ken wilson online

Read an article in the New York Times by Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs and Steel on the consumption gap. We in the developed world consume-acquire-use 32 times the amount of stuff consumed by the typical person in a place like Kenya. If everyone in the world–all 6.5 billion of us–consumed as much stuff as we do, the consumption rate would be equivalent to a world population of 72 billion. Not sustainable. I look around my living quarters and it’s awash with stuff. (See thumbnail above from our basement.) The paper and packaging material alone is staggering. Plastic everywhere, designed not to degrade. It’s overwhelming. And points to the amazing lack of proportionality in the business as usual standard American Christian view of sin. Our consumption greater by a factor of 32 (a doubling five times over) compared to someone in the developing world. Much of it, unnecessary, wasteful. We know how to do it better, differently, but don’t for lack of will rather than know-how. And it barely registers on the radar screen of what’s wrong with the world. More love, less stuff this year, please God, help.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 7:50 am and is filed under environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.