By Ron McLinden
How the world has changed. Until thirty-six months ago, it was unthinkable that commercial airliners would be used as lethal weapons by suicidal zealots. It's no longer unthinkable. In fact, looking back, there were many clues that such action might be forthcoming.
How the world hasn't changed. Today, the notion that the earth's limited resources might not be adequate to meet rapidly growing human demands is still foreign to most of the world's people, and even to leaders of the world's "last remaining superpower." Yet the evidence is growing that we are headed for a resource crunch of unprecedented proportions, and with unthinkable consequences.
Furthermore, there is growing evidence that human use of energy contributes to the unmistakable warming of the earth, with the result that future climate disruptions will add to disruptions resulting from resource shortages.
Amazingly, there is only disbelief and denial. Just as with the terrorists, indicators are all around. This time, though, it's not likely there'll be a single dramatic event to galvanize us to action.
In response to terrorist attacks the United States embarked on an agressive campaign to defend ourselves by keeping the terrorists "over there." What arrogance. As if the rest of the world is our own private battlefield. Such arrogance will surely heighten the contempt in which others hold us. Such arrogance will surely make us less secure.
We delude ourselves into believing the answer is to "liberate" other nations and give them democracy — especially if they see democracy as the camel's nose of a "capitalist imperialism." The result, at best, will be decades of internal conflict as the formerly-powerful struggle to hold on to power. In the course of those struggles tens of thousands of lives will be lost and scarce resources will be squandered. As a result, future disruptions due to resource shortages and climate change will be hastened.
Rather than a world-wide war "over there," perhaps what we need is a fresh introspection into the foundations of our own form of government. Consider the Preamble to our Constitution:
"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Those 52 words, written some 215 years ago, need to be re-examined in today's context. If those words are still valid for us, then we must also see what those words mean in an interdependent global economy. To "establish justice" must apply to all nations, respecting their varied cultures and values along the way. Promoting the "general welfare" must mean the well-being of all peoples of the world. "Ourselves" must include all members of the human family. Most important, we must elevate "our posterity" to a new level. Our posterity are children and grandchildren — not just our own, but of all people.
The prevailing paradigm seems to be that government should maximize opportunity for individuals to pursue their own interests as they see them — e.g., by cutting taxes and easing regulations -- with the tacit assumption that the result will be the best outcome for all. That paradigm must give way to one that stresses individual responsibility to contribute to the greater good, to "promote the general welfare" of all.
We Americans will make the world safer to the degree that we exercise restraint, and as we work for justice and an adequate standard of living for all people. And if that course of action seems too idealistic for some, we should at least be willing to do so for the sake of our own progeny.
For any number of reasons, a new commitment to moderation — in the use of energy and all natural resources — is the prudent course of action. For some, that commitment will follow from a deeply held belief that man's role on earth — at least in part — is to be faithful stewards of the Good Work of Creation and to make wise use of what has been entrusted to us. For others, the commitment will follow from purely humanistic values like justice and the well-being of all peoples. For still others, the commitment should be seen as simply a prudent course of action, following from a purely pragmatic and self-interested desire not to have to fight a defensive war within our own borders.
A commitment to moderation logically begins with a focus on efficiency — accomplishing the same or more while using less. Efficiency must shortly give way to "resource effectiveness" — a conscious and deliberate use of energy and all resources so as to derive the greatest good from each unit of energy or other resource consumed. And that includes stopping to evaluate whether a thing to be done more efficiently is even worth doing at all.
The details remain to worked out, to be sure, but that's the overall direction I believe we must take — and that's the perspective I'll take into my voting booth in November. The alternative is almost certainly a set of consequences that are still unthinkable.