Earth Star - Dummy a Memoir

from the safety of the time bought by taking decisive
action.
Maybe the best way to illustrate what I mean here is
with a make-believe scenario:
Let’s say that on a beautiful, clear, and sunny day
you’re crossing a stretch of highway with a friend in
order to get from your house on one side of the road to
your friend’s home on the other. Suddenly you both look
up after being engrossed in deep conversation and see a
huge 18-wheel tractor-trailer rig coming directly toward
you.
Instantly your body’s “fight or flight” response
kicks in so that you can act. The question is: How? You
have to decide quickly if it’s best to move forward, or go
back to where you’ve just come from until it’s safe to
cross. You and your friend both must choose, and choose
fast.
So there you are, in the middle of the highway, with
three lanes in front of you and three lanes behind you.
Your dilemma is this: Do you have time to move forward
to your destination—the other side—or is it best to move
backward to the place you began? To answer the question
with absolute certainty, you would need information
that you simply don’t have at your fingertips in this
moment. You do not know, for instance, whether the
truck is empty or loaded. You may not be able to tell precisely
how fast it is moving or whether the driver can
even see you on the road. You might not be able to recognize
if it’s a diesel- or gasoline-fueled truck that’s
coming your way, or what make the vehicle is.
And this is precisely the point. You don’t need to
know all of those details before you act. In the moment
that you’re crossing the highway, you already have all of
the information necessary to tell you you’re in a bad
place. You already know that your life is in danger. You
don’t need such details to recognize the obvious: there’s
a big truck heading your way . . . and if you don’t move
quickly, in a matter of seconds nothing else is going to
matter!
While this scenario may sound like a silly example,
it’s also precisely where we find ourselves on the world
stage today. Our paths as individuals, families, and
nations are like those of the two friends walking across
the highway. The “big truck” that’s bearing down upon
us is the perfect storm of multiple crises: situations such
as climate change, terrorism, war, disease, the disappearance
of food and water, and a host of unsustainable
ways of dealing with everyday living here on Earth.
Each crisis has the potential to end civilization and
human life as we know it.
We may not be in agreement as to precisely why
each of these events is occurring, but that doesn’t change
the fact that they are actually happening now. And, like
the two friends deciding to move forward across the
highway or go back to the safety of where they’ve come
from, we could study each crisis for another 100 years .
. . yet the fact is that there are people, communities, and
ways of life that will not survive the time it takes for our
all of the data to be compiled, the reports to be published,
and the results to be debated.
The reason is that while we’re evaluating the problem,
people’s homes will be destroyed by earthquakes,
“superstorms,” floods, and war; the land that gave them
life will stop producing food; their wells will dry up;
oceans will rise; coastlines will disappear—and those
individuals will lose everything, including their lives.
www.earthstarmag.com OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2012 EARTH STAR 39