1. E1C M Y K
ESaturday,September 19,2015
Time’sup
forwestern
civilization?
“There are none so blind as those who
will not see.”
— Matthew Henry, 1662-1714
All of us, at one time or another,
worry about the state of the
world. Are we going to hell in a hand
basket? Or is the world unfolding as
it always has, despite the stories of
famine, war, disaster, crime and corrup-
tion that dominate our media?
The world faces daunting challenges.
Most of them are man-made. Maybe
that’s why it’s so difficult for our leaders
to acknowledge and address them.
A 2014 study by Safa Motesharrei of
the U.S. National Science Foundation
maintains our global industrial civili-
zation could collapse because of two
major factors: unequal wealth distri-
bution and unsustainable resource
exploitation.
His independent research team
included leading natural and social
scientists. They developed a cross-
disciplinary “Human and Nature
Dynamical,” or HANDY, model that
shows the process of rise and collapse is
a recurring cycle throughout history.
“The fall of the Roman Empire and
the equally, if not more, advanced Han,
Mauryan and Gupta empires, as well as
so many Mesopotamian empires, are
all testimony to the fact that advanced,
sophisticated, complex and creative
civilizations can be both fragile and
Many thinkers have suggested models to assess the state of civilizations —
and some don’t look good for theWest
Iwoke up to the sound of rain tap-
ping on my mom’s badly damaged
roof. The force of a plethora of pine nee-
dles, left to pile up in her eaves trough,
finally gave way and water was dripping
in to her dream house. I lay there on the
couch drowsily wondering how things
had gotten this bad.
Mom was diagnosed with renal
cancer a year and a half ago, and the
brave little lady had a kidney removed.
It was an eight-hour operation that left
my brothers and me waiting and won-
dering. The doctors came out and told
us the operation was successful and that
they had gotten all the cancer. It was six
months later that mom was informed
the cancer had spread.
One of my brothers lives abroad, and
he brought his wife and three kids for
a visit with grandma this summer. My
mom said it was the best vacation she
ever had.
Now mom is living with me and we
are manoeuvring through the health
care system, some of the most wonder-
ful folks I’ve ever encountered, and they
are trying to buy mom some more time.
She stubbornly refused to come stay
with me until now. She wanted to live
in her little house on the lake, at least 40
minutes away from the closest hospital,
and six hours away from me, all on her
own.
As I spent the weekend gathering her
things and preparing to have her come
and stay with me, I thought about why
she wanted to stay there. The house is
literally starting to crumble around her
and I wondered what it was that was
keeping her there.
It was only after she had been staying
with me for about a week that I realized
she was depressed.
Like so many seniors in Ontario and
in Canada, she had a few expenses
come up that were unexpected and that
was enough to unravel her finances.
Add to that, her only grandchildren live
thousands of miles away. And that she
has no idea how much time she may
have left on this Earth.
My mom’s story is not unique.
Mom was too proud to ask anyone
for help and she was so isolated. It
made it difficult for her to access some
of the resources available. At one time,
her Internet service wasn’t working for
a number of weeks and her provider
would not send anyone out to help her.
No one should have to struggle in
isolation.
I am so glad I have this time with my
mom and that she is such an amazingly
fierce and proud Canadian woman.
I fear though that so many other pen-
sioners are seeing the same struggles.
Health care in rural areas is often
through teleconference and despite it
being a convenience for both physician
and patient, when someone is really
struggling, that’s difficult to see through
a screen.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming
anyone for my mom’s stubbornness
(she kept indicating she was “fine” and,
no, she didn’t need any help). That
stubborn streak is likely what has kept
her alive this long and will be the reason
we have her around as long as we do.
So as I wonder how we will sort
everything out with her leaking roof and
her mounds of craft kits piled up in her
house, I realize my mom just ignored
that stuff because she was too focussed
on managing to stay alive. The bills
piled up because she had to focus on
living and breathing. And she was too
proud to tell anyone about the situation.
I wish she had felt she could reach
out, not just to me, but to friends and
other relatives. But I get it. I, too, am
very proud and stubborn.
I am so honoured to be the one who
gets to hang out with her now. She has
been taking care of others and neglect-
ing herself. Pardon our stubbornness,
but that roof can wait. We have some
serious living and laughing to do.
Shauna Rae is a London freelance writer.
shauna_rae67@yahoo.ca
No one should have to face their last days alone
Paul Lachine illustration see Warren | Page E4
r.michael
warren
impermanent,” the study report said.
The study identified the most preva-
lent factors that explained why past
civilizations collapsed: problems with
population, climate, water, agriculture
and energy. Those factors led to decline
when they converged to produce two
elements: “the stretching of resources
due to the strain on the ecological
carrying capacity” and “the economic
stratification of society into elites (the
rich) and the masses (the poor).
Resource depletion and income
disparity are growing concerns in many
countries, including Canada. According
to this study, they have played “a central
role in the process of collapse” of civili-
zations over the past 5,000 years.
The study maintains high levels of
economic disparity are linked directly
to overconsumption of resources by
the elites in advanced countries. And
advanced technology is not always the
solution. “It can raise the rate of effi-
ciency of resource use, but also tends
to raise both the per-capita resource
consumption and the scale of resource
extraction,” the study says.
Applying the lessons of past civiliza-
tions to our current world order, the
study warns: “Some members might
raise the alarm that the system is
moving towards an impending col-
lapse, and therefore advocate structural
changes to society in order to avoid it.
But elites and their supporters, who
oppose making these changes, could
point to the long sustainable trajectory
‘so far’ in support of doing nothing.”
The scientists concluded this future
is not inevitable if the elites understand
it’s in their long-term self-interest to
share wealth and help to restore a bal-
ance with nature.
shauna
rae
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