With each problem, each speed bump along the way, more people get bumped onto the road towards waking up and people already on the road get moved along.  With that said, I know that many people have a colossal investment in Business As Usual, there are many who will fight the coming changes fanatically; even though their position in that of King Canute, their belief in the status quo is almost religious in it’s intensity.

For their part, the Vested Interests; the powers that be, are deploying every while and weapon in their not inconsiderable arsenals to fight this.  Every person whose consciousness is raised and who starts thinking freely is a loss for them, a body blow, and the more people that awaken to our situation the easier it is for others to do so.

For my part, I think the VIs are fighting a losing battle.  Once a person awakens, it’s impossible to unawaken; a consciousness raised cannot truly be lowered.  You may have denial and suppression but that’s all you have, consider that a religion knows that once the conditioning is broken that person is lost to them, it’s the same here.  This is a secular raising of consciousness that goes far beyond anything we’ve seen in religious terms.

But that’s a thought, and I will swing towards religion as my final thought in this post.  Religions hold views that are in some cases counter to the coming reality, those faiths are in for a shock.  For example consider Catholicism and contraception.  The coming population issues will challenge and break that teaching, the faithful believe the Pope is infallible, they are about to see both their leader and their faith shown to be in error.  Where does that lead?

I’ve been pondering this tragedy and am wondering at the scale of it, a dark stygian cloud seeping beneath the water.  Some say it will spread up the Atlantic coastline, indeed, some rumors say it has already begun to.  This has been likened to an American Chernobyl, I think that’s an entirely justified comparison.

The cost in terms of both the environment and economy is well covered elsewhere, the political row echoes across the Atlantic, and reading newspaper website comments I wonder if many people in the UK can empathise with Obama.  I find myself feeling a deep sympathy for the man, and hoping that he can use this to break the stranglehold of Big Oil and move the US towards an alternative energy policy that includes walkable cities and clean efficient rail.

I was also pondering the effects on the mental level.  We’ve been caught out in our greed, as Peter so accurately puts it over at The Buddha Diaries:

“We have known for at least forty years that this dependency was a threat to our well-being and to the natural environment, but have done nothing to address it. Indeed, the reverse, our demand has only increased, our addiction deepened.”

I agree wholeheartedly.  This has been brought on by our greed, grasping for the things we feel entitled to, without realising that our sense of entitlement will be our undoing.  We have grasped and hoarded with no thought and our “solutions” to the World’s financial mess have seen us grasping at the resources of the future, impoverishing future generations to sate our own appetites.

So, are we Preta, hungry ghosts (speaking psychologically) with an insatiable appetite for a substance or object?  Our greed is forcing us recklessly onwards, as evidenced by internal emails from BP.  I’ve observed that the drive for profits, and damn the consequences, has stored up some pretty alarming trouble for us.  But I plan to cover that another time.

Or can we rise above that?  I believe that answer is “yes, we can”.  We will need to rediscover our humility in the face of nature, we have pushed too far thinking we could beat the odds; we couldn’t, you don’t beat Mother Nature.

I can only see only one solution.  That we must grow into a stewardship of this planet, and learn to use it sustainably; after all, it’s not like we have another.  Some vested interests are going to be severely inconvenienced, and will have to learn to restrain their greed but either we do this voluntarily and get a say in how it goes, or we sleep walk into another catastrophe.

Whats our Karma?

I’ve noticed in the coverage that, aside from the airlines, there have been other people and companies hit by this.  People are low on medicines they need to control medical conditions, among many other stories.  This could have been avoided.

I am coming to think that our reliance on just in time methods has been shown to be an achilles heel, as has our reliance on imports and air freight.  I’ve talked about balance before, and I believe that what we are seeing here is that our situation is unbalanced, a wheel out of kilter.  I’m an advocate of local goods, and when the business is being poached by artificially lowering currencies, I also consider that the appropriate level of protectionism is a reasonable response.

If I take a lesson from this it is the importance of diversifying, making better use of local sources and building in redundancy.  We need to stimulate local jobs and protect local economies and communities, we also need to develop high speed rail as a matter of some urgency.

I also wonder at the unbalanced media coverage.  The BBC, and a lot of the UK media, seemed to miss the stories of the Finnish F18s and the NATO f16s that suffered damage in this cloud, most of the interest in the news websites seem to come from the commenters, not the journalists!

