Earth Day, a quick Wikipedia search reveals, was first
suggested as a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace. These days, it
seems, the latter half of the original intent is left out of our observation.
Perhaps the Cold War and the potential for nuclear obliteration of our only
planet was the motivation for this, and these days our annihilation and certain
doom seem more distant, both in possibility and in time. Today, both original goals
remain to seem nearly unattainable. Indeed, when cash is king, and has the
ability to overpower, step around, and influence the governing bodies meant to
keep it in check, how is one to begin combating opponents like Big Oil? And
how could we ever find ways to end all our wars? I suggest that the path to achieving both of
these original goals of Earth Day are largely one and the same.
It should be obvious to you by now, dear reader, that I
consider the far future, suppose what it ought to look like, and decide what
must change today in order to get there. It is my hope that someone has already
convinced you that climate change is both real and human-caused. It is also my
hope that you've been clued in to the insane amount of lobbyists’ money flowing
into our government, opening your eyes to its corruption. If not, go get
convinced here, here, and/or here, and come back.
Given your prerequisite knowledge on the subject, you, like
I, know that one of two things must happen in order to protect the environment.
Ideally, the free market would dictate, that fossil fuels and pollution and the
like are now out-of-style, and consumers’ demand for clean energy and
responsible practices would socially and economically force companies and
governments to operate in sustainable ways. The problem with this is that it’ll
never happen. Not everybody is as considerate as you and I are of the state of
our planet long after we’re dead. They will put a higher priority on their own comfort than on what’s best for life on Earth as a whole. The majority of scientists
agree that manmade greenhouse gasses are causing climate change, but a tiny
minority has taken action to reduce their contribution to the problem.
Therefore, the solution we need is to have enacted, enforced
laws surrounding the subjects of waste, pollution, natural resource management,
energy production, energy consumption, and all other realms of human’s impact
on the environment, forcing those who have profited for so long off of
destroying our planet to reinvent themselves in a sustainable way. Having the
government step in and change the supply is the more realistic solution,
because it does not rely on every person making the appropriate choices to
protect the environment. Instead, it only requires that the public
agrees with the laws which get put in place. That doesn't mean it’ll be easy,
and it doesn't mean Big Oil will be going down without a fight. However, as the
point of no return might come at any moment, this is the change we need to make
to protect the environment, and in so doing, we will take a large step towards
ending our wars.
I know what you’re thinking: how could a bunch of solar
panels and local farms ever possibly end our wars? Let’s think about the causes
of war first, and then I’ll fill you in. Evolution (that phenomenon with a
tendency to promote life making more life) favors competition. Back in the day,
healthy competition ensured that we, as a species, evolved to be smarter,
better, faster, and stronger, by rewarding winners with more resources after
conflict. I’m counting “honor” and “respect” and the like as resources as well,
which nicely captures all ideological wars’ supposed
(see paragraph 7) motivation. We have not escaped the driving force of
evolution. Here we are, a world divided into 196 countries, divided further by
religion, skin color, and socioeconomic status, and we still fight for
resources, both tangible and intangible, which we perceive as helpful for our specific
people’s survival.
To see this connection between renewable energy and the end
to war, I implore you to think deep into the future. Can you envision it? I’m
imagining a world in which our energy sources sustainably provide more energy
than we are able to use. With more energy than we can use, we will live in a
society wherein the cost of everything is a fraction of what it is today, if
not essentially zero. In such a world, there would be no need to fight one
another for more resources. This would be a society in such abundance that nobody
should want for anything. There’s nothing to fight for, when everyone has
enough.
Ah, but, you say, there isn’t enough energy and
sustainability in the world to put an end to ideological conflict! I say there
is. It is my belief that ideological conflicts, though they seem to arise from
one side disrespecting the other, or a decreed incompatibility between two
sides, all have a root cause engrained in their mantras, which is the exact
same as other conflicts: resources. The implicit point of these ideologies is
to spread themselves amongst as many people as possible, and/or to remove any
competing ideologies. Convincing people to follow a certain ideology, and having
them benefit from increasing the ratio of followers to non-followers is a self-perpetuating
mechanism through which the ideology is able to prosper via its devotees. The ideology’s
prosperity is directly proportional to the prosperity of its supporters, which
is based on their access to resources, which is potentially increased through
competition with outsiders. There are certainly people who have fought for
their ideology’s sake, thinking nothing of resources. However, just because
they didn’t know they were fighting for resources, doesn’t mean they weren’t
fighting for resources. The intangible resources “honor” and “respect” that
they attempted to protect or gain by fighting against people outside of their own
ideology, are no more than the image of a carrot in front of a hamster’s
wheel, which powers the projector as it spins.
If everyone were to see that self-perpetuating mechanism for
what it is, in a world with great abundance, that specific direction from ideology
will become a moot point. Not by adhering to Capitalism or Judaism or any other
ideology will people prosper, but simply by being lucky enough to be born into
a post-scarcity economy. With abundance enough to fill every belly, we will
also be able to fill every mind, and I am certain that given enough time, there
will eventually be a generation of humans wherein everyone is aware of the man
behind the curtain, and nobody is fooled into participating in a conflict for
ideological reasons.
So there you have it. Invest today in renewable energy,
ensure that we take care of the only planet we have, and eventually, we will
live in a post-scarcity economy, which will lead to a post-conflict society.
Utopian? Sure. Unobtainable? Seems that way. So should we even try? You bet
your ass. And every ass of every shitting thing with an ass to shit out of. And
every living thing without an ass. As well as every living thing to have ever
lived or shat, and every living thing that is yet to live. Life as we know it currently
depends on the Earth to survive, and until life achieves a stronger foothold
elsewhere, it is our long-term evolutionary duty to ensure that life is able to
continue.
And continue.
And continue.
