Crash Course

Is The United States on a crash course? According to Dr. Chris Martenson, red lights are flashing all over the dashboard, yet we keep driving down the freeway instead of pulling over and rethinking our trip, our speed, and our gas-burning vehicle.

Yesterday Nancy and I attended a presentation at the Minnesota History Society co-sponsored by the Legislative Committee on the Environment and the U of M Institute on the Environment. Martenson painted an alarming picture of the economy, energy, and environment.

Given the exponential growth of population and need for energy we humans are in a fix. He believes that massive changes are ahead of us in the next decade or two as we face economic upheaval, energy demands that cannot be met with fossil fuel, and dwindling resources that require ever more expense to extract fewer and fewer minerals from the earth.

"It's not a problem," he says, "it's a predicament." Problems have solutions, predicaments require management. But instead of tackling the challenges--for example, putting money into a Manhattan-type project to come up with an energy/economic system that can replace the mess we have now, the U.S. government continues on the path toward insolvency.

Bottom line, we need to shift our paradigm of what constitutes a fulfilling life. We need to use less energy, fewer resources, and shrink the economy. (Europeans use half the energy per capita that Americans do and still have a satisfying lifestyle.) We need government to start dealing with the hard problems. We cannot sustain an economic system based on consumerism, debt, and continual growth.

Martenson offers a free three-hour course on his website (www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse). Nancy and I were riveted by his twenty short, clear, engaging chapters. I encourage you to check it out and share The Crash Course with others who would like to know what they can do about the probability that the next twenty years will be nothing like the last twenty years.

Becky