No Easy Answers

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Original Article: No Easy Answers

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More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness; the other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly – Woody Allen

An excerpt from Tim Watkins’ book: The Consciousness of Sheep

Here’s a predicament for you:

Imagine you are one of the sailors on one of those old wooden sailing ships. Due to some poor navigation, your ship has struck some rocks and has a hole at the waterline. Water is coming in, and unless you can stem the flow, the ship will sink. However, the only way that you can get the spare timber that you need is to break up the lifeboats.

You could launch the lifeboats, but there are only enough places for half of you. Without the timber from the lifeboats, the ship will sink. So if you decide to launch, you are guaranteeing that half of you will die. On the other hand, you could break up the lifeboats and use the timber to try to stem the flow of water coming into the ship. If successful, this will save the ship and allow you all to reach dry land. But there is every chance that the timber from the lifeboats will not stem the flow of water and the ship will sink anyway. If this happens, you will all die.

You need to make a decision… and you need to make it fast! The longer you delay, the more water enters the hull, increasing the likelihood that the ship will sink. So what are you going to do?

There is no correct answer. That is why it is referred to as a predicament rather than a problem. One course of action – trying to save the ship – offers the possibility of salvation, but carries the risk of complete extinction. The other course of action – launching the lifeboats – guarantees that half of you will survive, but condemns the other half to a watery grave.

From an individual perspective, the choice you take will be determined by how likely you believe you will be to get a place on a lifeboat. If you believe your chances are high, you will choose to launch the lifeboats. If you believe your chances are low, you will choose to repair the ship. But suppose you are the Captain of the ship who, traditionally, is expected to go down with the ship anyway. Even if the lifeboats are launched, you will be staying on the ship. So your only chance of survival is to break up the lifeboats and try to repair the ship… even though this course of action could result in the deaths of everybody on board – including yourself.

A cowardly Captain – acting out of self-interest – will choose to try to repair the ship, as this is the only way that he can survive. But a heroic Captain could be expected to act in the public interest or for the greater good. Such a Captain may well sacrifice some lives in order to guarantee the lives of those who are given places on the lifeboats. But even a heroic Captain’s judgement will be clouded by self-interest and the growing sense of panic that accompanies a looming catastrophe. Such a Captain may well overstate the odds of successfully repairing the ship in order to justify breaking up the lifeboats.

Humanity is faced with a similar – albeit more complex – predicament today. We face a climate change time bomb that could result in our extinction in the future unless radical action is taken now. However, we face an energy crisis within the next decade unless we can supplement our dwindling supply of cheap fossil fuels. And...