Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

THIS WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

January 11 2015

End Times? CNN thinks so.

If the end of the world arrives, chances are you aren’t going to be watching CNN. But just in case you are, the cable news network has a video ready for the Big Sign-off. That’s according to blogger Michael Ballaban who posted the purported footage online.

The clip isn’t much, really – just low-resolution footage of a US Army band playing a mournful rendition of Nearer My God to Thee, which takes a little over a minute. The tune says it all: the same tune that serenaded the doomed passengers of the sinking Titanic would usher the world’s population into the Great Hereafter. The tune then fade, presumably, to the rapture, apocalypse, giant comet impact or whatever coup de grace fate has in store for our little blue marble. So far the comment.

False Beliefs

Of course no mention is made of the Lord’s Return, which, for the majority of Americans has no meaning, as Rapture has conquered the church, and so misled practically all of North American Christianity. In that sense it has been Satan’s greatest ally by allowing him a free hand in destroying the earth, God’s so precious possession. Is a greater distortion of the Truth imaginable?

Just as Rapture- with its Latin root ‘rapio’ from which we have the word ‘rape’ – is a false belief, so is the concept of ‘Infinite Growth’. With elections coming up in Canada this year, and in the USA next year, and with both countries struggling economically, the theme of Economic Growth will be front and center. Growth will be pursued whether it makes sense or not, and it doesn’t make sense. If we manage to generate growth, something which will benefit us in the short run, today or next week, perhaps, but which will mortally harm us in a few months or a year, then that benefit will soon become a liability.

This came home to me when I ordered a sofa bed. I had seen one in the nearest city some 45 km away, but it needed to be delivered at a cost of nearly as high as the bed itself. So it was not a bargain. Now after Christmas, and that same merchant eager to show ‘growth’ at all cost, he offered free delivery, which, I calculated, would cost the firm more than all possible profit. Makes no sense, but for me it was a good deal.

The same is true of the current gasoline war. Economists keep on telling us that it is money in our pocket. True. But the cost to society at large is immense: all investment portfolios are based on $100+ per barrel of oil. Its collapse means less future pensions, higher government shortfalls, which translates into higher future taxes. It already has caused stock markets to plunge and unemployment to soar very quickly, which again means more pressure on Federal and Provincial finances, squeezing the poor even more.

And then there is Europe

Politicians are queer animals. Actually they are worse than that. Animals have the common sense to make provisions for hard times, or in the winter go to areas where food is more abundant. Bears hibernate. So do frogs and snakes. If we were smart, we would make provisions for what is called ‘the rainy day’, when life is less abundant. Politicians are also a cowardly bunch. The only time they speak the truth is when they inadvertently misspeak. Instead of governing, which means leading the way, they follow the lowest common denominator of public opinion, which usually represents yesterday’s outdated desires. We are today in a different world, where we all thrive or fall together, thanks to the connectedness that the computer has made possible. The computer and its now indispensable offspring, the Internet, is so vulnerable that every day we live by the grace of God. The word says it all: Inter-Net, which means it connects everything with everybody. Yet it is so insecure that it poses the same threat or worse than a nuclear war which gave us the acronym MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction.

Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, portrays a global society of total control in which people are not allowed to have thoughts that in any way disagree with the corporate state. There is no personal freedom, and advanced technology has become the driving force behind a surveillance-driven society. Snitches and cameras are everywhere. And people are subject to the Thought Police, who deal with anyone guilty of thought crimes. The government, or “Party,” is headed by Big Brother, who appears on posters everywhere with the words: “Big Brother is watching you.”

Make no mistake: the Internet of Things is just Big Brother in a more appealing disguise. It is evolving at an alarming rate, and the Internet and its multiple offspring, called Apps, are coming to a dwelling near you, even in your very room. You will see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You will feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Is that what the Bible calls: 666? Now with turmoil everywhere all this surveying will only accelerate.

Back to Europe, the so-called Old World, with its beautiful churches, castles, museums, glorious music. It had a dream: no more wars, of which the 20^th century saw two utterly devastating examples. It had magnificent ideas of universal health care, worry-free senior years, liberal unemployment benefits: everything to make life as close to perfect as humanly possible. It all cost money, of course, but infinite growth would be with us forever. It reminds me of Africa. We – my wife and I – were there when our youngest son worked there for 2 years. One of the Africans told me that it is custom on that continent to share good fortune with all the relatives, reason why nobody ever got rich. Europe had the same idea with the Euro, counting on all nations to be honest. Greece cheated, and for a while, as long as growth was there, matters ran smooth. Now the entire Euro concept is threatened, with fatal consequences for the global monetary system. The modern world has been built on the concept of growth, a fatal misconception. Now that growth has stalled, we have no plan B. Actually it is worse than that. Because the past 10, 20 or even 40 years have not actually delivered any growth, once you look beyond the propaganda. All we did was accumulate more debt.

In a nutshell, the past four decades have given us added layers of gadgets at the price of unaffordable education and ever more expensive health care.  We have no idea what to do without growth. There is no economics class that teaches “How to live in a No-Growth Society”, and we don’t have the brains to come up with an answer. Yet, a No-Growth world is on the way, for the simple reason that perpetual growth is impossible. It’s on the way, basically it is here already, and that means that we will see unimaginable damage, mayhem and bloodshed. The world-wide mayhem, with youth unemployment escalating, are just the initial rumblings. Fanatic religious expressions is another.

A Radical Change is needed.

A radical change is needed. No more growth, because growth kills. And what is it we want to grow into? Why incessant growth? Like Cancer? Once we have food, clothing and shelter, what else do we need? Will a bigger TV set make us happier? Or a larger house? Why more growth, when we know that it means more pollution, faster Climate Change?  I’ve never seen that properly defined. Isn’t it true that if we don’t know the answer to that question, we are by definition blindly chasing a mirage? If we don’t know where we’re going, or why we’re going there, why go at all? It all boils down to us.

We can’t be part of the solution if our lifestyle is part of the problem. Our present situation where we have 24/7/365 an equivalent of 200 slaves at our disposal, can no longer be maintained:  it really is as simple as that.

That is the main reason of the increasing turmoil we encounter everywhere and in everything. It’s not only terrorism, it’s not only the drop in oil prices, it’s not only the weirding of the weather, it’s not the erratic job market: it’s simply the end of a state that is not sustainable.

The BBC and also the CBC had an interview with a scientist from London of which the key message was that keeping global temperature rise within 2C means leaving in the ground 80% of known coal reserves, 50% of gas and 30% of oil. The University College London authors invited investors to ponder whether $670bn, the amount they say was spent last year on seeking and developing fossil fuels, was a wise use of money if we can’t burn all the fuel we’ve already found.

