December 2012
Joseph’s nightmare.
Suppose that the Pharaoh, after Joseph had explained those two dreams, had shaken his head and said” “sorry prisoner, you are telling me this just to get out of jail. I don’t believe a word of it.”
Of course we know the real story. The Pharaoh did follow Joseph’s advice and implemented a sound strategy: after seven years of abundance he was ready for seven years of constant crop failures. But Joseph’ long prison stay still haunted him: in his sleep frightful scenes still caused sudden nightmares… What if….
2013 is looming. What can we expect in the years to come?
We now have had not seven years but seven decades of progress. Every year since 1942, when the USA geared up for war, we grew more prosperous and became richer. Did we follow Joseph’s counsel and prepared for possible lean years? Only Paul Martin, the once Liberal minister of finance, a devout Roman Catholic and good friend of Gerald Vandezande had the guts to stop Ottawa’s deficits when times were good, as did Bill Clinton, whose surpluses were promptly revoked by the religious wrong under Bush junior.
Seventy years spans three generations, in which we all have grown accustomed to ever better conditions. We’ve forgotten how to live within our means, both financially and environmentally, as continuous growth made borrowing easy while cheap fuel gave each of us one hundred energy slaves 24/7.
Now the times they are a’changing. Don’t call me a pessimist. Do you really believe that, from now on, all seven billion of us will never use a car when we can walk or bike and do whatever necessary to save God’s creation? Do you really believe the oil rich Middle East will suddenly grow peaceful? Do you really believe that China, India, America, Europe become devoted climate lovers? Of course not. So what will happen?
It is clear that the majority of the world’s economies are no longer growing because we live in an increasingly resource-limited world. The world’s most important raw materials – oil, gas, wood, groundwater, fish etc. – are gone, severely reduced or seriously polluted. Food? Joseph’s nightmare comes to mind, because this time there is no seven year reserve. Lester Brown of World Watch,, in his new book, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity, convincingly argues that the greatest threat we face is food scarcity — and at 123 pages, the book is packed full of data and analysis to support this. We not only have a growing world population, but also Climate Change, which, with prolonged droughts and super storms and who knows what else, will reduce yields.
Welcome to a new world. After seven decades of unparalleled prosperity we must prepare for leaner times.
Blame it in Obama. Franklin Graham, Billy’s oldest boy, said on CNN that there will be an economic collapse as punishment for the US re-electing Obama. He is right about hard times, wrong about Obama. Fact is that Joseph’s nightmare will come true. We simply have gone to sleep, have been mesmerized by our addiction to cheap fuel and money. In the hearts of hearts you know that this is true. We – my generation, my kids – have creamed it all off. There’s little left for those born after 1990.
The North American standard of living has been propped up since 1942 by imbalances that gave us, the six percent, a quarter of the world’s energy resources and a third of its raw materials and industrial products. That’s going to change. The economic troubles that have been ongoing since 2008 are the foreshocks of that seismic shift, which will see most incomes drop. We are at the limits to growth, now. We are moving into a deepening global deflationary depression, interspersed with dangerous and possibly irreversible shocks to the systems that support our basic welfare. We will lose much of what we take for granted. Prepare for real danger and unpredictability in the years to come.
Climate change is our crowning craziness, accelerating the arrival of the peak of global oil and food production. The good news is the coming of the Kingdom that’s why I am an optimist.
All these happenings are preludes to Christ’s return. We must acknowledge such a view as true and prepare for profound change. We must embrace a degree of self-sufficiency, simply because our life-style now does irreparable damage to God’s creation. We must not only begin working on our food security, but also mentally start to prepare ourselves for these changes in 2013.
Will this happen? I remember Dr. Hendrik van Riessen at a Unionville conference in the early 1960’s say that the more urgent the need for change the less capable we are: he foresaw Joseph’s nightmare.
Bert Hielema is busy translating Dr. Johan Herman Bavinck’s “De Mensch en zijn Wereld.” My tentative new title is “We and our World.” See also my blog: www.hielema.ca/blog