Danger, Danger

From an article on the marine life census that I talked about yesterday, I find this quote:

This kind of research will matter in the years to come, said Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee.

"Energy, clean water and food is what people are going to start fighting wars over," Gordon said in an interview.

Newsflash, genius. People have always been fighting wars over these things.  And will continue to do so, whether or not the resources or some other long simmering differences are at the root of the never-ending skirmishes.

But Gordon's right in the sense that the need for control and dominion over vital resources is intensifying. Or at least, it sure seems that way as resources dwindle in areas where they once were plentiful, doesn't it?

We need to make smarter choices about how we do things, how we obtain things, build things in a way that doesn't worsen the long-term viability of us all.

Have we reached a sort of tipping point?  Or is this all a tempest in a seemingly small teapot that sits on a vast table laid out with an assortment we can't even begin to know yet?


No idea. 

What I do know is that we need to make smarter choices than we seem to be making now.  But I'll be damned if I know what that actually means for any of us in the long run.

And that the tension between the "have's" and "the have even less than the little we had before's" feels like it is stretching to some sort of breaking point in too many places at once, doesn't it?

It feels lately like we are just careening along on this little planet of ours without any real leadership anywhere beyond "everyone for themselves" as an organizing force.  That never seems to lead anywhere good, does it?  Perhaps it is yet another day in a row of dreary weather this morning, but I'm feeling anxious and not at all optimistic about where we are all going, even though my little family is doing well and our little corner of the universe is a happy one.

I wish I could shake this dread.  But for some reason?  It just feels like something worse than winter is coming.

Tell me I'm wrong.  Give me some good news, would you?


(Photo via Mark Strozier.  Hilarious!)