Global Catastrophes and Trends by Vaclav Smil

Author:Vaclav Smil
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The MIT Press

Fig. 3.21

Cocaine and marijuana use among U.S. users aged 18-25, 1990-2004. From White House (2006).

Nader (2003) included displays of gluttony among his four signs of societal decay, together with electoral gerrymandering, ubiquitous corporate crime, and corporate excess. The flaunting of possessions has become a new norm, exemplified by the size of new homes and vehicles. By 2005 the national average size of new houses reached 220 m2 (12% larger than a tennis court and 12% above the 1995 mean). The average for custom-built houses rose to 450 m2, houses in excess of 600 m2 were not uncommon, and the mega-structures of billionaires claimed as much as 3000 m2 or even more than 4000 m2 (Gates’s house cluster measures to 4320 m2). The sizes of the largest vehicles used as passenger cars climbed past 2 and 3 tonnes to the most massive brands, weighing nearly 4.7 t (Hummer H1) and almost 6.6 t (CXT, designed to be just 1 pound lighter than the weight requiring a trucking license).

These displays of private excess have been accompanied by spreading public squalor (abandoned housing, derelict areas of former manufacturing compounds) and the unraveling of essential social supports, including one that people actually paid for, their pension plans. Many corporations (led by airlines, car parts companies, and steel companies) have defaulted on their pension responsibilities, transferring them to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, whose deficit reached about $23 billion by 2005.

One does not have to watch inane TV shows or read supermarket tabloids in order to feel that public mores and tastes are driven toward the lowest common denominator. This process entails a pathetically emotive Oprah-ization of America, an eager discarding of privacy, proudly vulgar displays of immature behavior, an endless obsession with celebrities (and a mass yearning to become one of them, fueled by so-called “reality” shows), rampant legalized gambling, and frenzied purchases of lottery tickets.

All of these symptoms have been discussed at length in vibrant and cacophonous electronic and printed media; scathing self-examination and self-criticism show no signs of decline (God bless America!). But this will make no difference as long as there is no commitment among the policy-making elites to address at least some of these matters in a practical, effective fashion, and as long as that commitment is not combined with a mature willingness among the country’s population to live at least closer to (if not entirely within) their means, to curb the worst excesses, and to think and act as if the coming generations mattered. Regrettably, the latter possibility is even less likely than the first proposition, and both could become real (perhaps) only if the country were thrown into a truly deep financial and existential crisis. But by that time it might be too late for the United States to regain its great power status. It is very clear that it is living on borrowed time and yet has no imminent intentions to do otherwise.

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