Remembering A False World As We Thought We Knew It
By James Donahue
The bankruptcy filings by numerous large and familiar business places are only the tip of an iceberg that floats below the sea of chaos that now surrounds us. Fierce storms like Dorian are becoming the norm as the Earth warms and the polar ice goes into meltdown. As the realization strikes that our overcrowded and polluted world is allegedly running out of natural resources and that successful on-line corporations like Amazon are creating a home shopping phenomenon everything we once thought we knew is changing radically. Everything we once thought we could expect with our world is in a state of extreme change. Is there a solution?
Very harsh weather is now slamming United States homeowners and travelers, and there is little that anybody can do about it. Hurricane Dorian, perhaps the most violent and destructive storm of its kind to ever strike Honduras and scratch the East Coast of the United States may be just the beginning of the horrors brewing from our warming seas. People are finding it convenient to order goods on line rather than fight crowded highways and busy parking lots, especially in severe weather situations.
Then there is the problem of a growing fossil fuel shortage. The Trump Administration has been making radical choices, allowing wildcat drilling for oil and gas reserves in once carefully guarded lands in a frantic effort to keep these fuel systems operating as they used to. The demand for crude also appears to be the source of the nation’s current conflict involving Iran. But these carbon based fuels are the cause of our heating planet. Consequently there is a move on throughout the world to switch to green energy sources. Consequently there has developed a battle between financial and environmental interests.
When fuel prices recently began to make a brief drop we saw an influx of big gas guzzling SUV’s pack our worn out highways. Sandwiched in among them are the small, electric powered vehicles used by the more responsible people seeking to do their part in saving our dying planet. And the conflict continues to rage between those that resist change and people who understand the reality of global warming.
Not long ago we endured a lengthy government shut-down . . . not over an important issue but rather the president’s demand that American taxpayers finance a giant wall on the Mexican border. The idea is to ward off crowds of migrant families moving out of poverty stricken areas of Central and South America and looking for a chance at a better life in the United States. The shutdown cut off the wages of thousands of government workers, soldiers around the world, and affected businesses that rely on government services everywhere. Where is all of this heading? The United States is already beginning to look and feel like a third class country. When will migrations from the US to other parts of the world begin?
Can a nation of people living on reduced, fixed or no income whatsoever survive another winter if the heating bills double or even triple? How many people can afford to run individual cars to jobs that pay little more than minimal wage with prices of everything rising beyond their ability to pay?
Can we envision the horror of finding an untold number of elderly citizens frozen in their unheated homes because they could not afford the cost of fuel? And how many people will perish in fires caused by trying to heat their apartments with make-shift wood burning stoves or by turning the gas ranges on full blast? How many will perish in raging fires sweeping the ultra-dry forests and grasslands that were once cherished for their beauty?
Expect more robberies and violent criminal acts as desperate people seek the things they need but cannot afford for lack of good paying jobs.
Our great error has been in relying too heavily on oil as our primary energy source. Our error also was in overpopulating the world and recklessly using up the natural resources that were easy to find. Our error was our failure to preserve those precious resources and always giving reverence to the Mother Earth.
What was needed as we multiplied in numbers and built great cities was a mass transit system that supplied the needs of all. We started in that direction when the first railroads were built. We were well on our way when we established bus transit lines that reached into even the rural towns. People could hop a bus and go just about anywhere at a very reasonable price when I was a young man.
This is no longer true.
Instead of building it better, we abandoned trains and dismantled our great railroad system. In recent years we tore up most of the track. The bus services were squeezed almost out of existence by a commercially generated love for the American automobile. Everybody saw the future as a wonderful time when there was “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.”
We all wanted our own individual homes filled with the latest in gadgetry. We were willing to go deep in debt to have these things. We tossed away perfectly good used items because we were enticed by the lure of “buying new and better” things to replace them. Thus we became a throw-away society. We ravaged our planet’s resources. We lost our connection with the Mother Earth. We forgot who we were. We made money our god.
This folly has been leading us down a road to disaster. The fruits of our great blunder are now upon us. The wonderful dream world that we lived in for the last fifty years is crashed. Now it is time for everyone in America to face reality, and what is real now looks very ugly.
