Jim Brumm: Long-Term Thinking for a Short-Sighted World

While the world watches in horror as the oil spill in the
Gulf begins to ruin one of the most ecologically important regions on the
globe, I am hearing lots of comments from people about the shameful business
practices of BP, the corruption of government in bed with big-oil lobbyists,
lax regulations, and so on.

Around the world there are hundreds of thousands of grass-roots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which have been formed to help on thousands of issues, to, as environmentalist and entrepreneur 

For years I watched them go by on the road. They would appear at an intersection or pass me going the other way, the riders looking somehow freer—cooler perhaps—than the drivers around them, like they were in traffic like the rest of us, but not of it.

Peak Oil. It’s a term we’re hearing more and more these days. It refers to that point in time when we have passed the halfway mark in extracting the available oil still in the ground. At that point we will be going down the oily, slippery slope toward extracting the last of the oil available. But long before we suck it dry, it will be harder and harder to find, even as oil demand continues rising everywhere.

It has been said that when humans first encountered the world of quantum physics, that mysterious through-the-looking-glass domain where  things refuse to follow the known Newtonian rules, it was the first time that we had come across something that we could see, but that our brains were unable to fully comprehend. I would venture to say that the concept of deep time presents a similar challenge.

(green’wash’) – verb: the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service.

We worship individualism in our society. This emphasis on the individual has caused many of us to insulate ourselves from each other and created a loss of community. America has long promoted the belief/myth that “anyone who works hard can pull themselves up by the bootstraps” and achieve success. There is some truth to this, of course, but over time it has fostered an economic model that emphasizes “looking out for number one.”

Though it is where we live and what we all we know firsthand, the fact remains that there is nothing special about now. Now is but the current moment in an unbroken, seamless stream of time, which cares nothing about the problems, the mores, the beliefs or the inhabitants of any particular moment. Time just is. People, redwood trees, mountains and fruit flies come and go. Time doesn’t care.

In a refreshing twist to the policy of boycotting businesses that are acting irresponsibly, a new organization, Carrotmob, offers an alternative.

“Unlike many other laws, the laws of nature are all strictly enforced.”

Ashleigh Brilliant