How then shall we live?

The Pope does not pass the buck. I can see him assassinated because of his stance on Climate Change. Headlines warn us. He’s throwing down the gauntlet. Forget “Prince of Peace.” It’s 2015. Pope Francis is igniting WWIII. He knows capitalism is already at war everywhere, destroying the planet’s environment. So he is taking command, launching a counter-offensive, demanding action, leading his army of 1.2 billion worldwide, inspiring environmental activists everywhere.

This is Christianity versus the World. It’s 2015 and Pope Francis launched a full-on, major assault on capitalism, like D-Day, a major battle, a counter-attack promising to dominate global headlines for the year, as opponents scramble, regrouping to repel his war on climate-denying capitalists.

The thunder is already roaring: “Pope Francis declares war on climate deniers” reads a New Republic headline. And the Guardian headline throws jet fuel on the flames: “Pope Francis’s edict on climate change will anger deniers and U.S. churches.”

Anger? No, he’s provoking, infuriating, enraging! Because this “radical, anti-capitalist revolutionary’ Pope is a huge threat to everything capitalists stand for, a clear and present danger to the ideology driven Big Oil, Koch Bros, conservative billionaires, and all GOP senators and governors already on record as climate-science deniers, opposed to all taxes and regulation of their profits and toxic carbon emissions.

The Pope has become Public Enemy Number One and the Billionaire benefactors of Infinite Growth and Pipeline promoters and Tar Sand exploiters, will try to thwart his appearance on the United Nations, perhaps even try to sabotage his plane or cause some other seeming accident. When I agitate against environmental destruction, so what? I am a nobody. When the Head of the Vatican State, the Prince of the church, the Holy Father, thunders from the world podium that Global Warming is SIN, then this is a different story.

TIME magazine in 2014 chose the Ebola Fighters as the People of the Year. So early in the New Year, the 2015 Person of the Year has already made his debut. No other person in the more than 11 months to go will top what Pope Francis has already accomplished.

Of course for the majority of the people nothing will change. If Jesus Himself would come down from heaven and say the same thing, nothing would change either, because we can’t change anymore. That is the sorry state we are in.

THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE MANY UNKNOWNS

2015: what is in store?

January 4 2015

This is my first column of the New Year. May it be a healthy year for you all, a year that, without doubt, will bring us closer to the Grand Denouement, the Day when all will be revealed, which is the true meaning of the word Apocalypse.

In 2015 expect the worst, hope for the best, and be surprised. I was one year old when, in October 1929, the Great Depression started. For some reason – and I cannot pinpoint why –somehow the year 2015 reminds me of 1929, and the beginning of something for which no word has yet been invented, which perhaps indicates a condition infinitely worse than what some have called “The Ten Lost Years” referring to 1929-39, when only the unleashing of World War II ended that decade of economic malaise.

In this year I hope to continue writing weekly comments on current events from my perch in Tweed, Ontario Canada, where my wife and I live on 50 acres- 20 hectares – of mostly rock and trees. There, in 1975 I constructed a 2 storey dwelling, passive solar, well insulated, built into a small hill.

Over the forty years I developed a 2000 square feet – about 200 sq. m. – vegetable garden, and planted a few apple trees. I also have a sugar bush where I tap maple trees in the late winter- early spring, boiling down 35 liters of sap to obtain one liter of syrup, a labor intensive job, but the results are sweet. In a good year I get about 8 liters.

We live about 5 km – 3 miles – from the village where we shop for stuff we can’t grow or make ourselves. We heat with wood, and have a few solar panels, but are still connected to the grid.

I will continue to insert into my columns the odd bible text where it suits the message. I am a great believer in what I call ‘a biblical perspective’. I don’t know any other news source that ‘religiously’ does this on a weekly basis.

By the way, I am becoming a great admirer of Pope Francis, who is one person who does honor to Christianity. Laudate Dominum, Praise the Lord. Often Christianity separates grace from nature, in that sense it resembles the secular press which sees most news from an a- religious perspective, and thus misses the real story. The real story is that we are all part of God’s plan with the world, a plan that rushes all the way from Adam to that overwhelming finish when the reign of the Antichrist will be destroyed by the coming again of the Son of Man. All the news fits into that framework: the year 2015 will develop the way God wants it to go, even by allowing Satan to continue to create havoc for a while, which really means that we will speed to the End faster than ever.

It also will be a year where we will continue to read much misinformation in the newspapers and do the same on TV, because it is in the interest of the Corporate World to feed us with erroneous messages, all meant to prolong as much as possible the fake economy in which we all participate whether we like it or not, a state of affairs that is based on the fallacy of perpetual Economic Growth, and on the concept that we can pump poisonous gases into the air we breathe without fatal consequences.

I, as a teenager, lived through the war 1940-45 in German-occupied The Netherlands. Then too newspapers were printed and radio broadcasts were aired, but they all were totally censored to reflect the aims of the Nazi regime. For real news we, on peril of imprisoning, listened to the BBC. These broadcasts from London were heavily interfered with so that through all the static it was sometimes impossible to listen to the Dutch version coming from Lomdon. Yet they were a tonic to us. The sign-off slogan every day was:

Hoe moeilijk de dag, how zwaar ook de tijding, we zijn weer een dag dichter bij de bevrijding, which means

However difficult the day, however perilous the situation,

we are again a day closer to the liberation.

That liberation came on April 10 1945, exactly one month short of 5 years, as the Netherlands was invaded on May 10 1940.

The occupation bred the underground press. Many risked their lives in highly courageous ways to get news out to people, putting out newspapers, or mostly simple sheets so there would be a version of events out there that was real, and not just what the Germans wanted us to believe. The courage of these people is hard to gauge for us today, and I’m convinced there’s no way to say who amongst us today would show that kind of bravery if we were put to the test; I certainly wouldn’t be sure about myself.

There is something like that going on today. During the war all the so-called legitimate news was totally slanted to favor the Germans and their vassals, of which there were a few also among the Dutch people. Before the war the NSB, the political party favoring Germany, pulled something like 4 percent of the voters, a not inconsiderable number. Today the opposite is true: a vast majority of people favor the capitalistic structure, even the Socialists. A very tiny portion – perhaps less than 1 percent – tries to live more organically. No wonder the Press is 100 percent in the power of the Corporate World. These days, the media can make people believe just about anything, and they have the added benefit that they can pose as friends of the people, not the enemy.

In my own little way I will try to do what the ‘illegal’ press did more than 70 years ago in occupied Europe.

