Big problems call for bigger solutions.

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Big Problems Call for Big Solutions

At this time in history, we can agree that the whole planet is in trouble. Knowing we're all in the same boat allows us to work together as never before. And communication has become so fast that needed changes can spread faster.

We all need the news, for instance, but not necessarily the newspaper. As electronic communication becomes less expensive we save by not buying newspapers. That's a big step - for most newspapers to close - but look at the good that is coming from this trend. Each time a newspaper goes bankrupt, millions of trees are no longer needed to be cut down for their manufacture. That means more living plant matter on Earth to soak up the now mushrooming amount of co2 getting into the atmosphere. So here is a concrete way in which our economic crisis can be responded to as an oppurtunity. Yes, this means more temporary unemployment as paper media declines, but less pollution. Think how wonderful it is that we'll soon see the end of the wasteful practice of tearing down forest and turning it into all that junk mail we get and then throw away. Less paper garbage blowing around our streets, and we breathe a tiny bit easier knowing that at least one contributor to environmental instability is gone.

The information society can make labor, manufacturing and transportation more efficient. Why make something and ship it a long distance when you can rather just communicate the information as to how the particular need can be taken care of more locally? Telephones, tv's, computers, hand-held devices like the blackberry - all relay information at the speed of light. Why get in your car and go to work when a lot of what you do can be done via the phone, computer or fax machine?

Countries both import and export products such as chicken - Why not just keep our own chickens and let them keep theirs? It certainly would save transportation costs.

The same is true for a thousand other products. They pass each other on the highways, being shipped hither and fro, and for what? Obviously we could have a world better organized than this. We're running around like chickens with our heads cut off rather than using our heads. Local markets for locally made products and services is the message of these tough financial times. Both relocalization (producing locally) and remanufacturing (producing from recycled materials such as waste biomass) are clearly being pointed to by our economic stress. To the extent we each can get "off the grid" by producing food and power at home (so we're not as dependent on the gas and electric companies) the less we will be vulnerable to the inevitable difficulties coming.

Why order - all the way from China and a thousand other places - food to be delivered when you can get food grown right here? How silly we're going to feel when we realize that most of what we have been doing is unnecessary. Guess how many millions of times, for instance, apples grown in Pennsylvania and shipped to other states in trucks are passed on the highways by apples grown other places being shipped into Pennsylvania. The same with all the other fruits and vegetables and other goods being shipped in while those same goods made here are also being shipped out of state. Isn't this a little ridiculous?

We have been so thoroughly advertised into the habit of always feeling we need things that we don't realize the riches we're literally burying ourselves in. Count the number of hammers in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Hazelwood, for instance. Now compare that to the number of times on any particular day that each of those hammers is actually being used. The obvious conclusion is that no Hazelwood resident need buy a hammer for a long, long time. Were we one big family, we'd only need one hammer.

We're not short of money, we're short of cooperation. Our fears and set ways of thinking are making us psychosomatically blind. In this time of emergency we need to stop being afraid, and stop holding our eyes so tightly closed. Yes, we have problems bigger than humankind has ever faced, but the world does not need to continue to slide into a brutal depression in which war over scarce necessities is inevitable. We can do with much less by treating each other as family and sharing.

This time is full of wonderful and terrible inventions and developments. We have to choose each moment between love and fear. If you're not into love right now, you'll have to try and sit back and enjoy the real horror show possibilities right in front of us. Up to now - according to some scientists - industrialization has caused our oceans to become 30% more acidic. A large amount of the extra carbon dioxide we humans have been making has been getting soaked up by the oceans. Carbon dioxide dissolves in water to form carbonic acid. This is making the shells and bone structures of ocean creatures more water soluble, hampering their growth. We're going to have to grow more food locally - more fish, and more new foods such as edible microbial fermentation products. The meaning of the phrases "food security" and "energy security" are becoming starkly clear as the frequency of droughts, stormy weather, utility failures and heat events increase.

Aside from our still increasing use of fossil fuels, indirect effects of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere - from melting permafrost, increasing forest fires, biodegrading tundra, and now possibly also methane hydrates under the ocean - are causing and being caused by feedbacks. And the carbon dioxide absorption of the world's plants, soils, and waters is diminishing. What good changes that are coming about - such as increased photosynthesis in some areas due to warmer temps and more co2 - are being way more than offset by the increased instability of the whole Earth system.

The interactions between all these changes is making saving the Earth the only profitable enterprise. Anyone who thinks she or he is going to sit back and watch this drama is sadly mistaken.
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