I have had Peak Oil and Avian Flu and Global Weather swirling in my brain for some months. It's stewed for a time, and enough time with one's thoughts, and the thoughts of others have given me some perspective. Sometimes the reports on any or all of these issues appear to be hysterical. Sometimes, when one swimmer in a sea spots a shark, that lone intelligence can seem sketchy. It is only after the fact, that we wish we'd paid attention. And what harm is there, ever, in being especially cautious, if caution is in the name of some kind of virtue. Virtues like consideration (for others), unselfishness (which is almost the same), open mindedness, carefulness and particularly consciousness. That is to say, Wakefulness.
Do you think we are living in a world that is awake, that knows what it is doing? We certainly shall see in the coming months.
Avian Flu shows some hope. Although H5N1 is moving, it is not so far showing human to human transmission, and there has been significant progress towards developing massive quanities of vaccines, including what some say might be a vaccine against influenza (all strains). That's good.
Can we keep up this advantage over these super-sicknesses. I'm sorry to say, we can't, and we won't. We've only been able to outpace these viral strains with our medical expertise because we've been able to pay for it. In a stable system, we can achieve a great deal. Especially when the world is swimming in money. We watch movies, we call each other every hour, we do plenty of things that aren't really essential. And why not?
Because pretty soon, the huge withdrawal we've all made (and make daily) on the world will swing back. Those cans of tuna in the cupboard, the steak in the refrigerator, the bananas in the bowl. Do you really think those things come from Supermarkets. They come from some faraway countryside. And what was once there is no longer there. The squirrel, the fox, the eagle - long gone.
All destroyed to feed the feeding frenzy, to broaden the financial streams flowing from shoppers credit cards to banks. The numbers in the banks swarm and swell, while nature burns, more soils are ripped up and covered in sheds full of clucking chickens. It's a system, and we've all consented to it with our money. Money may not be the root of all evil, but the love of money has caused a great evil in our world.
Remember those advertisements encouraging you to play now, pay later. It's the same with everything. But you know. We've got it all wrong. It's always a better principle to pay now, to pay first, and play later.
Global weather is not so easy. It's changing, and although some of the averages may change slowly, the aberrations can be devastating. By aberrations I mean storms, droughts, floods, heatwaves. Depending on where you are, you know, the changes may actually be favorable for a long time, before they become unfavorable. And we are mobile. If the Netherlands anticipates a serious increase in sea levels over the short term, nothing prevents them from joining their distant relatives in South Africa, where some cities are well over a mile above sea level.
Having said that, of far greater concern is our ability to continue to grow food, to continue the financing of the green revolution. This requires energy, and good weather. Both of these appear to me to changing. Both, together. That leaves a looming question mark.
What many people fail to recognise is that healthy civilisations require stability to flourish. Stable markets, stable energy (food and resource) provision, and yes, stable, amenable weather.
The other thing about changing weather, is that is necessarily leads to changing biotic behaviour. Bugs, and I don't just mean diseases, begin to move into new areas, and those effects may be startling. Beetles that eat bark and that are endemic to certain countries find they can tolerate other environments, and then become pests. On a large scale, you can have several ecosystems going through transformation, and that will include the diseases that have maintained a fairly stable or predictable pattern.
Peak Oil though, is the most immediate threat, not simply because it's effects are already here. The world is vulnerable now, in one essential area. The Way We Have Organised Ourselves. It appears that we have organised ourselves according to a system that breaks down, that doesn't really make sense. Kunstler elaborates on that below. But I'm speaking specifically about the financial system that drives our daily systems, providing us with nourishments, comfort and entertainment. Perhaps this last facility, most of all, has tempted us far enough from what is important for us to find ourselves, collectively, daydreaming, lost, lacking the ability to concentrate or even think straight. I'm sure we think we do. But in a mad world, those who believe they are sane are probably the least so.
