Europe Needs Another War

No the fuck she doesn’t. If you are a fanatic of violence and armed conflicts I kindly ask you to get the fuck off my site and never come back. Now that I got your attention, let me explain to you what pushed me to use such a bold title. Since a while ago I’ve been fighting my own frustrating battles against waste. All kinds of waste.

The idea behind Europe needing a war (and therefore the bold title) is simple: during war –or any other period of scarcity—people start to realize that they can survive with less. They don’t have to always strive for efficiency, where we do more with the same, but for the other concept: Sufficiency, where you do just fine with less. We’ve achieved a level of prosperity where we tend to forget that we are living one of the most (or THE most) scarce periods of humanity. That is of course, if you consider the available amount of resources and divide them among the total amount of humans. That of course, in our world doesn’t happen, where a few possess the resources of the many, but that is another topic.

Naturally a war must be avoided at all costs. Another war would only pour a diesel jerry can to the already racist and refugee-phobic sectors of the civil European bonfire.  I like to think that at least Europe has learned from her mistakes and that conflicts are now solved in other less violent (albeit not necessarily fairer) grounds.  But that again is combustible for anther topic.

My point is: if there were a war maybe this sense of scarcity could permeate to society. Maybe during a war my roommates (or friends, or colleagues or society, you name it) would finally turn the lights off at night. Or maybe they wouldn’t throw perfectly edible food away. Maybe they would fill the garbage bags to the top (in Switzerland the garbage bags carry a tax for waste disposal). Maybe they would start recycling glass and metal. Maybe they would ask for smaller portions if they know they are not going to eat it all. Maybe they would stop washing one piece of cloth on a 60° cycle. Maybe they would just hang the single cloth instead of letting it tumble for 120 minutes in the dryer. Maybe they wouldn’t let the water flow while brushing their teeth. Maybe they wouldn’t let it run for 10 minutes because “it doesn’t taste fresh”. Long are the days were potatoes need to be grown on football fields.

Or maybe it’s just me who’s being paranoid. I have this feeling that this level of waste cannot hold much longer. That sooner rather than later the zombie apocalypse will catch up with us. And that is why we need to reduce our consumption drastically. The funny part is, that we don’t even need to compromise our well-being. Just turn the fucking light off! It is to no avail to cover all rooftops with solar panels, if they are to be used to power a room were no one’s in. And seriously, the detergents are now able to clean your clothes at 30° in the same way as with 60° and that even with a full load!  

Epilogue:

This paragraph didn’t seem to fit anywhere, but since I am living in a state of word opulence I decided to keep it. This post was fueled by my recent trip to the capital city of past wars: Berlin. There you can really experience what wars can do and why they should be avoided at all cost; but you can also see what the opposite of a war now looks like.  By the way, about alimentary sufficiency: John Oliver did a great work about food waste in his last episode of Last Week Tonight, so #keepittighttatum.