Nobody mentions the Elephant in the room, the end of Oil and the limits to growth.  There just seems to be a vague feeling of ‘oh, somebody must do something’, but no sense that business as usual is not possible long term and that certain limits are approaching.

I have spoken to people who see the end of oil, it makes me wonder that if those of us on the ground can see it with a simple common sense, why can’t those in charge?  The technology is there, but maybe because it’s not shiny and new; some kind of shiny impersonal Ithing with no soul, nobody wants to know.

One of the things that made me smile in all this cold weather was the story of a modern diesel locomotive rescued by a steam engine in England.  I’ve been of the opinion for quite some time that newer ways aren’t always better, reading Robert M Pirsig’s view in Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that the correct question is not “what is new?” but “what is best?” confirmed my beliefs.

I’ve seen folks arguing that the renewable technologies need huge factories and lots of energy to build and all sorts of things, but windmills and water wheels have been around for centuries, they’re and ancient and time honoured technology and can provide a valuable contribution without all the rare elements and industrial wizardry, what is so hard to understand about that.

Or maybe we’re in denial because it’s not shiny and doesn’t fit our self image?

I have a better understanding now of what Robert M Pirsig was talking about in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when he wrote:

“In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through the car window everything you see is just more TV.  You’re just a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone.  You’re completely in contact with it all.  You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.”

I agree, I also know that I am also more present in the moment when I’m on the bike, there are fewer distractions.  Now leaving aside the practise of cyclists who wear mp3 players, which to my mind is just plain dangerous, there are just fewer things to distract you on a bike as opposed to driving a car.  I speak as a driver with more than 15 years experience, no stereo, no conversations or arguments, no mobile phone while driving.  Know what?  It’s great….

The sheer extra sense of presence is well worth it, and I’m rediscovering a whole side to my home town I’d forgotten about and areas that I’d never seen but can now explore more easily.  It occurs to me that you really do miss an awful lot in a car.

I’m of the opinion that this will be a huge challenge for us, and that our lifestyles will change.  The general phrase used is that our standard of living must come down.  I was talking on the phone to a very old and dear friend last night and something we agreed on has bubbled to the surface of my mind.  Most of the things we take for granted, could be described as “frivolous”.  CDs, DVDs, Playstations, large wardrobes, flashy cars and I’m sure that each reader can add to this list with your own examples.

So… Let’s re-examine it.  Given the above, how far does our quality of life really fall now?  Granted, access to medical treatment is an issue, but with the reduction of car use and a corresponding increase in our activity level shouldn’t we be generally healthier?

If a lot of what we are going to lose is our illusions and largely unimportant frivolities, how far will our “standard of living” really fall?  I honestly believe that we can rise to this.  Perhaps if we accept that we might just gain a sustainable, ethical way of life, coupled with my own belief that this change will bring opportunities for those prepared to forge ahead.  Could it be that our perception of our “standard of living” needs a reassessment?  I don’t have the answers right now, but as a correspondant once said of me, I tend to ask the questions and try to provoke my readers to think.

Guess what I’m doing now…..

We use a huge amount of our energy in transport, I’m finding the march to electric cars and other ‘alternatives’ interesting to watch.  We already have the problem that without cheap, plentiful and energy dense fuel, we can no longer use the methods of air travel that we do, how much more true is this for cars?  The fuels we use in cars and planes provide us with a lot of energy in a small space, more than you might think, in fact they are far superior to any solid fuel, to quote a site that covers alternate energy sources:

“to replace your petrol tank with plant biomass, for instance, it would require two and a half times the mass (rather simplified, of course).” -  The Wolf at the Door. (the graph in figure E2 is illuminating)

The problem we have is getting that much energy around the place, and generating it in the first place.  We can keep pace with our current energy demands, but what happens when everybody starts plugging their electric cars into the electricity grid and demanding that sort of energy from it several times a week?  Remember, we don’t have to generate all that energy in oil, it’s conveniently there already.

The alternative fuels revolution is looking, at least to me, like us sticking our head in the sand and pretending we can keep doing “Business As Usual”.  I don’t agree with this, we can’t keep on this way, I’m increasingly of the opinion that “BAU” is not a viable option.