Like Mr Kunstler, I also see oil shooting up (right now it's slowly ticking upward) beyond November. The consequences of this are alarming, and if one bares in mind what Peak Oil actually represents, it also means the beginning of the end of our lives as we know it. Not for a while. A continuous, increasingly permanent transition. It means our lives will not be the same again. In the same way we talk about 9/11, we will probably refer to '2005' or whatever significant date corresponds to the sudden precipitous rise in prices of everything, everywhere, from now on.
I am sure that we can adapt.
I am sure that we can curb our demand.
But I am also sure that not all of us will do so quietly, without complaint and willingly.
We'd have to work very hard and very co-operatively in these trying times ahead to manage. I don't think we've been conditioned for that for at least a generation. We've lived in a time of consumption, of me-ism, of possessions, of independence, of individualism. All these are likely to change as resources become expensive and we will need to share, to give up things, to endure a new status. What would your feelings be if you woke up tomorrow and your job was to be a farm labourer just like everyone else? It's those feelings that will cause some problems when Peak Oil pushes us out of our cars, and onto the fields to grow food.
There are other issues as well.
Sanitation.
Fresh water.
And fighting diseases with limited resources.
In the meantime, if you have an opportunity to use public transport, might as well get used to it.
From www.kunstler.com:
August 8, 2005,
Has the world noted that the conservative establishment in America -- including the always prim George W. Bush and his buttoned-down minions, the heavenly hosts of mass-market evangelism, the zillionaire retired CEO authors of how-to-get-rich books, and the media tub-thumpers like David Brooks of the New York Times -- I repeat, has the world noted that they all preside over the most slovenly, undisciplined, and reckless economy the world has seen since mankind started bathing regularly?
Many are amazed at the levitation of a financial system with no remaining reality-based understructure of value creation. Zero-percent financing. Loans to anybody with a pulse. Instant conversion of hallucinated house value appreciation into speedboats and Hummers, college kids declaring bankruptcy on graduation at unprecedented rates, the explosion of "creative" financial instruments conjured out of the promises of millions to pay back money that they will never earn, and swapped in a spiral of casino-like wagers into metaphysical ethers of delusion -- things like that. I sort of left out the pretend money that Mr. Bush's government itself affects to disburse, and the bond racket linked to that affectation.
We're a country with no discipline, led by fake scoutmasters, moneygrubbing ministers, chiseling accountants, and oversexed schoolmarms. The new national motto: Something for Nothing. The new spiritual capital: Las Vegas.
Now, it's my personal opinion that we really are headed for crash central this fall. The price of oil is entering uncharted territory. Natural gas has virtually tripled in price since 2003. People are beginning to fear that the heating season will be brutal for those in the employ of WalMart and worse for those in the employ of nobody. Magical as this phony-baloney over-leveraged economy has seemed, whatever remains of real life will be affected by higher gasoline prices. I know it sounds absurd to say that, because so far Americans have seemed to absorb a one year price doubling without complaint. But we're hostages to motoring, whether we like it or not, and when the price of gasoline goes north of $3 a gallon (coming very soon) yowls will be heard even in the soundproofed sanctums of Karl Rove's west wing headquarters.
Trouble is brewing with WalMart's chief partner, China. They are ticked off that they are prevented from acquiring hard strategic assets, such as US owned oil companies, with all those US dollars we have snookered them into hoarding from the sale of their plastic-ware. Together with Russia, China is egging on the former soviet-o-stans to kick out our military bases. China is inking long-term supply contracts with the people we desperately depend on for our oil: Venezuela and Canada. China is tired of our tendentious jive. Pretty soon they are going to want to try to kick our ass. Let's hope they don't try that by making moves in central Asia, where our prospects for fighting a land war with them are not promising.
Meanwhile, at home, we will come to grips with the sheer fact that a society unable to produce things of real value must contend with a tanking of those financial markers pegged to the expectation that a society can produced things of value. When that recognition hits, there will be far fewer zero percent loans and no money down ghost condo sales. The unwinding will begin. America will be reunited with it's long-lost biological parent: reality. What will the despondent public think of the conservative establishment then?
No comments:
Post a Comment