Sustainability and a Quiz

Recently, a friend suggested a web site -- so I could take an environmental impact quiz. I scored bonus points for living in a small apartment in a high rise, recycling, driving a four cylinder car, and being able to walk to stores for everyday shopping. However, if everyone on earth lived as I do, we would need 3.7 planet earths to be sustainable! (I hope the scoring system was faulty.)

Then, as I watch the news from some of the poorer countries of the world, I see the people who are paying my way by using few resources -- living in hovels, starving , dying of disease or at young ages, dressing in near rags. On the same news, I see world leaders meeting to discuss providing all people with decent basics: food, shelter, clothes, education, et. al. Of course, these leaders are flying to these meetings in jumbo jets, staying in swank hotels, eating at banquets, and meeting in posh conference rooms.

As Umberto Eco wrote: "To treat the poor and weak well means a loss of privilege for the rich and powerful." I have noted none of the rich or powerful volunteering to reduce their life styles to help balance the use of our world's finite resources. In fact, I don't wish to reduce mine either. Nor do I hear of much planning to discover and tap sustainable or (even better) infinite resources -- whatever they might be. Most of our new inventions are really great -- for the already privileged, who can afford them.

Feeling compassion and sending supplies to a few of the worst trouble spots may sooth our consciences but does little to guarantee our world';s future. We seem good at making ourselves feel good but not so good at real solutions. We 'do' studies. We look at things more closely, but that does not change the things. We might even suggest an action -- which will not subtract from us.

Too many of our leaders admit no problem other than the need for economic growth, using more resources faster to provide more for everyone who already has. But the vast majority doesn't have; they want. They cannot have what does not exist --the goods for all to live like me.

It is only petty men who seem normal. --Umberto Eco--



A rather sad commentary, but one that seems true enough in our day to day dealings. Much of the time we seem to seek betterment of self before betterment for the world, the environment, the society, the community or anything else. We argue over minor details to win a point for our egos, our side. Rare is the person who puts others first. I am reminded of the emphasis on the 'dysfunctional family' in current literature. The normal family is dysfunctional.



We need to raise the norm for families and for ourselves. Otherwise, pettiness will remain the norm.

--I.M. Smith--

"I"m not saying I'm better than anybody else, but I'll be danged if I ain't just as good." -'Oklahoma'-

There in lies a USA problem: it has been saying it is better than everybody else. 'The Ugly American' pointed that out decades ago. Now the escalation: Not only is it better, its way is the only way, the best way. Seemingly in everything.

To be better is one thing; to say so, another. To be recognized as better in something is a good thing. One feels good, appreciates the compliment, and will probably help others toward betterment. But to brag (even if true) leads to resentment, a resistance to copy, and a break down in relationship. To dictate to others how they must do things our way, at our direction is even worse. To judge decisions, actions, and results in terms of how it betters oneself first is indefensible.

Cannot honor be had without (self) glory any more?

Our Finite Universe



We measure the age of our Universe in earth years back to the Big Bang (well, a nanosecond after). But the material for the Big Bang was already available -- pre-universe existence? Pre-time existence?



Our scientists seem to consider our universe finite -- in time, mass and size. By their calculations, our universe has a definite age in billions of years and a life expectancy of either forever if it continues to expand or measurable if the mass is such as to allow the expansion to cease and then an inevitable collapse. The choice is up to the mass, a finite, measurable amount, known except for that which is missing and needed to avoid the collapse. (Hence, some ingenious [or ingenuous] theories as to what and/or where it is.) Though currently expanding, the size is discoverable in light years and already measured, given that newer techniques of seeing further keeps enlarging the numbers.



Because of the curvature of space and light, we can neither see nor reach the mythical end of our universe, finite though it is. But Lobachevsky, with hyperbolic geometry, gave us parallel lines that met at infinity, seemingly, the end of space. Then, of course, someone proved points beyond that.



What if these geometers were correct? Then we'd be back to some of the early Greek thinkers who considered space, time and material infinite. Where did everything come from? To them, it didn't; it just always was. Space went on forever, always existed, and had an infinite volume of each kind of atom. The atoms kept bumping into each other. With infinite time, space and material, a lot of bumping would lead to a lot of stuff -- maybe even to a huge black hole to blow us into existence. But that black hole was finite within The Universe, and our universe is finite within The Universe as well.