Reply To: General thought on old coal mines.

[AaronB]

Let me preface me comments with this bit of info. As you may know, I’m an Air Force captain working at CENTCOM HQ. I sit within spitting distance of the Casualty section, and I’m acutely aware of the KIAs, injuries, suicides, and other assorted “sacrifices” made by soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. I’m familiar with the families and friends of those who were killed and wounded, and how they are forced to sacrifice also.

Armed conflict between nation-states, religious factions, family clans, terrorist organizations, gangs and individuals is a never-ending part of history, and from my perspective, it always will be. However, we can minimize the opportunities and reasons for conflict by ensuring enough resources and opportunities for all. In a world of resource scarcity, people will fight to get what they need, or to protect what they already have. When people are forced onto a lower rung of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, their morality and behavior quickly follow suit. Desperate people do desperate things to include the willful destruction of their environment and fellow men (and women and children).

Sacrifice can either be proactive or reactive. Action can be taken preemptively or forced upon you. I see the world’s growing population, resource depletion, and environmental damage as the approaching “perfect storm”. Mix that with short-sighted governments financed by self-serving banks empowered by a complacent and ignorant general population, and you have a recipe for disaster. Why? Because the foresight and desire to sacrifice in order to make needed changes are not happening. I’m speaking generally, of course. There are many individuals and small groups who are aware of the problems, speak out on them, take action and make the necessary changes in their own private lives, but institutional, universal problems will not be solved when the majority is dead set on rushing off a cliff.

I joined this project because I became aware of the problems with the money system and world energy situation. Realizing that both systems would soon force a worldwide reduction of the standard of living, and consequently an increase in conflicts, I began to look for solutions. This project stood out to me as a real opportunity to solve the energy crisis, and I made (and continue to make) personal sacrifices to help it along. Either way, we’ll make sacrifices. One way is proactive, and the other way will be forced upon us. The latter won’t be pretty.

Loving your neighbor is part of the solution, but it’s a lot easier to love your neighbor when he’s not stealing your stuff or eating your cat.