Need a New Normal

So, a huge cargo ship has been stuck in the Suez Canal for a week, blocking global shipping and creating economic crises for many of those shipping companies and the companies whose products they carry.

The ship is 1300 feet long, the length of more than four football fields. Its whole purpose is to ship stuff back and forth across the globe. It carries approximately 20,000 shipping containers filled with stuff – these are the 20 – 40-foot-long metal cargo containers that we see at shipping docks (and that some people turn into homes). This one ship carries nearly 20 thousand of those big metal containers filled with stuff.

It is currently part of our “normal” that we have thousands of neighborhood-sized ships carrying stuff back and forth across our oceans.

Although, actual numbers are unknown and unreported to authorities, each year many thousands of these cargo containers fall off ships in rough weather, collisions and even docking accidents. Nearly all of this stuff winds up lost in our oceans.

All the news carriers are asking “How can we get this thing unstuck and get all the ships moving again?”

That’s a “normal” question, and, the wrong question.

If we really want to avoid ecological collapse, and the massive human toll that would result in, we need to be asking, “Does it make sense to have ships the size of whole neighborhoods burning fossil fuel to pump stuff back and forth across our oceans, dumping stuff into those oceans along the way?”

Do we really want more cargo ships and containers in our oceans than whales and dolphins? That’s where we are. We can change it.

If we humans want to avoid ecological collapse we must shift away from consumerism as a purpose and a culture.

I know it’s radical to say that we must move past a consumeristic, grow the GDP, more is better economic model sounds radical. That’s because collectively we’ve (literally) bought into that model. It used to be radical to say the world wasn’t flat – in fact, a number of scientists and observers were ridiculed and even killed for making this claim. Turns out, they were right and there was indeed a different way to interact with our planet.

What to do short term?

? Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.

? Get used and recycled stuff instead of brand new.

? Don’t buy plastic stuff. Almost none of it really gets recycled.

? Give away the stuff you have you aren’t using anymore.

? Whenever possible buy locally sourced and produced products.

We are stewards of this planet at this time. Our consumption, or lack thereof, choices, matter.

#newnormal