Let me begin to say that we have become very vulnerable. We increasingly, I should say, we totally, as a society depend on the Internet to do business. You and I can live without it, if we so desire. I know of very people who are not ‘wired’ but they are a tiny minority. But society at large cannot.

The network has become the nervous system of the planet. This is why it now makes no more sense to argue about whether the internet is good or bad than to debate whether oxygen or water are desirable. We’ve got it and we’re stuck with it. While offline crime has decreased dramatically – car-related theft has reduced by 79% since 1995 and burglary by 67%, for example – serious crime has now moved online, where its scale is staggering, even if the official statistics do not count it. I know because a few times my credit cards were compromised and also my line of credit affected – both totally compensated by the bank.

The same goes for industrial espionage (at which the Chinese are currently the world champions) and counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. Cyber-warfare is already in full swing, the latest being waged between North Korea and the USA.  Beware: the internet is dangerous, untrustworthy and far from being private. E-mail never disappears, can easily be checked, and can lead to all sorts of unintended consequences. Actually if the entire total www computer network were to cease to function, it would mean the collapse of society, not at all a remote possibility,

This time it is different

2015 might be much worse than 1929 when there were a mere 2 billion people on the earth, Climate Change an unheard-of phenomenon, and almost all people had a rural connection, assuring a guaranteed food supply. When computers fail, in three days we all starve to death.

It’s not the first time that I have been wrong. For as long as I can remember I have warned people to prepare for the day when we run out of oil when the demand for oil exceeds its supply, which would result in economic stagnation. Well, I was wrong, and so were most investors, oil companies, and banks. They all followed the same reasoning and acted in the sure conviction that the oil price would forever range in the $100 per barrel. On that assumption companies invested billions in Arctic oil exploration, in deep sea and fracking adventures, in oil-sand expansion, not realizing that all these ventures would require billions of dollars and a lot of extra oil, as all the easy stuff had already been exploited, the so-called low-hanging fruit.

There is only so much that people can afford. A friend of mine, working for a large company complained to me that he hasn’t had a raise in 10 years. His lament is not an isolated one. That also means that his spending power has decreased, as the cost of living in that decade has increased by at least 25 percent. In order to enjoy the same standard of living, people have borrowed, so debt has skyrocketed. With income down, spending too is down, and the demand for oil has decreased while the supply has skyrocketed. So we see the law of economics still work: more supply, less demand, means lower prices.

Lower prices for oil mean trouble.

When prices for oil are low no one invests in exploration or drilling or production, or probably even maintenance for years. Chances are that when an economic recovery happens, perhaps a year or two down the line, with oil suddenly in demand, but supply lagging, Peak Oil may then become a reality. Whatever happens, life is going to change.

It looks very much that the global economy is unraveling, that unemployment, underemployment, and fear will combine to reduce consumption. We are in for deflation just like the 1930s, but now a world-wide event.

When – and it looks much more a ‘when’ than an ‘if’ – the world economy deflates, fixed asset values will decline. Real estate is especially vulnerable. Canada has seen the highest house prices ever. Where in the USA real estate values are, generally still well below their peak, in Canada they have steadily risen. Now stagnant incomes, increasing unemployment, and credit card debt guarantee consumers will prioritize spending decisions based on urgent need: food, fuel, and then rent (or mortgage payments).  This last Christmas binge could be the last.  In periods of declining economic activity, rental property owners (houses, apartment buildings, supermarkets and so on) face potential bankruptcy because of higher vacancy rates.  It will also become increasingly difficult for rents to keep up with maintenance costs.

One key indicator of deflation that seems to be even more worrisome to investors, however, is global commodity prices and what commodity price weakness suggests for demand. Copper fell over 12% in 2014, largely due to slumping demand in China and other industrial economies. Natural gas prices have fallen more than 12% this year. And oil prices have fallen by over 40% due to a glut of new supply and weak demand growth in many developing economies. The International Energy Agency has cut its estimates for demand for crude five times in the past six months, The Wall Street Journal reports.

2015: what is in store?

Just as last year, don’t expect a raise. If indeed, deflation appears, that in itself means a raise, as goods are cheaper. We see it already in the fuel situation, which, although it has a positive angle, will lead to future problems. Cheaper oil will lead to more GHG – Green House Gases – and more unpredictable weather, more insurance claims, higher premiums, and, eventually, higher food costs.

Don’t for a minute believe that we, as a society, will do anything to reduce the effects of Climate Change. However desirable it may be to protect the Earth from the dire consequences of a runaway climate the chances that the world will agree to cut its emissions quickly enough to stay below the 2C threshold are somewhere between zip, zilch and zero.

THIS WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

December 21 2014.

“The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” (Jeremiah 8:20)

Another year is almost behind us: Time to tally the toll for 2014, this time looking at movies and books. Are they harbingers of what is to come?

It has become plain that nothing has improved in the past year. On the contrary. What has become increasingly obvious is that the entire world is racing toward its end, and people, especially those in the entertainment industry, are started to realize this and warning people to prepare. It reminds me of another Bible passage at the start of the Mark Gospel where John the Baptizer calls himself: “A voice crying in the Wilderness, preparing the Way of the Lord.” I feel a kinship with that solitary figure.

What is it that is evident to Hollywood and the literary scene but fails to register with business and politics? Has Hollywood, the film industry, whose wicked people bring us nothing else but violence and murder and fornication, a message for us that by and large churches fail to bring? Yes, when it comes to the steady unraveling of essential earth systems — ocean health collapsing, biodiversity plummeting and, of course, the fraying of the atmosphere’s stability — much of the political establishment continues to ignore this, but Hollywood capitalizes on these disasters. Politicians find no votes in doom and gloom. False optimism is the politicians’ mantra. How wrong they are, but then looking ahead and ‘govern’ has never been the politicians’ strong point.

Filmmakers are sending out an unambiguous S O S: We’re doomed. We are doomed, but….. we can fix the problem somehow. For some people that is, and actually, they are right for the wrong reason. It reminds me of a saying of Jesus when he said (Matthew 3:9) that God could raise children of Abraham out of stones, so he certainly he can use films by godless people to proclaim the truth, or a version thereof. End-of-the-world scenarios appear so regularly in books and films now that they have their own mini-genre — cli-fi: climate – fiction. By and large cli-fi films have gotten grimmer. Have I seen any of these? No, except for AVATAR I haven’t seen a movie in years, but I always read the reviews because movies often signal the future.