So, where do I see our options?  Greater use of Public transport is a good place to start, allowing us to quickly increase the efficiency of our travel with services that are already in place and working.  Of course, public transport networks do need improvement in many areas, and in others are, for the moment, almost unavailable.  For freight, rail travel is much more efficent than road, with the advantage of removing the huge HGVs from most of our roads.  I think that a network of mostly light rail and walkable / rideable cities, with the option of electric vehicles for commercial use will go a long way towards making a much more pleasant environment for us and our children and keep the wheels turning in a more sustainable way.

There is another option, one that’s good for our waistlines as well as our bank balances. Many of us can act quickly to improve our health, cut our emissions and our fuel bills by cycling around the place.  Even if it’s just one day a week to work, or to the shops and back, we should try to replace car trips with bike trips.  A bike uses, far fewer resources to make, maintain and run than many other modes of transport.  A good cycling advocacy website is Why Cycle?.

So, am I preaching from my armchair here?  No, I bought a mountain bike and some accessories on the weekend of the 4th April and started practising with it, and I’m having a really enjoyable time.  I have a greater degree of choice on my routes than I do with a car and also few of the associated costs, unlike a car, I can expect the bike to pay for itself with fuel savings.  Maintenance is something that needs doing, but is enormously cheap compared to a car.

I’m also discovering that if you’re a little outgoing with it, you speak to people more and it makes things much more rewarding.  I’m finding something Robert M Pirsig said to be very true, in Zen and The Art of Motorcyle Maintenance, he says that on a motorbike you’re part of the scene, not seperated from it by a car.  As I’m travelling more slowly and quietly, I’m finding that very true, even more true for a bicycle than a motorbike.  This changes the whole nature of travelling.

I’m also getting into situations that are completely new to me, let me give a very cool example from the morning of Sunday 12th.

I’d gone out for a ride along the local canals and got to a local nature reserve, I decided to try my lights and went through the Netherton Tunnel, nearly 2.8 km (1.7 miles) of darkness with light and air shafts in the ceiling.  I got through there fine and had a ride round the canals at the other end then turned and came back.  As I got to the tunnel a narrowboat was going in and the driver and his wife joked about me riding a bike through the tunnel.  So I slowed down and kept pace with the boat through the tunnel, using their boat headlights to provide much better light than my smaller lights.  We wound up having a good conversation while travelling for nearly an hour way underground and bumped into some other cyclists on the way.

I’ll no doubt return to my bike in future posts.

I think this is an important change to make, as I think we seem to be largely in denial of the scale of what’s happening, but also unable to see a way through it.   Now, my personal conviction is that this isn’t a deficiency in intelligence, or in our ability to rise to the challenges ahead of us.  I think it’s a problem of perspective, we cannot accept the change because we seem to lose everything, and I admit the sheer enormity of the idea is frightening.

So can we turn that perspective around?  I think the answer is yes, we have an opportunity here to learn much more about living lightly on the Earth in a sustainable way, but also a chance to learn to take pleasure in something other than reckless consumption.  We could gain a better environment to live in, with less noise and traffic fumes.   A chance to slow down the pace of things maybe, gain some much needed time for reflection?  I feel that we lose a great deal because of our frantic pace, we miss a lot and I know I’m not the only one who feels like that, but more of that another time.

It’s easy to point the finger and call this wishful rusticism, but the alternative is unsustainable and will come crashing down around our ears sooner rather than later.  So we may as well find the silver lining, I don’t think it’s such a bad one.

So, this could be our chance at a new age, not a ‘Golden Age’ by today’s standards, but given where those standards have led us to, how much faith can we put in them anymore?

People are running round trying to prop up the system without realising that it might just be time to question a few of the basic assumptions that underlie that system.

The one I think needs to be addressed with priority is the fixation with growth and how to restart it.  We have only so much planet, and we have been burning through the available resources with abandon.  You can only grow for so long, sooner or later you run out of room to grow and resources to grow with.  That’s the problem, we’re trying to do something that just isn’t possible and if you get into a fight like that, you won’t be the one left standing at the end.  Reality is always right and denying that basic fact just stores up trouble.

It’s time to start moving towards a path based on what we can sustain, it will be slow and challenging, but there really is little alternative and the clock is ticking ever louder.

We also need to realise that we need to start questioning the assumptions that underlie our methods and beliefs in all areas of our lives, putting our heads in the sand and allowing others to think for us is no longer an option.

Dare we begin to compare this to the fall of Rome and, in our denial, are we and our leaders guilty of fiddling while Rome burns?