.
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I'd very much like to go with your second scenario, although I think a bit of both will happen. There will be enclaves and places of riots. We need to start doing things right now. Some of us are way ahead of the ballgame already, while others go on consuming as if there is no tomorrow. I just hope there will still be my medication, boy, it would be hard to do without.
ReplyDeleteIrene:
ReplyDeleteVery insightful. A bit of both. A lot of both, dare we hope?
it is such a huge wakeup call, I hope we pay heed and that it's not too late.
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But some of us have didn't buy into consumerism beyond our means and for its own sake WWW - some of us have always lived pretty darn modestly and wore our clothes until they were threadbare etc. Are we to suffer too?
ReplyDeleteLaura:
ReplyDeleteyes that is a very vexing issue. I guess we continue doing what we've always done.Living abstemiously and not placing value on the material.
I am so hoping there is not massive civilian disquiet and a breakdown of our safety nets.
some rocky roads ahead.
XO
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