One example is the writer-director Christopher Nolan’s epic sci-fi adventure, “Interstellar.” With Earth on the brink of collapse as crops wither and oxygen in the atmosphere dwindles, a team of astronauts race to distant galaxies in search of a new planet for the human race. Earth’s last survivors won’t starve, we are told. Lack of oxygen will do them in. Still, “It’s a perfect planet,” one of the astronauts says in “Interstellar,” referring to spaceship Earth. “We’re not going to find another one like it.”

In this day of global warming – the year 2014 will go down as the warmest ever – cli-fi made an early splash with “Waterworld.” There Kevin Costner in 1995 had already a vision of a future where the polar icecaps have melted and Earth is almost entirely submerged. Another example is “The Day After Tomorrow,” where also a climate disaster is unfolding. While that movie had its fair share of Hollywood hollowness (there was a wolf pack chase through Midtown Manhattan), the film at least made an attempt to detail the basic science of man-made climate change. The protagonist, Dennis Quaid, was a climatologist.

I also read about “Elysium,” in which Matt Damon fights to get off a dusty, overcrowded Earth and makes it to an Arcadian space station. Pixar’s “Wall-E” had a similar scenario, apparently. In that computer-animated satire, Earth is toast, and what’s left of humanity spends its days slurping supersize drinks and splurge-shopping on a blimp-like spaceship. In “Avatar,” – the movie I did see – the Marines are on the planet Pandora, because we’ve already strip-mined Earth.

According to another review I read, perhaps the best of this bunch is “Snowpiercer,” the Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s fable about social injustice and environmental hubris. Released earlier this year, “Snowpiercer” imagines that civilization — in a botched attempt to reverse the effects of global warming via atmospheric geoengineering — has turned Earth into something like the ice world of Hoth from “Star Wars.” I have no clue who or what Hoth is, but it must feature in Star Wars somehow. There the survivors are stuck on a train that rattles in an endless circle around the planet. The folks in first class get spa treatments and dance parties, while the proletariat in the caboose has to choke down protein bars made of ground-up bugs.

Conservative reviewers like to grumble that such films just spread liberal propaganda. After all, so says ultra-conservative Senator Inhofe, Climate Change is a hoax: perpetrators are like communists such as Obama. But ecological meltdown makes for a reliable sci-fi setting for the same reason Wall Street tycoons are convenient villains — to the average moviegoer, it’s believable.

Let’s face it: serious environmental dislocations are all but inevitable. Many of them are underway. The last line reminds me of placards I have seen at climate marches: “There Is No Planet B.”

Books also have this “Armageddon” theme, including Margaret Atwood’s dark MaddAddam trilogy, Nathaniel Rich’s “Odds Against Tomorrow” and Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” which closes with New Yorkers flocking to the top of a giant sea wall, one of the few spots in the city where you can still glimpse a proper sunset.

Here’s what I read in the New York Times a while ago:

“Emily St. John Mandel doesn’t seem like the paranoid type. Cheerful and preternaturally poised, she spends her free time tending to the flower beds in her rooftop garden in Brooklyn and working on her rudimentary French.

“But last fall, she started fretting about the end of civilization — specifically, whether publishers were growing tired of the dystopian trope. She was shopping around her new novel, “Station Eleven,” which is set in the near future, after a flu pandemic has wiped out most of humanity. Ms. Mandel, who got her start writing crime fiction, worried that the post-apocalyptic wave had peaked.

“When I started writing, there were a few literary post-apocalyptic novels, but not quite the incredible glut that there is now,” Ms. Mandel said in an interview on her terrace. “I was afraid the market might be saturated.”

It wasn’t. A three-day bidding war broke out among a half-dozen publishers. The novel sold to Alfred A. Knopf, which paid a mid-six-figure advance, far more than Ms. Mandel had made on her previous three novels combined. She now feels reassured — if not about the future of the planet, then at least about the shelf life of dystopian fiction.

“It’s a somewhat anxious time, and post-apocalyptic fiction is a way to channel our anxieties,” she said.

Station Eleven,” is part of a cluster of post-apocalyptic novels landing this fall that seem steeped in the anxieties of our era: pandemics, environmental catastrophes, energy shortages, civil unrest. These works blur the line between literary and genre fiction and seem positioned to capture both science-fiction readers and fans of more experimental fare.”

Michel Faber’s “The Book of Strange New Things” unfolds on a distant planet as a Christian missionary seeks to convert its inhabitants, while his pregnant wife, left back on Earth, is shaken by a series of global disasters: extreme weather, famine, widespread power failures.

Howard Jacobson, a Man Booker Prize laureate, surprised critics and readers recently when he abandoned his usual comic motifs and turned out “J,” a dark novel about a broken futuristic society in which everyone has suppressed the memory of a horrific historical catastrophe.

In David Mitchell’s new novel, “The Bone Clocks,” the narrative stretches to the year 2043, as dwindling fossil fuel supplies, shortages of food and medicine and global warming cause governments to collapse.

“It’s in the air, isn’t it?” Mr. Mitchell said of the literary preoccupation with the end of the world. “In a way, how can you be a sane and compassionate human being and not be increasingly alarmed by what’s happening to the planet, when it’s potentially civilization-ending?”

While some literary critics have started to grumble about post-apocalyptic-fiction fatigue, publishers, agents and authors are betting that readers’ appetite for cataclysm is nowhere near sated. Dystopian series like “Divergent” and “The Hunger Games” have sold tens of millions of copies and seem to occupy a permanent place on young adult best-seller lists, while also attracting swarms of adult readers.

And the end-of-the-world scenarios continue to multiply. Edan Lepucki’s recent breakout debut novel, “California,” takes place in the near future, as a young couple flee Los Angeles for the California wilderness to escape food shortages and rising violence as society collapses. Laura van den Berg’s “Find Me,” due out in February, centers on a lonely grocery store clerk who struggles in the aftermath of a deadly mass contagion.

Humanity is even worse off in Benjamin Percy’s forthcoming novel, “The Dead Lands,” a retelling of the Lewis and Clark story set in a futuristic America that’s been destroyed by a super-flu and nuclear fallout.

End of my survey of recent ‘end of the world’ movies and books. Do these writers sense something?

Time to face reality

So with the Gospel of Hollywood out there, and lots of books with an apocalyptic theme, what else is going on?

The oil price collapse, the Russian ruble rout, the stock market extreme volatility all signal one message: The days of plenty are over, the high-energy phase of human life is coming to a close, and we have not yet learned all that we need to know — about ourselves or the world — to adapt to a new era. We better start learning fast, not really a human trait, because our greatest handicap is our politicians and the system in which they operate, predicated on Economic Growth. Any normal person – and fortunately there still are a few left  – who is only faintly aware of what’s happening out there, given the intensifying negative effects of our activity on the water, soil and climate of the planet, must come to the unpleasant conclusion that an ongoing large-scale human presence on the planet is impossible. Put bluntly: what we have conceived as being “the good life” is inconsistent with Life: it has become a way of Death. Sorry to offend you. Pussyfooting the issue is no longer proper.

