footprints

For a while now you have heard talk about your carbon footprint. Maybe the British oil company "beyond" petroleum told you about it. They did that so you would think they were the good guys and keep buying their gas. Besides, drug dealers can tell addicts anything they like about their drugs, it really does not matter. Addicts have what is called inelastic demand. They want their fix no matter what you tell them about the benefits or drawbacks of the product.

Despite all the talk about carbon footprints, and other awareness building efforts relating to global warming, nothing much has happened other than ever increasing carbon shoe sizes. It has gotten to the point where most people are starting to feel numb, and many Republicans are already past that stage and full tilt into mockery as evidenced by their "drill baby" chants at the convention. Can you imagine the passengers of the Titanic singing, "sink baby, sink?"

Unfortunately, carbon footprints aren't the only trouble awaiting us. There is what the Global Footprint Network calls the ecological footprint. How big are our overall resource requirements? And the water footprint, how much water do we need per capita to live our lifestyles?

Needless to say that when it comes to footprints, North America, and especially the US are on top of the list. But the rest of the so-called Western World isn't far behind. China and India are also big players but mostly because they have so many people. 

Our current footprint exceeds what is available on the planet by nearly threefold. What that means is that if we just wanted to bring everybody up to our current level, we would need three planets to do it. Maybe all those people wanting to save the third world should think about that?

Our water footprint is similarly out of whack. Not only do we insist on pouring good water down our toilets everyday -so we can have toilets inside the house and won't have to freeze or be inconvenienced in the middle of the night. We also waste it on growing beef, cotton, and our other favorite drug, sugar.

In short, if we want to keep living happily ever after, we in the West will have to change our lifestyles quite a bit, and in the very near future too. Because most indices predict disastrous crashes before mid-century.

If you think this cannot possibly happen, just remember what they used to say about housing prices. Plain old common sense will tell you that nothing, absolutely nothing can keep going up forever. Think about that before you turn on your TV and drink the kool-aid.