The Scarcity Mentality
April 25, 2008 – 10:31 am
I’ve been watching a lot of good documentaries recently…The End of Suburbia, The Corporation, Blue Vinyl. They aren’t exactly uplifting. Each makes the point that our culture has been pushing forward without considering the real consequences of the decisions we’ve made…or decisions we’ve allowed others to make for us.
If there’s a goal to these films, I think it’s to get people to change their ways. There aren’t enough resources to continue living the way the majority of Americans live. We’re fouling our own water, food, and air and it’s literally killing us. The point is clear.
But I notice that they’ve also had another affect on me. While my awareness has changed, and day-to-day decisions are different, I’m concerned about what I’ve noticed as my own selfishness, my own disregard for consequences.
We just took a lovely three-night road trip through California…something I’m not going to pretend to regret. But there is some irony in burning up a bunch of fossil fuel to go visit the National Parks. The Furnace Creek campground in Death Valley, in this state of mind, seems utterly ridiculous. It’s surreal to pass the RVs trundling along to the dump station, gaze over at a bright green golf course, and enjoy the air conditioning and limitless ice of the restaurant (not to mention flush toilets in the campground). My mind kept going back to the questions…where is the water coming from? Where is the waste going to? That I’m not driving an RV or playing golf isn’t the point. Clearly, what’s happening there is not sustainable in any sense of the word.
My reaction? That I’d better get to Death Valley and enjoy it as much as possible before it all ends. I love visiting Death Valley. I don’t regret going in the least. I feel sorrow when I realize that our way of life might be changing in ways that will make it all but impossible to go in the future. Better go now. Use the gasoline, enjoy the ice. Now. Before it’s gone.
It’s this scarcity mentality within myself that bothers me the most. It’s the The Tragedy of the Commons. I think of travel I’d like to do, and worry that I’d better do it now before oil prices make it prohibitive. For the last few weeks I’ve considered buying a 25 pound bag of organic brown rice at the Laguna Farm store…it’s exceptionally delicious rice, but I decided we don’t eat enough of it to warrant the big bag. This week, after reading about rising food costs, I kick myself because the rice at the farm is all gone. The scarcity…the notion that I won’t be able to get it later…makes me want it all the more. And that’s ridiculous.
An aside: I first wrote this before being aware of the recent media circus around food costs in general and rice in particular…Sterling’s got a good take on it.
I thought about sending some of these documentaries to others, to those who don’t live in the culture of the Bay Area, in a town where the city council is made up of Green Party members, and where thinking about these issues is a way of life. But what effect would these have on them? Will they look for ways to stockpile their own rice, gasoline, water? (Yes. before I can even post this, that question gets answered, even for the Bay Area.) And it begs the question…if the resources are running out, regardless, does it make any sense to try to conserve them? Or shall we use them all up and move along to dealing with the inevitable consequences? After all, if I don’t use the oil now, someone else will anyway. Do I, a single person, make any difference?
With apocalypse, there is also excitement. I notice that in myself; I hear it in the tone of those interviewed in the documentaries. Bring it on! Maybe we look forward to the time when, with no resources, we’re freed from the guilt of our own consumption. Or maybe we think we’re smarter, and that smarter will mean a nicer survival, because our brains and our consciousness will bring the world around to our own nirvana of home gardens and chickens and bicycles. But the truth is, I don’t trust my culture to make the right decisions any more. If there’s an overriding theme to these documentaries, it’s that the rich will use their power simply to go grow richer, and as they do, their power grows. Like Steve said after watching The Corporation, “Makes you wanna go hide under a rock.” And he’s right, it does. It feels like there’s precious little chance that an enlightened movement will arise, one of of living closer to nature, of being connected to the food that connects us to the web of life and to each other. And I’m as susceptible to the scarcity mentality as anyone. What is my role in it?
