To: oped@nytimes.com
Re: Sustainability of the American Way of Life: Time for a reality check
Date: Saturday, 21 August 04

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

I read the article, "An Oil Shock That Could Be an Economic Stimulus in Disguise", in today's NYT, thinking initially that it would be about the increasing price of oil stimulating energy conservation measures, along with the development of renewable forms of energy as an alternative to fossil fuels, but sadly I was mistaken.

 

Oil is like a Class A drug on which most societies are now dependent - none more so than America. The high (of material wealth) it has put us on (which we were born into) is blinding us to the fact that to satisfy our craving we are quite literally "plundering" our planet of its natural treasures (resources), decimating its biodiversity and disrupting its climate and life-supporting ecosystems in the process.  As one would expect of a Class A drug, it is ruining society's health and threatening to send our civilisation to an early grave.

 

We have to come out of denial and wake up to the non-sustainability of our growth and fossil-fuel-dependent economy and the grossly materialistic lifestyles it engenders, along with the (more animal than human) values, attitudes and aspirations which underlie them, before it is too late. It is already very late; we should have woken up 30 odd years ago when the Club of Rome published The Limits of Growth and Apollo astronauts brought back the first single-frame photos of our planet, like a beautiful jewel, small and vulnerable, in the inky blackness of space.

 

Because of the vast differences in scale, what became apparent within seconds on Apollo 13 when its life-support systems were damaged en route for the Moon (and which elicited the immortal words, "Houston, we have a problem"), is taking years (decades) aboard Spaceship Earth; although, for those with eyes to see, the signs are clear enough. But unlike the crew of Apollo 13, who just had to hold out while their crippled spacecraft looped around the Moon and returned to Earth, we have no safe haven to get back to. Either we solve our "problem" aboard ship, creating a sustainable global economy and lifestyles for what will soon be Earth's 7-9 billion human inhabitant, or we will perish, i.e. our species will become extinct or its numbers reduced to a small fraction of what they are now.

 

If we, i.e. our children, grandchildren, and those who come after them, are to survive and prosper, we (our generation) have to initiate the greatest and most rapid revolution in human history. The 20th Century should, hopefully, have taught us how NOT to go about it. It is the greatest challenge that any generation ever faced. We will go down in history as the saviours or destroyers of western (the world's greatest) civilisation. 

 

P.S. I am well aware that what I have written above runs contrary to accepted paradigms and the general world view of most, if not all, NYT editors and readers, who will probably dismiss me as a crackpot. Perhaps I am. I can hardly claim to be an objective judge of whether I am or not. But please, check me (what I have written) out. Because even if you think there is less than one chance in a million of it being right, in view of what is (could be) at stake, it is not worth taking the risk of ignoring it.