As I woke up this morning, I was wondering about morality.
It seems that morality is all about acting for the long term common good. A moral person cultivates the discipline to overcome short term destructive habits (even though they may be pleasurable) in favor of long term prosperity and deeper happiness.
Our concepts about morality change as we learn and mature. In the 1950s and 60s, driving and burning fuel and fertilizing monoculture crops were all good things. Now our culture is learning that those behaviors are causing huge problems for the future of ourselves individually and our entire civilization. Suddenly those behaviors are the ultimate immorality.
You and I have not substantially changed our fuel consumption patterns. We talk about it, and make gestures toward improving, but the bottom line is not really better. We are not going to allow our grandkids to label us as immoral, so we have to change.
Contemplate this...
Global warming and peak oil are bunk. We don't have to reduce our usage by 90% like experts say. We only have to share better at current levels of usage. Because we are Americans and deserve more than most people, we get to use 150% of the amount of fossil fuels per person compared to the rest of the world. That still means we have to cut down our fuel consumption by a factor of 3.6. That is a 63% reduction from our current levels.
Homework Exercise: Seriously practice using only 27% of the fuel you are used to.
How will you do it?
Later we can contemplate how even this level is not yet near moral.
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1 comment:
Changes we have made in cars have reduced our car fuel by over 30% from 1 year ago and over 50% from 4 years ago.
Heating fuel is harder to reduce without more drastic measures. I think an ARC will make a difference.
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