Edgework

One winter, a decade or so ago, I worked my way through Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel, “War and Peace.” Completed in 1869, it follows the fortunes and misfortunes of five aristocratic Russian families from 1805-1813. Central to the story line is Napoleon’s march on Moscow in 1812 with 600,000 soldiers, the Russian flight from Moscow followed by massive fires destroying nearly everything, and the eventual retreat of the French troops in a mad dash to escape the coming, harsh Russian winter.

I learned a lot about Russian history that winter. But I remember being even more impressed with the insights that Tolstoy exhibited about human nature. One has to be prepared, while reading the novel, to wade through sections interspersed throughout in which he pulls back from the plot to reflect on what makes people tick and why they do what they do. In the end I found these commentaries every bit as interesting as the storyline.

In recent months, some of the lessons I learned on that first reading kept running through my mind. So I pulled the book off the shelf and began re-reading it. I skipped the first seven hundred pages or so and jumped right into the action since it takes Tolstoy about that long to get the ball rolling. Soon I was immersed in the story again and found myself pushing other interests aside in order to complete this reading venture. Signs of a good writer, they say!

One of the things that impressed me the most about the main characters in the story is their inclination toward being deluded that life would continue to unfold as normal in the face of all the signs indicating otherwise. While Russian and French soldiers were dying by the thousands, Russian aristocracy carried on as though little had changed. Grand balls, petty infighting, sexual infidelity and ostentatious living continued unabated. And any negative news from the front was brushed aside as insignificant. As far as they were concerned, their privileged lifestyle would undoubtedly go on forever. Who would dare to imagine otherwise?

Napoleon displayed the same aversion to facing reality. Upon entering Moscow he behaved as though he had conquered a city, when in fact 95 percent of the population had fled. Mostly he was talking to empty houses which soon went up in flames. And when it finally dawned on him that the pleasant autumn weather would soon be turning to freezing winter conditions it was too late. In the mad dash to escape this trap, most of his army perished along the way. On the way up to Moscow no one had dared to remind Napoleon that after autumn comes winter.

Unfortunately, as I look around me at the beginning of the 21st century, I notice that human nature has not changed much. We have not learned from history. Mostly we repeat it.

Today it is not Russian and French aristocracy so much that I am concerned about; it is those of us who now have a comfortable life with adequate food, clothes, shelter and entertainment. Those who have been to the “front lines” keep telling us that change is in the wind; that we won’t be able to carry on living as we do forever. Most modern citizens in the Western World call such talk “fear-mongering” and remind us that “dooms day” rhetoric will not likely change people’s behavior anyway.

They tell us they don’t want to hear about the fact that the earth is running out of fresh water, that a billion people are going hungry, that soon we will be running out of oil, that manufactured chemicals are killing our lakes and oceans, that our energy grids are extremely vulnerable, that fighting over diminishing resources is increasing, that erratic weather patterns are rooted in climate change, that plastics are choking our landfills, etc. Knowing these things might disturb their tranquil existence and compel them to change their ways. “And who do you think you are, anyway, telling us that our comfortable existence will not continue forever!?”

Just to illustrate what I have said with one example I will focus on the world’s food supply. Just yesterday I came across an article by Stuart Clark from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, entitled, “Will the Gift of Land Keep Coming?”

Stuart asks us to imagine that the global food supply is a bucket of water. In the past farmers were able to keep the bucket mostly full, sometimes even overflowing. This was true because there were only two holes in the bottom of the bucket; one drawing food for human consumption, the other one for animal feed.

One thing that has changed is that these two holes have become larger. The world’s population now has reached seven billion and more people are beginning to demand more meat coming from animals eating the grain coming from the second hole. On top of that a new hole has been made to divert grain into making biofuels to run our vehicles. In the USA, 40 percent of the corn crop ends up in ethanol. And , on top of that, the technology that used to promise ever-increasing harvests to fill the bucket is beginning to falter.

The unsettling truth is that the level in the bucket is declining steadily, so that on occasion we can even see the bottom. That is to say that global food supplies are razor-thin. The resulting spike in food prices will only be an inconvenience for the privileged few. But for those already spending most of their income on food, this news is a foreshadowing of hunger and even starvation.

There are a number of things we should be doing. We could eat less meat, encourage our governments to restore food reserves, stop wasting food and advocate against making fuel from food.

Right. We could and maybe should. But our comfortable and secure life will surely continue on forever, don’t you think? What do you say, Mr. Tolstoy?