Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

Been thinking a lot lately about the earth and our sustainability. Certainly something that is on most people's minds as the price of oil rises daily and the availability of affordable food, particularly in the Third World, becomes a major issue bordering on catastrophe. We actually have it pretty good here at home, it's a lot tougher out there kids.

I ran across a riddle on one of my recent journeys. I had to think about it for a while as I was processing the oil crisis, the food crisis and the growing cost of many commodities. Developing economies, both large and small, are ramping up with their own growth which is great. However, more and more, they are beginning to emulate the United States' behavior of consumption. In all of history, no culture has been as voracious as the U.S. in devouring this planet's assets. Now, two more giants, countries with five times the number of people we have, want to start acting like us. What are going to say? Don't do as I did, don't enjoy the wealth of this planet as I have? That's not going to fly.

So the riddle goes like this - "What is it, that the more you take, the more you leave behind?". Clearly a resource we need to exploit in our own inimitable way.

Here's some statistics to flavor the discussion :

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following:

There would be:

57 Asians
21 Europeans
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
8 Africans
_
52 would be female
48 would be male
_
70 would be non-white
30 would be white
_
70 would be non-Christian
30 would be Christian
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89 would be heterosexual
11 would be homosexual
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6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from
the United States.
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80 would live in substandard housing
70 would be unable to read
50 would suffer from malnutrition
1 would be near death; 1 would be near birth
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
1 would own a computer

- from The Sustainable Living Directory

So - if you're reading this, then you're probably in that last category, the 1 out of 100 who actually has a computer, lucky you.

What's going on here? I think I'm like most people in that I see these type of statistics, or some fashion of them, on a regular basis. I'm aghast at the reality yet I don't feel these numbers in my gut. I'm really not connected to those 99 other people. They don't live in my house, on my street, hell - their kids don't even go to the same school as mine. So why should I worry?

These are hungry people, in so many ways. They want the lifestyle we have, and justifiably so. And they're getting it, they're working hard to match what we have today and take for granted. Technology has shown them a window into the wealth of the western world and they're not going to stop until they too create a lifestyle much like ours. Should we be worried?

Well, it's like this - you're sitting at the soda fountain with your best friend and both of you are totally enjoying that malted shake. As your faces draw near each other, you both take a big pull on your straws and delight in the coolness and the flavor that comes up. So, as you're savoring this, three or four more of your friends come up and stick their straws into that shake and, smiling, they begin to suck away. In fact, since there is only a limited amount of shake every body begins to suck harder to get more in faster. That big shake starts to look mighty small and soon you begin to hear noises, you know, the ones where the liquid at the bottom is mixing with air and you're making those loud slurping sounds. In today's world that equates to market conditions and rising prices. Get used to it.

Are there answers? Sure, I'm a big believer in technology and the ability to deliver alternate resources and more efficient methods of using what we have. The problem is, we're sucking on those straws so hard and so fast that we may not have time to implement the answers before panic sets in. And history teaches us profoundly, panic over resources leads to war amongst nations. This is no laughing matter. The next two decades begin a delicate walk cross a minefield of potential trigger points centering the needs of one country's people versus another.

So back to my riddle. What can we do today, what are the sustainable resources we can tap in to to give us some sorely needed relief.

"What is it, that the more you take, the more you leave behind?"

The answer's easy : love, hope, kindness, compassion ...

These are the resources that are going to get us through these tough times; particulary useful between cultures that clash and compete over the basic right of insuring a better future for their respective children. We need to start mining these now, en masse. Farming them like there's no tomorrow and then exporting them along with all the advertising talent we've mastered in our own growth and seeing that they reach to the farthest points on the planet. Our message, through these emotional resources, has to be - pace the consumption and share responsibly. Doing this, we need to look hard at ourselves, our own lifestyles, and lead by example. This is the way of yoga and many other spiritual practices. It needs to be implemented in a palatable fashion for our general society. This should be our path, our Mahayana.