By James Donahue
The bankruptcy filings by numerous large and familiar business places are only the tip of an iceberg that floats below the sea of chaos that now surrounds us. Fierce storms like Dorian are becoming the norm as the Earth warms and the polar ice goes into meltdown. As the realization strikes that our overcrowded and polluted world is allegedly running out of natural resources and that successful on-line corporations like Amazon are creating a home shopping phenomenon everything we once thought we knew is changing radically. Everything we once thought we could expect with our world is in a state of extreme change. Is there a solution?
Very harsh weather is now slamming United States homeowners and travelers, and there is little that anybody can do about it. Hurricane Dorian, perhaps the most violent and destructive storm of its kind to ever strike Honduras and scratch the East Coast of the United States may be just the beginning of the horrors brewing from our warming seas. People are finding it convenient to order goods on line rather than fight crowded highways and busy parking lots, especially in severe weather situations.
Then there is the problem of a growing fossil fuel shortage. The Trump Administration has been making radical choices, allowing wildcat drilling for oil and gas reserves in once carefully guarded lands in a frantic effort to keep these fuel systems operating as they used to. The demand for crude also appears to be the source of the nation’s current conflict involving Iran. But these carbon based fuels are the cause of our heating planet. Consequently there is a move on throughout the world to switch to green energy sources. Consequently there has developed a battle between financial and environmental interests.
When fuel prices recently began to make a brief drop we saw an influx of big gas guzzling SUV’s pack our worn out highways. Sandwiched in among them are the small, electric powered vehicles used by the more responsible people seeking to do their part in saving our dying planet. And the conflict continues to rage between those that resist change and people who understand the reality of global warming.
Not long ago we endured a lengthy government shut-down . . . not over an important issue but rather the president’s demand that American taxpayers finance a giant wall on the Mexican border. The idea is to ward off crowds of migrant families moving out of poverty stricken areas of Central and South America and looking for a chance at a better life in the United States. The shutdown cut off the wages of thousands of government workers, soldiers around the world, and affected businesses that rely on government services everywhere. Where is all of this heading? The United States is already beginning to look and feel like a third class country. When will migrations from the US to other parts of the world begin?
Can a nation of people living on reduced, fixed or no income whatsoever survive another winter if the heating bills double or even triple? How many people can afford to run individual cars to jobs that pay little more than minimal wage with prices of everything rising beyond their ability to pay?
Can we envision the horror of finding an untold number of elderly citizens frozen in their unheated homes because they could not afford the cost of fuel? And how many people will perish in fires caused by trying to heat their apartments with make-shift wood burning stoves or by turning the gas ranges on full blast? How many will perish in raging fires sweeping the ultra-dry forests and grasslands that were once cherished for their beauty?
Expect more robberies and violent criminal acts as desperate people seek the things they need but cannot afford for lack of good paying jobs.
Our great error has been in relying too heavily on oil as our primary energy source. Our error also was in overpopulating the world and recklessly using up the natural resources that were easy to find. Our error was our failure to preserve those precious resources and always giving reverence to the Mother Earth.
What was needed as we multiplied in numbers and built great cities was a mass transit system that supplied the needs of all. We started in that direction when the first railroads were built. We were well on our way when we established bus transit lines that reached into even the rural towns. People could hop a bus and go just about anywhere at a very reasonable price when I was a young man.
This is no longer true.
Instead of building it better, we abandoned trains and dismantled our great railroad system. In recent years we tore up most of the track. The bus services were squeezed almost out of existence by a commercially generated love for the American automobile. Everybody saw the future as a wonderful time when there was “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.”
We all wanted our own individual homes filled with the latest in gadgetry. We were willing to go deep in debt to have these things. We tossed away perfectly good used items because we were enticed by the lure of “buying new and better” things to replace them. Thus we became a throw-away society. We ravaged our planet’s resources. We lost our connection with the Mother Earth. We forgot who we were. We made money our god.
This folly has been leading us down a road to disaster. The fruits of our great blunder are now upon us. The wonderful dream world that we lived in for the last fifty years is crashed. Now it is time for everyone in America to face reality, and what is real now looks very ugly.