The straw(s) that broke the camel's back

Everyone has heard about "the straw that broke the camel's back" - and perhaps wondered, "whose straw was to blame?"

Paradoxically the answer is, "no one's and everyone's". That is assuming, of course, that everyone placed just a single, or the same number of straws on the camel's back. 

The answer is rather different if some placed more straws on its back than others.

Let the camel represent Earth's finite carrying capacity, on which each of us has to place a certain number of straws in order to live. Although we do not know exactly how many it can carry, we do, or should know by now that there is a limit - which will be exceeded if increasing numbers of people continue to pile on more and more straws.

Insanely, this is exactly what we are doing. Everyone can pile as many straws onto the camel's back as they have - or can borrow - the money to pay for, and are encouraged to do so, not just by their natural inclinations, but also by a growth-dependent economy and its multibillion dollar credit and advertising industries.

It is difficult recognising the "insanities of normality", which we have all grown up with, especially when they are so deeply rooted in the West's, particularly the American, way of life, and when so much (income from jobs and investments, our lifestyles, aspirations, etc.) depends on them.

To quote the immortal words of Commander James Lovell when the life-support systems of his spacecraft, Apollo 13, were damaged on its way to the Moon in 1970: 

"Houston, we have a problem"

On Spaceship Earth we too have a problem, which because of the vast differences in scale is taking years rather than seconds to become apparent, although the signs should be clear enough by now (climate change, diminishing natural resources, decline or extinction of many plant and animal species, etc). 

We are plundering the planet, quite literally addicted to our growth-dependent economy and materialistic lifestyles, but still largely in a state of denial about the consequences it is having on ourselves, on society and, most urgently of all, on the planet, on which we and all life ultimately and absolutely depend.

We need to end the state of denial and face up to the situation as soon as possible, because unlike for Commander Lovell and his crew, there is nowhere for us to get back to after looping around the Moon. Either we solve our problem - by creating a sustainable economy and lifestyles for 7-9 billion people - on board ship, or we will perish.

We have to find ways of defining and quantify roughly what a "straw" represents, and then estimate how many the camel can carry without braking its back, because we don't want to go anywhere near that limit. Not unless we are completely mad.

We also have to think about how this limited number of straws is to be divided up among Earth's 6 (soon 7-9) billion human inhabitants, because the free-market free-for-all we have at the moment can only lead to disaster.

And then . . . . There is a lot of work to be done.

But before we start, we need to take a good, long look at ourselves, particularly at the values, attitudes and aspirations upon which our growth-dependent economy and lifestyles are both based and dependent. Most importantly, we need to recognise that many (in fact, most) are rooted in our “more animal than human” nature, which shouldn't come as too much of a surprise in the light of what Darwin has taught us about human origins. 

This puts us in something of a double bind: dependent (in a thousand and one ways) on a non-sustainable economy, which itself is dependent (because based on) the materialistic values, attitudes and aspirations of our "more animal than human" nature.

The difficulty in freeing ourselves from this double bind is compounded by the difficulty we have in even recognising that we are in one. We are programmed and conditioned to see the "insanities of normality" as being perfectly okay, or at least, not too bad, and acceptable - even when they are leading us towards extinction.

How are people to recognise their own blindness and stupidity, especially when they share them with virtually everyone else, and there are only stuttering fools like myself to point them out?

To be continued . . .