Running out of World

In honor of earth day, our church each year hosts a blessing of family animals. Sitting in the pew this week I had a bit of an epiphany, which now that the idea is three hours old, is fading. While I have the thought in my head I am going to try to get it down...

100 years ago, the world was still vast, and in many places unexplored. If a person wanted to grab fortune, he or she (OK mostly HE) was able to go out to the edge of civilization, risk everything, and be rewarded like a baron. The world was still without limit, and a man could, through wile or brawn exploit the world which was still without limit.

This unlimited use of the worlds resources set the stage for several outcomes which we are realizing in the modern age. The first outcome has been that people are still looking to the edge of civilization for opportunity. With the melting of the Northern Polar ice cap this spring, nations and organizations are considering how to best exploit the formerly ice covered land and waters of the arctic. This is almost the last undeveloped, unexploited waters in the world. People are considering ways to extract minerals with the least amount of harm to the environment. But there is always some harm...

We are currently running through our world supply of fossil fuels, and pumping millions of gallons of oil into the environment, burning the processed result and putting millions of pounds of vapor into the enviroment as the fuel is burned. No matter what side of the arguement you are on about how much fuel is still out there, the oil is finite, and we don't have thousands of years left of it, we have hundreds of years at the very best estimate, and most of us are just hoping that we will get a solution through technology when the time comes and the pumps stop.

I have trouble with how stupid this sounds just writing it. Hoping to God I don't sounds like an alarmist, and knowing I feel like a lemming... (I must admit a love with automobiles.... I LOVE driving down the highway, as fast as possible or permissible, driving is freedom, and my great grandkids may not get to experience the same feeling...)

No matter what the skeptics say about the environment and global warming, we are selfish and will not consider what we are doing to our children. On this reverence for life Sunday, I want to write about my humility and reverence for humanity, my love for this small round jewel we live on. I am in a constant state of awe and thankfullness for the blessings bestowed upon my life. I live healthy, my children live healthy, and we have love all around us. I fear that my children will not have the same freedom which I take so casually for granted.

Why? (you may ask...) Well, the world is no longer an unlimited wilderness to be conquered. Humanity is competing with itself for a finite set of resources which are growing more limited by the day. As supply goes down, standard business principles say that competition and pricing goes up. Business experts have a name for this phenomenon: "death spiral". As prices go up, access to resources gets limited, further raising demand, and then pricing along with increasing scarcity. Bad policy no matter how you view it.

Here is the hard part: selfish interest demands that no matter where you are on the demand or access curve, competition demands that each individual try to secure the best access to the supply of resources. When I look at the activities that we as a nation are currently engaging in, my instinct demands that I see a pattern of trying to secure limited resources for ourselves. As a competitive member of this society, I can understand the need to protect America and Americans, but I also see that our actions are causing some of the outcomes that we experience.

We need to somehow get past the concept of nationalism, and better see the rest of the world populations as brothers. If we continue to hoard our way of life, I feel that we will continue to invite negative reactions to our way of life from those who have much much less. If you are an unemployed muslim male sitting on sand with no resources other than the oil the US is shipping over seas, how will you view Americans? To some others, we must look like incredibly greedy consumers. While I am a patriot and a classic American. I must have some concern for how my actions may indirectly affect my children.

We need to better understand the system which rules our economic world. My wife might have the best solution of all. At our house, we try in small ways to reduce our footprint on the world. Mrs. Sinki currently has about eight different vegetables planted in our small garden. I think it is fitting to sybolically observe earth day by looking at our small vegetable garden as a small symbol of doing the right thing for our children, while keeping in mind that much larger symbols may be needed to truly protect our world and future of our kids.

I wish I had the answers, and further wish I could write a blog post that did not ramble all over the map! Happt earth day, as well as bring your pet to church day!