Compassionate Spirit

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A web site on simple living, nonviolence, vegetarianism, and spiritual concerns

The Spiritual Dimension
of the Economic Crisis

"The worst financial crisis in a century." In his victory speech on election night, that’s how our President-elect, Barack Obama, described the financial crisis which has swept across the country and the world this fall with breathtaking depth and rapidity.  Did I hear that right?  That hundred year period covers not only the oil shocks of the 1970's, but also the Great Depression, when we had an unemployment rate of 25%.

The reason our current problems are so serious is that this economic crisis is not fundamentally about housing speculation, interest rates, or anything like that. It’s about the environment: we have hit the limit of the abilities of the earth to support our profligate lifestyle. With that, the era of economic growth — based on fossil fuels — is about to come to a crashing close, in a more or less apocalyptic fashion depending on our response.

There is no clear path out of this downturn. If we try to restart the economy by stimulating further use of fossil fuels — and notice that most of our economy is based on fossil fuels — this is just going to make the ultimate economic collapse even worse, because the supply of oil is not getting any more plentiful.

Spiritual groups are in a unique position to contribute to this discussion.  Simple living is one of the most fundamental teachings of Jesus. Jesus says "you cannot serve God and money"; tells the rich young man to sell everything he has, give it to the poor, and follow Jesus; and advises us not to be anxious about what we will eat, drink, or wear.  The early followers of Jesus shared everything in common and "there was not a needy person among them."  Maybe there's something here we should be paying attention to.

The message of simple living is not peculiar to Jesus; it can be found in many traditions — Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, whatever. So go forth and preach your own tradition. This is not a crisis about "how do we get the economy to work." It is not even at its root an environmental crisis, although resource depletion is the immediate reason that the economy isn’t working. It is a spiritual crisis that goes to the heart of what it means to be human.

The Politics of Peak Oil

To many of us, peak oil means that we are staring the collapse of industrial civilization in the face. But our political leaders aren’t paying attention. Once again, Roscoe Bartlett has introduced his symbolic peak oil resolution into the House of Representatives.  Once again, it's attracting little attention or support — so far, it doesn’t seem to have any co-sponsors, though in previous years it has gotten perhaps a dozen. We are having problems convincing anyone in Congress, besides Roscoe Bartlett, that peak oil is a problem. Why is this, and what can we do about it?

The basis of our political problem is that we have not clearly explained the effects of peak oil — specifically, we have not explained why peak oil requires a different approach than global warming. Almost as important, we also don’t have a coherent plan to deal with peak oil. While of course we face all the usual political obstacles, these two problems — both in our power to address — are, I believe, the decisive ones.  

The effects of peak oil are primarily economic, not environmental.  The effects of peak oil will hit sooner, harder, and faster than those of global warming.  In fact, we are feeling the first, rather mild, effects of peak oil right now, in the form of a financial crisis.  

The basic strategy to deal with peak oil is to reduce the physical scale of the economy.  Our economy has long since passed its optimum size, not just with respect to oil, but with fossil fuels and all environmental resources generally.  "Sustainable growth" is impossible, and attempts to bring it about simply are a waste of time and resources.  

The time for an environmental future that makes sense was the 1970's.  Now the question is whether we have a future at all.  Without political leadership, it is likely that we are looking at a rather messy economic and political collapse.  

What's New
(lately)

June 5, 2009 -- added Be the Change -- did Gandhi really say this?

June 4, 2009 -- added Make England Great: A Peak Oil Thought Experiment

April 14, 2009 -- added audio of a radio interview of Kate Lawrence on KAFM, March 12, 2009

April 14, 2009 -- added audio of a Teleclass featuring Kate Lawrence on April 13, 2009 (only the portion with Kate)

March 28, 2009 -- added Did You Really Mean What I Thought You Meant? (Kate's blog)

March 10, 2009 -- added Advertising and Materialism

February 27, 2009 -- added The Demise of the Rocky Mountain News (Kate's blog)

February 9, 2009 -- added All You Need is Love -- Not! in Kate's blog

January 26, 2009 -- added The Politics of Peak Oil; and Have You Heard About Transition Towns? in Kate's blog

January 12, 2009 -- added What to do about Gaza?

January 5, 2009 -- added The Practical Peacemaker by Kate Lawrence

November 29, 2008 -- added Dear President-elect Obama

November 20, 2008 -- added The "Hirsch Memo"

November 12, 2008 -- added The Spiritual Dimension of the Economic Crisis

October 27, 2008 -- added Superinsulation Results, some data on how our superinsulation project is going

October 22, 2008 -- added Discussion Questions for The Great Work

September 2, 2008 -- added Discussion Questions for Reinventing Collapse

August 21, 2008 -- added Boobs, Not Bombs?, a comment on Rory Freedman's article on going naked in animal rights demonstrations

June 26, 2008 -- added A Global Marshall Plan?, a discussion of the Network of Spiritual Progressives' proposal

May 26, 2008 -- added The Memory of Violence, a half-review of Chris Hedges' book War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and Memorial Day reflection on the effects of the perception of violence

April 28, 2008 -- added a review of Barrie Wilson's book, How Jesus Became Christian

 

Compassion Encircles the Earth For All Beings Everywhere.

