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Global Economy Class

Nicholas Kitchen (080825)

We all dislike the experience of being crowded in the Economy section of an airplane. We all dislike being told what we are to bring and what we are not to bring.

But perhaps it is relevant when we think of the sustainability of life on Earth to consider whether the restrictions of riding on that airplane are so different than what we should be feeling in our behavior to the planet we live on.

The airplane MUST be self-sustaining while in flight, consuming its fuel at a predictable rate. And our crowding mainly results from how many people MUST buy tickets in order to pay for every part of the structure that puts the plane up in the air. To have more privilege you must pay a predictably higher price. Lets think for a moment of the earth as a closed system like the plane. Perhaps we must find mechanisms to ensure proper coordination in making the ship functional. Perhaps we are NOT going to like it at all.

What if we fail? Evolution is the process by which what can remain does. Many species become organisms that can not remain, and then they are gone, such as our grand dinosaurs. We may go that way, and our planet may become a different one. Certinaly some things will remain, but very likely not us.