I take the slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle” seriously. I guess it helped that I grew up during the Depression and War-time Holland. Expect those conditions to re-appear, and worse. What kept us going then was: After the War matters will improve. Now there is not such an outcome.

Time to face reality. And the reality is that there is more to the new life to come than just being frugal and living simply. It takes an entirely new mindset, where agitating against capitalism’s logic of endless growth and the mindless consumption that it generates is not enough. The truth is that our society today is based on a collective denial of limits, a delusion made possible temporarily by the reigning fundamentalist faith of our day, technological fundamentalism — the belief that the increasing use of evermore sophisticated high-energy, advanced technology can solve any problem, including the problems caused by the unintended consequences of such technology. Frankly there is no evidence that any society is ready to engage in the necessary discussions or consider the necessary changes, least of all we in North America.

I have a dear friend who told me that he, at times, suffers from physical and emotional pain because of the State of the Earth. To him apply the words of Jeremiah: “My grief is beyond healing, my heart is sick within me.” (Jeremiah 8:18)

We pray in The Lord’s Prayer: “Your Kingdom Come”, without often realizing that we are asking God to speed up this earth’s demise – something which we are very good at – and bring on The New Creation. It takes more than a song and a prayer to become ready for this. It is THE major challenge that faces us bar none. It starts with grief and ends with confession.

Till next week, the week after Christmas and before New Year.

DECEMBER 14 2014

THIS WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS

Senator Inhofe out of touch

Negotiators from around the globe were haggling this past Saturday in Lima, Peru, over the final elements of a draft Climate Change deal. This COP 20 (Conference of People) would, for the first time in history, commit every nation to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions — yet would still fall far short of what is needed to stave off the dangerous and costly early impacts of global warming.

Years ago, in the year 2,000, I attended such a gathering in The Hague, the Netherlands. That was COP 10, thus in the next 14 years there have been 10 more of these international meetings, each time in a different corner of the world, and each time attended by some 2000 delegates, each producing nothing but more GHG, the gases they are supposed to reduce.

For some poor representatives going to such an international meet is a real treat. I remember at the closing the less well-off delegates grabbed the leftover fancy conference cases for use at home or perhaps to sell them. For most of these people such outings are a once in a life-time experience, where the discussions are really of no importance. The final communique is usually written well in advance. The results speak for themselves: only a total collapse of the economic system will assure that the targets for CO2 reduction will be met, and we are well on the way to see this happen.
Nevertheless all this travelling and these meetings add to the GDP of the world. The overarching aim of each country is to increase economic growth by whatever means. That’s why some countries now include prostitution and illegal gambling into the figure that is posted by the government as an affirmative indication of economic well-being. And why not? We count car accidents also as a positive economic sign, and cancer operations, so, yes, the more economic bads, the higher the Gross Domestic Product, GDP.

Last year I was at an international church meet, discussing Climate Change. There a delegate quoted Oklahoma GOP Sen. James Inhofe, as a good example how a Christian should look at Global Warming.

That same senator wrote a book. Its title says it all: “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.” It reveals everything you need to know about the Republican Party’s position on Climate Change. That is the Bad news portion of this week. Sen. Inhofe will chair the Environment committee in the US Senate starting in January, another frightening prospect. His view is by and large how Christians view creation. The book says that climate science is hogwash. Inhofe trusts divine guidance. He writes: “God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”

With Inhofe in the saddle America will burn in climate hell. He’s vowed to block all regulations aimed at cutting carbon emissions. When Ban Ki-Moon visited Ottawa harping Harper on that subject, his next stop was not Washington, where Inhofe would have refused to see him anyway: nobody is more unable to change his/her mind than those people who know exactly what God wants. Unfortunately they comprise the majority of the earth’s creatures, including all Muslims.

I read another headline: The Madness Gene.

The headline read: “Do humans have a ‘Madness Gene’ that will ensure the end of the planet as we know it?” The original was a rhetorical question pointing to the obvious capitalistic message: All humans are at their core egocentric, myopic capitalists … all are programmed with this built-in “Madness Gene”… all unwittingly driven to self-destruct our own capitalist economy … our civilization … our planet … and even sabotage ourselves. In short, the “Madness Gene” in all humans exposes the planet’s ending.

The history and evolution of this “Madness Gene” is detailed by Elizabeth Kolbert in her new classic, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.”

The negative consequences of our “Madness Gene” mean worldwide mass species extinction. This is already in progress as a result of the unsustainable irrational behavior of us, humans, in our quest for perpetual economic growth in world of limited nonrenewable global resources.

Yes, our “Madness Gene” is having disastrous implications for all seven billion humans on the planet. Look at the way we move around. We all want transportation. Our car is a status symbol. There are a billion autos and trucks in the world. America has 240 million cars; Europe has 200 million; China and India each 80 million. That’s why Big Oil gets over a trillion in annual revenues. You’re going to cut back on driving? No. That’s your madness gene at work!

Christmas coming up. Rich, middle class, poor millions are driven by consumerism. We demand food, electronics, drive the economy, make sure our kids get an education. Consumers want more, goods, money, progress, a better future. The American Dream was built on a capitalist demand that has a built-in self-destruct “Madness Gene.” Yes, we want it all, even if it kills us.

It’s going to happen. Older folks are the fastest growing segment of global population, in Canada, Europe, Japan, America, China, throughout the world. They all want security, protection, entitlements, retirement nest eggs and good medical care. Also all want to cut taxes. And workers want a bigger cut of the capitalist pie.

So the list of people, good people like you and me, all have the “Madness Gene”, where more is never enough, greater wealth, for a better life, now and more tomorrow.

But capitalism is blind, a game of musical chairs, we’re all playing, screaming “me-first! Climate later!” Unfortunately, later is too late. Because after all 50 percent of Americans think that “global warming is a hoax”. Warnings from Inhofe, from GOP presidential candidates, from Big Oil, we will not be enough time to plan ahead … not enough money to reverse the damage of global warming as the planet passes the point of no return … where the impact is irreversible and there’s no more political will to take action.

I was born in a deep Calvinistic family, adhering to “We are born and conceived in sin, and therefore children of Wrath.” Ouch. That hurts. But that really is our “Madness Gene!”