About this site 

The chief spiritual focus of this web site is Christianity, but Buddhism and other religions are touched on as well.  My hope is to bring together people who are interested in a variety of issues related to urgently needed social and cultural reforms.  

I'm concerned about . . .

Simple Living and Nonviolence
Vegetarianism / Veganism
Jesus and the Ebionites
Social and political implications of environmental destruction and resource depletion

You can --

Read articles on these subjects, including bibliographies of literature not usually referenced on the web (or elsewhere) 
Find out about (and order, if you wish) books by Keith Akers and others on these subjects
Find links to other web sites of interest
Contact Keith Akers

Simple Living and Nonviolence -- why are we interested?

Because we live in a materialistic culture which emphasizes consumption
Because this consumption is rapidly destroying the environment which supports life 
Because our culture makes it difficult to live simply -- because simple living is so "complex"
Because environmental destruction and resource depletion will become a major social issue within the next few decades
Because the twentieth century had more violence between humans than any other century in history 
Because we face a highly divided, heavily armed world with increasingly contentious environmental issues coming to the forefront

Vegetarianism / Veganism -- why are we concerned?

Because a vegetarian or vegan diet is much healthier; vegetarians and especially vegans have dramatically reduced risk for heart disease, cancer and other degenerative diseases -- diseases which have led to medical expenses which are spiraling out of control in the U. S. A.
Because a vegetarian, and especially a vegan diet, requires only a fraction of land resources such as soil, water, forests, and energy, which are now being devastated by the world's meat-eating habits 
Because nine billion animals are needlessly killed each year in the U. S. A. alone
Because these animals, killed for food, do not live easy lives, often cooped up in "factory farms," nor do they die easy deaths

Jesus and the Ebionites -- why are we interested?

Because Jesus preached a message of simple living and nonviolence, a message which the world needs, and which the "Christian" countries which are responsible for most of the cars, consumerism, meat-eating, fossil fuel usage, and environmental devastation in the world need especially urgently  
Because too much of Christianity is silent about, or actually rejects, Jesus' message of simple living and nonviolence
Because the message of simple living and nonviolence was preserved best by those early Christians who were Jewish -- the "Ebionites," or "the poor," who practiced simple living, pacifism, and vegetarianism
Because disillusionment with Christianity is increasing by leaps and bounds

Social and political implications of environmental destruction -- why are we interested?

Because we need a U-turn in environmental policy, including difficult-to-implement and fundamental social changes, which need to happen at the individual, local, national, and international levels 
Because we are within 5 years of the peak of world oil production, if we have not already passed it, and our leaders and most of the public are completely oblivious to the catastrophic economic consequences this will have
Because we are now experiencing the greatest mass extinction of plant and animal species since the mass extinction of the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago, this time due to human activity
Because deforestation, soil erosion, habitat destruction, pollution, global warming are ripping apart the ecosystem, and this cannot fail to affect human beings at some point 

-- Keith Akers

Most Popular Items in Recent Weeks

The Early Christian Attitude To War, by C. John Cadoux.  The early Christians were almost universally pacifists.  Wow, someone's been looking at this a lot!
Selected biblical passages of interest to vegetarians -- A quick list of bible citations of interest on vegetarianism 
Was Jesus a Vegetarian? -- A survey of the main issues surrounding this problem
Are the "Chronicles of Narnia" Christian? -- C. S. Lewis' fantasy series for children
The McDonald's Lawsuit: What's the Story?
A divisive controversy within vegetarianism -- what's at stake? 
Truth-Force and Vegetarianism -- Gandhi’s views require us to speak up about vegetarianism
Is Honey Vegan? -- A lot of people didn't like Dr. Michael Greger's celebrated article "Why Honey is Vegan" in Satya -- but they might want to read the article first
Review of "The High Price of Materialism"
More evidence that consumerism does not help consumers
Jesus and the Moneychangers, by J. R. Hyland -- It wasn't about the moneychangers, it was about animal sacrifice
Was the Last Supper Vegetarian?
The main issue is Jesus' attitude towards the temple 

 

 

Site updated June 5, 2009

All content of this web site is copyright 2001 - 2009 by Keith Akers or the authors of the individual articles, pictures, or other media (unless in the public domain)