Within the political, corporate and investment communities the worship of wealth and its symbols continues. There is a growing undercurrent, however, of heresy. More and more people among the powerless multitudes understand they can't eat legal tender, gems, precious metals, overpriced mini-palaces or any of the other ostentatious trappings of wealth. Imagine, if you will, a magnificent mogul clad in gem-studded silk and sitting on a golden throne. If he has no access to pure water, he will die. If he has no access to unpolluted food, he will die. Logic should dictate that pure water and unpolluted air and soil are the ultimate wealth of the human race, and that all of these should be available to all people as the basic human right.
The big news stories of today are not about global warming and the desecration of the natural world. They are about containing the spread of ebola. They are about containing the threat of terrorism. Outside of the Middle East condemnation of the incredible brutality of the ISIS terrorists is widespread. We are seeing a military response in which Canada is only one of the nations at war with ISIS. The publicly acknowledged object of the multinational military response is to stop the slaughter of the innocent by slaughtering the armies of ISIS. Killing begets killing.
As a war-weary United States again takes the role of leader in the battle against the horrors of extremism, Canada obediently follows. We are, according to the Canadian government, taking to the moral high ground. It doesn't take a massive degree of cynicism to think that again joining our southern neighbours as comrade-in-arms has something to do with gaining President Obama's approval of the Keystone Pipeline.
The Fossil Fuel Age began a long time ago. The strongest early impetus to the Petroleum Age occurred in 1915 when Britain's Royal Navy converted from coal to oil. That was less than a century ago. Arguments pro and con, then and now, about the burning of fossil fuels were and are filled with complexities. The simple truth is, that added to whatever waste products of combustion in a current year are the waste products of the burning of fuels from thousands of years in the past. This energy regime is unsustainable.
In 2014, the wealth of fossil fuels still unexploited is tremendous. The values of the systems used to extract the energy sources of the past, to process them, market them and burn them is unimaginable. The world has entered the Twilight of the Petroleum Gods. Every effort is now being made to maximize the wealth that the petroleum industry can still generate. It seems disloyal to even suggest the immense profits of the petroleum industry that have helped Saskatchewan come of age cannot continue. But it is logical.
More than two centuries ago, Thomas R. Malthus postulated that unrestricted growth in human populations would eventually outstrip the ability of planet Earth to support human life. There were responses by disciples and scoffers. Among the scoffers were those who believed that pestilence and war were all that was needed to limit population growth. In 2014 we remember and we observe the continuing slaughter of warfare. We see the global threat of an ebola pandemic. The human populations still grow at an unsustainable rate while the resources of our planet continue to decline.
In the comparative safety and plenty of Canada we are bombarded with appeals to save and protect those of our species who face death from all manner of catastrophes. The images of grieving women and starving children melt the hardest soul. This does us credit, but the hard and bitter truth is that, wherever and however we save lives, we add to the surplus population.
We have entered the Twilight of the Petroleum Gods. What the world needs is harmony and wisdom enough to recognize that our most dangerous enemies are not on the battlefields. We need to worship sustainability rather than profitability. If we do not realize this and act upon this realization, we will enter inevitably the Twilight of the Human Race.