It reminds me of a very peculiar bible story, involving King David, when he was waging war against Israel’s arch enemy, the Philistines. Here’s what the Bible tells us, perhaps relating one of the earlier version of the Madness Gene. I found it in 2 Samuel 23: 15-17, when David was in a fortress, facing the enemy, occupying Bethlehem, his home town. There David was looking down and some memories stirred in him. What sort of memories? Perhaps David’s mind went back some 60 years, when, as a young boy he was waiting his turn at that well. Ahead of him was a young woman. While she was scooping the water her shoulder scarf fell off, revealing a young, full figure, exposing something David – who only had brothers – had never seen before. Did that incident make David call out, as recorded in the Bible?

David said longingly, “O that someone would give me water to drink from the well there by the gate. Then three of his heroes broke through the camp of the Philistines, drew water from the well, and brought it to David. But he would not drink of it; he poured it out to the Lord, for he said, “The Lord forbid that I should do this. Can I drink the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives?” Therefore he would not drink it.”

DECEMBER 7 2014

THIS WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS- DECEMBER 7 2014

OIL IS NOT WELL

A lot happened this past week. There is a glimmering of good news: Oil is not well. Its price has dropped close to 40 percent. That means that ‘fracking’ may suffer. Fracking is the forceful ‘fractioning’ of rock to release the oil there. It is an expensive process that takes a lot of water, a lot of sand and chemicals, and causes a lot of dangerous pollution. Recent reports state that fracking is as poisonous as tobacco and excess alcohol use for people who work in it and the people who live around these wells, and by the latest count that is some 12 million breathing human beings, not counting at least an equal number of animals, also God’s creatures.

This is just another example of the lethal damage we do to our precious planet. It also is an expensive process, just as the Canadian Tar Sand Enterprise where also billions have been invested. All these operations are based on $100 + per barrel oil in perpetuity. Banks have given loans to these operators based on that projection: nobody counted on a 40 percent drop. This means that suddenly the collateral for these loans have also decreased by that same amount.

Oil companies are committing $1.1 trillion over the next decade to projects that require prices above $95 to break even. The Canadian tar sands mostly need $80-$100 to pay for themselves. Arctic and deep water projects require $120, some even $150 oil. The biggest European oil groups (BP, Shell, Total, Statoil and Eni) spent $161 billion on operations and dividends last year, but generated only $121 billion in cash flow, which means that they faced a $40 billion deficit when oil sold for $100 per barrel. Now it trades just over $60. Go figure.

Why is gasoline so cheap now?

There is all sorts of speculation why ‘gas’ is suddenly so much cheaper. Politics? Trying to get at Putin whose country needs expensive oil to continue? Or is it aimed at Iran, which needs $140 oil to keep its population happy?

Actually the reason is quite simple: China is experiencing an industrial malaise. Over the last decade or so China’s economy has been firing on all cylinders to go —- nowhere. Yes, you read it correctly. It built bridges to nowhere, highways to nowhere, entire cities where nobody lives, office towers completely empty. By its own estimate China has built improvements to the tune of close to $7 Trillion that is more than the GDP – the Gross Domestic Product – of France and Great Britain combined. All these empty structures and useless infrastructure boosted the Chinese economy and, in turn, the entire world’s economy. Now the chickens come home to roost: everybody is gearing down, because the second largest economy in the world, after the USA, is in deep trouble.

And the rest of the world?

Not much better. Europe is in deflation. The USA has increased its National debt by some $8 Trillion on the Obama watch, now totally $17 Trillion, or close to $60,000 for every American from 0-100 years. That in addition to other debt, such as mortgages, car loans, credit card balances, which easily adds another $40,000.

Another somber note came from different field altogether. Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain’s pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. He told the BBC: ”The development of full AI- artificial intelligence – could spell the end of the human race.” His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of Artificial Intelligence, which is, of course, programmed in English. It reminds me of the Tower of Babel. There God expressed his misgivings: “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do this is impossible for them.” (Genesis 11: 7). AI already is able to do many of the tasks we human do routinely, and more labor saving possibilities are invented every day. We are in this world to serve each other, not to destroy our own employment and that of our neighbors. Once we are useless, then our reason for existence is gone as well. Already in Southern Europe youth unemployed has reached 50 percent. Idleness is the source of all evil. No wonder suicide rates are growing rapidly.

Ban Ki-Moon came calling

On the eve of another UN sponsored Environmental Conference, this time in South America, another warning, which, given past history, will also go unheeded. In spite of many of such world gatherings, the last 20 years GHG- Green House Gases, carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) – is up 60 percent. Global temperature: up six-tenths of a degree Celsius. Population: up 1.7 billion people. Sea level: up 3 inches or 7.5 cm; U.S. extreme weather: up 30 percent. Ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica: down 4.9 trillion tons of ice. Just like the G20 meeting, these global conferences do perhaps more harm than good.

But we have to try. That’s why Ban Ki-Moon came calling on the Western world’s greatest polluter: Canada. The highest diplomatic official, the head of the United Nations, visited Ottawa ahead of the Lima, Peru conference on Climate Change. I am sure that Stephen Harper did not like Ban Ki- Moon’s harping on Canada’s P.M.’s pet project: The Tar Sand Oil, which makes Canada the world’s villain as the country doing the least to combat Green House Gases. To Harper’s great chagrin, the current low prices of international oil will make much of the Alberta’s oil uneconomical, and will make his balanced budget plans for 2015 impossible.

We all know by now that oil and its products is the main source of Climate Change. All nations are busy reducing their carbon foot prints. Better insulation, solar power, more small cars with much higher mileage all have accomplished that, and also has reduced the need for oil. With China no longer able to afford to build the immense ghost towns, cutting down on oil consumption is a world-wide endeavor.  So, yes, what is at work is the simple law of supply and demand: the world has produced too much of that lethal liquid and now there is a surplus. In order to avoid the worst of Climate Change, the world simply has to leave much of what is called oil reserves in the ground. It is now estimated that under a global climate deal consistent with a two degrees centigrade world, the fossil fuel industry would stand to lose $28 trillion of gross revenues over the next two decades, compared with business as usual. The oil industry alone would face stranded assets of $19 trillion, concentrated in deep water fields, tar sands and shale. Many Canadians have objected to Alberta’s tar sand operations. Well, it could quite well be that in the next few years we will see a drastic reduction here. Watch for dominoes to fall everywhere in banking, in the stock market – your future pension is in danger – in the oil fields and in government revenue, which for a good portion depends on oil royalties. No royalties means either higher taxes for all or cutbacks in social services. Either way it will hurt you and me in our pocket books.

Cheap oil is actually a curse. It promotes increased use of carbon fuels at a time when we should be investing massively in substitutes, but now the apparent plenty of oil and gas takes the spine out of most politicians.

We have entered a new phase in Human History.

There have been several periods in human history, all periods of millions of years where life was determined by natural events:  the ice age comes to mind, one of the shortest of environmental periods. We now have entered the final stage which people have been calling The Anthropocene Age. You may recognize the ‘anthropo’ part, referring to us humans.

Today we humans dominate the earth, hence that label. Here are some basic facts:

1. Somewhere between 40-50 percent of every living or dead organism is dominated by us humans. Scientists call that Primary Productivity, which was nil when the humans roamed the earth as hunter-gatherers, eating renewable fruits and animals on a sustaining basis.
2. Today our domination is evident in the rivers, most of which we have either been diverted or dammed.
3. We use so much fertilizer that we exceed the nitrogen naturally occurring in nature.
4. The fish we catch far exceeds its natural growth, with total depletion slated in a few decades. We use more than 50 percent of the water run-off and are rapidly depleting the world’s aquifers.
5. CO2 has risen by 40 percent – the Green House Gases – while the even more lethal methane has doubled.

Why is this happening? The fact is that markets price all matters wrong. They price oil and gas, for instance, based on current demand and supply, while not calculating the costs to the planet in pollution, global climate change, sea level rise, and more. This is, as Lord Nicholas Stern famously put it, history’s greatest case of market failure. What the world needs is a radical new approach to pricing the products, but, unfortunately business as usual is just too convenient, too easy, and incremental change will not save the planet. The only conclusion is that what cannot last, will not last.

The 40% drop in the price of oil looks like the first domino. All the supposedly safe, low-risk loans and bets placed on oil, made with the supreme confidence that oil would continue to trade in a band around $100/barrel, are now revealed as high-risk.
In the heyday of home mortgage financing – a mere 7 years ago – exotic mortgages were bundled into securities, and sold with the implicit understanding that they were low-risk because the housing market would continue to expand. However, once home prices fell and the collateral collapsed and borrowers started to default, the result was that banks were on the hook for trillions of dollars, and the US government bailed them out, by borrowing trillions.

Now the same is true of oil, except that all borrowing power has disappeared. Just as the belief was that house prices would only go up, so banks today have assumed the oil would never go down, and used that assumption as collateral. Now they have to bite the bullet or go under.

Now that the first domino in the oil sector has fallen a long line of financial dominoes is next in line. Everyone who bought a supposedly low-risk bond, loan or derivative based on oil in the ground is about to discover the low risk was illusory. All those who hedged the risk with a counterparty bet are about to discover that a counterparty failure ten dominoes down the line has destroyed their hedge, and the loss is theirs to absorb.
The next link is jobs. Of all new American jobs since the recession, 93 percent were in the fracking field, all related to the oil and gas industry, which if oil prices stay where they are or fall more, will all vanish just as flared gas disappears into nowhere. However the fall-out in welfare and unemployment payments, reducing deficits even more, will be felt by all. Add to this the losses to investors, the restructurings and bankruptcies more bailouts, and more dominoes are destined to topple.

Don’t for a minute think that these bankers, who take home millions of dollars in bonuses, have a clue what’s going on. They all live by the herd instinct. Every one of them knows the risks, but they all are afraid to be the first to bail out, to be the first one to call the entire financial system a hoax.

When, in Lima, the world’s climate experts will gather, the only result will be more words, words, words. Nothing will change because as long as there still is a dollar to be made from exploiting the earth, this will continue, even though the odds are getting longer and longer.

THIS WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS:  November 30 2014

Away to the USA.

It’s been more than a week away from home. Spent 10 days, including travel, in the U.S. of A., the week of Thanksgiving and the (in)famous Black Friday. I had come with specific instructions to buy dressy black shoes and a new white shirt, both formal because a granddaughter is getting married.

I am one of those who grew up in wartime Holland from 1940-45, which was preceded by 10 years of depression, all of which I lived through and which shaped my outlook on economics. Economics, in my book, has as root the word ‘economy’ which to me conveys being frugal and by that I mean hanging on to my money. Of course I have black shoes already, but, really, no, they could not pass for formal. You see, I resoled them myself, using my staple gun and a bit of shoe goo to fasten new soles and little nails to give them new heels – with a bit of glue as well. The upper heels on both shoes were frayed, so I patched them up with black gorilla tape, as shiny as the shoes themselves with the result that when viewed from eye level they still looked quite respectable. But rather than risk the ire of the mother of the bride, I became a shopper, guided by our youngest daughter who knows her way around Minneapolis-St Paul. So I now have another white shirt, which I will wear perhaps twice, and new shoes which will see a bit more use. I can assure you that I am not like the former first lady of the Philippines who had 1200 pair of shoes. I am amply supplied in running ones: three pairs but can only boast of two pair of normal shoes, a decent pair of brown and these abused black shoes. So, yes, buying another pair was really no luxury.

I love meeting interesting people. In the Toronto airport I walked around and talked for a while with 6 young women from Somalia and Ethiopia. They had been on a trip back home and were on the way back to Minneapolis where some 30,000 of their kin live. All wore pure black, including hijabs. I can recognize people from Somalia, so I picked out those who had come from there and had a delightful time with them, laughing and joking and guessing the age of their small children, fast asleep after travelling from Addis Ababa and Mogadishu. I love African people. Of course they are Muslim. So what. Is Christianity so exclusive that it is the only religion that offers salvation? Is Hinduism also all wrong, and Buddhism? On Sunday morning we attended our daughter’s church, Episcopalian. The rector there was as glaring in white- as were the deacon and two others – as those Muslim women had been in black. I had an uncle in Holland who always wore black: because of his sins, he said. I never asked him what they were.

There’s something about a big city that simply cannot be duplicated in Tweed where the entire municipality has less than 4,000 people. Big cities can offer much. Sunday afternoon we went to a concert in a large new Lutheran church, a beautiful building, with a million dollar pipe organ. A performance by a full symphony orchestra, all volunteers, all professionals, who even pay to be part of this huge musical endeavor. Even though some 500,000 thousand – 15% of its 3 million population – are colored in the Greater Twin City area, the audience was all white, white beards, white hair, perfect middle class ASP, Anglo-Saxon-Protestant. I did not see one different face, either in the 70 performers or in the 700 person men and women there.

I was wondering what is going to happen in the future of music making now that the middle class is under immense pressure. The average wage in the USA is under $20.00 per hour: that is not enough money for the kids to go to music lessons and for their parents to pay for concerts.

Minneapolis St Paul is an immense city bisected by the Mississippi River. I am always amazed at the extent of its urban area. To go to that concert we had to travel 35 km one way, and to buy the shirt and shoes we had to drive 35 km the other way.  The Twin City area is 16,000 square kilometers compared to Toronto of some 7,000 sq. km, with identical populations.

The price of fuel there is now $2.66 for a US gallon, or about 70 cents per liter, adding 12% exchange rate makes it about $0.78 Can. Compare this to the Ontario price of $1.10, which brings me to the topic I really want to write about: money.

Is money the meaning of life?

We live in a society obsessed with money. By and large people are not measured by what they do or say, but by the size of their net worth. Money is the most important rule in today’s society and the acquisition of it is seen as its highest goal. Curiously people often spend it before they have it, and mortgage their future at a rate never experienced before in modern history.

There’s a war going on, a money war. Japan is all out to weaken its currency to make it more competitive. The Canadian dollar too is dropping and so is the Euro, while the US dollar has become much more valuable.

In spite of all its drawbacks, money, as a tool to facilitate the commerce between human beings, was and is, nevertheless, an inspired invention, with tremendous potential for both good and evil. That is why, when first invented, it was administered by the priestly class. Today, more than ever, Money makes the world go round and goes around the world with a velocity equal to the speed of light and in torrents unequaled in history: the daily flood amounts to more than One Trillion Dollars. Because of Money the global economy is like a jet plane, fast, comfortable and when it crashes, its fall is also spectacular.

WWJD? What Would Jesus Do?

When Jesus came to earth, forever to retain the status of both God and Human, he could have been a human being of any description, stature, degree and condition; and yet he chose to be poor. The English poet Christopher Harvey said of him in the seventeenth century:

It was Thy Choice, whilst Thou on Earth didst stay, And hadst not whereupon Thy Head to lay.

No wonder that throughout the Middle Ages Jesus is appearing not just as God, but as a pauper. Curiously the fastest growing Protestant movement in Brazil, the so-called Crentes as the believers are known, preaches the theology of prosperity, which promises material success as well as eternal salvation, a puritan ideology imported from the United States. With such a complete reversal of what Jesus portrayed in his life, we do well to investigate the relationship between Jesus and money a bit closer.

I am convinced that Jesus had some basic misgivings about money – just like we do at times- because we all know that wealth and its acquisition makes people do crazy and often dishonest things. “The love of money is the root of all evils,” is Paul’s warning to Timothy and this probably was one reason why Jesus did not like money. If I understand Jesus correctly I think that with Jesus there also was a deeper reason, something very personal. I get the impression that Jesus went out of his way to avoid contact with money and was even loath to touch the stuff. Why do I make that assumption? Well, Jesus has pure recall of everything, past, present and future and so had perfect insight, hindsight and foresight into everything. His betrayal, his suffering and death was directly associated with money. How would we feel if we knew that money would eventually kill us, which may well be the case anyway? I think that this view governed Jesus’ attitude towards money and perhaps even towards economic theory.

Take the feeding of those thousands: Jesus knows that if these people had gone off to buy bread and fish in the neighbouring stores, the merchants, being good businessmen, would have suddenly increased the prices of these basic food items because of greater demand. The law of supply and demand is certainly not a latter-day invention: it has existed as long as people have traded. That’s what economics is all about: charge high when everybody needs it. So what did Jesus do to forestall this price-gouging? He simply by-passed the economic law of supply and demand and created bread and fish ex nihilo- out of nothing- well, almost out of nothing.

Then there is that so uncharacteristic incident where Jesus almost went berserk when he chased the money changers out of the temple, upsetting much more than the tables. After all having these business people do their work in the temple was an age-old tradition and necessary to keep the Jewish house of worship functioning properly because only certain kinds of money were accepted in the temple. And how else to get the proper animals for sacrifice? I think it was money and its abuses that made Jesus so angry. Another, more indirect, indication: I find it curious that Judas, the unredeemed among the saints, carried the purse and handled the finances: Judas, who loved money more than Jesus. In the end he ended up with thirty pieces of silver and then discovered that money as an idol wants our very lives. In that sense we are much closer to Judas than to Jesus. With ‘we’ I include all people in the over rich West.

Also to me a tip-off was Jesus’ great disdain for the nominal value of currency, evident when Mary spent perhaps a year’s income on that precious oil. “So what,” Jesus remarked, “so what if such a large sum was spent. It is only money.” Or consider the occasion when Peter was asked if Jesus would pay the temple tax. “Of course,” is Peter’s immediate reaction, “of course Jesus pays.”

But for Jesus this was not such a straightforward matter. Why this reluctance to pay the temple tax? Well, I have my theory about this. I think Jesus knew that perhaps this very money given to the temple was going to buy his life and ensure his death.

And then, in an ironic twist, with almost a touch of black humor, Jesus shrugs his shoulders and says: “OK, not important. Let me not major in minors. Go to the lake, catch a fish and there you’ll find a silver coin enough for the both of us.” I like that. Jesus is never skimpy. And, of course, with this gesture, he shows that all the fish in the sea and- by implication- the cattle upon a thousand hills, are his. Here we see Jesus’ royalty coming through. Queen Elizabeth never carries a wallet. Wherever she goes on an official visit, she goes free. Jesus is the same and much more so. Here he shows that he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, but people do not recognize him that way. He also sees money as what it is: a fiction.

It’s all about money

Jesus once made a radical statement: “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” In our Western world everything is about money: the stock market, the strength of the dollar, the price of gold, three items mentioned in almost every newscast. Let’s not kid ourselves: Mammon is God, the Dollar is King in the world and its possession a holy grail. We now put a price tag on everything. First on Jesus – 30 pieces of silver – and now also on the rest of creation: the woods are paved, the mountains mined, the seas eaten, species eliminated: all because of money. Already half of all wild animals have disappeared in the last 40 years because of money. We all participate in that criminal act. Jesus was sold for the price of a slave: we are selling creation to serve us as a slave. We, as 6 percent of the world’s population cause 40 percent of the world’s pollution, in perfect accordance with the aims of Capitalism which defines itself as Creative Destruction. I am more and more inclined to think that Capitalism and its exponent, the global money economy, is the Anti-Christ. I know, that is a strong statement, but I think that’s why Jesus feared money because he foresaw how destructive it would be for him, for his creation and for us. He died so that we too could be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than we can ever live in a money society. If we want to share in that life then we must regain a new sense of value; we must reset our priorities to have our treasures expressed not in money but in love, in genuine compassion for all God’s creatures, humans, animals, trees, flowers, air, water. God so loved the cosmos…. (John 3:16).