Giving vodka to a drunk

Do not try to prove your strength by wine-drinking,
     for wine has destroyed many.
As the furnace tests the work of the smith,
     so wine tests hearts when the insolent quarrel.
Wine is very life to human beings
     if taken in moderation.
What is life to one who is without wine?
     It has been created to make people happy.
Wine drunk at the proper time and in moderation
     is rejoicing of heart and gladness of soul.
Wine drunk to excess leads to bitterness of spirit,
     to quarrels and stumbling.
Drunkenness increases the anger of a fool to his own hurt,
     reducing his strength and adding wounds.

- Ecclesiasticus 31.25-30 (NRSV).

Going to the pub for a drink with mates can be a very enjoyable experience. A pint or a dram, some good conversation, some laughs, maybe another drink and some time soaking up one another's company. Another drink? Why not, we're having a good time. With a proper sense of proportion, alcohol can make the heart glad (Psalm 104.15). But before long, drinking becomes drunkenness, and repeated drunkenness makes one a drunkard (cf. Ephesians 5.18; Galatians 5.21). By the time someone is seeing relationships fall apart and their liver, brain, heart, pancreas, nervous system, kidneys, bones, skin and/or sexual function give way from abuse we are well past the point at which enjoyment has turned into self-destruction. Alcohol use represents a gradual progression from a good blessing into a significant evil, without necessarily a clear line where one becomes the other.* The physical and social ills of alcoholism are vindications of (or at least corroborations of) scriptural warnings against drunkenness, yet spiritual injury can occur even prior to obvious relational or physical damage and the believer does not require sociological or medical research on the effects of alcohol abuse to trust the biblical witness on this matter. The latter are helpful confirmations of what has already been revealed, illustrating the principle that we reap what we sow and that part of God's present judgement upon human wickedness is to allow us to experience some of the consequences of our misdeeds.
*Many jurisdictions create such markers through legal limits on blood alcohol levels, but all such lines must be somewhat arbitrary when extended across a whole population with quite different physiological and mental reactions to alcohol.

But this is not really a post about alcoholism.

Seeking more economic growth* for developed economies is like offering vodka to a man already lying a pool of his own vomit. Justifying it by pointing out secondary benefits misses the point; the extra waitstaff will be out of a job unless enough booze is sold, but why should the security of someone's job justify aiding the dissolution of life? With a proper sense of proportion, some kinds of economic growth can be a good blessing on a society. But the pursuit of growth in all circumstances by all means at whatever cost is ultimately self-destructive. There is no hard and fast line between the one and the other. Attempts to calculate ecological footprints and planetary boundaries may give a ballpark idea of where growth starts being suicidal, but that doesn't mean that it is where the problem starts. The desire for growth without reference to the rest of the body is wrong in principle, not just once the symptoms of overshoot start to appear. The ecological and resource crises that are increasingly manifest may illustrate the ruinous trajectory of the desire, but from inception, the desire for growth without reference to context is already based on some combination of greed, myopia, lust for power and a reckless disregard for creaturely limits.
*There is some debate about just what is meant by economic growth. Most definitions at least strongly imply the increasing extraction and exploitation of physical resources for economic purposes, which is my primary concern in this discussion.

Bee minus

The bee is small among flying creatures,
     but what it produces is the best of sweet things.

- Ecclesiasticus 11.3

The writer of Ecclesiasticus knew how wonderful honey is, but honey is only the second best gift we receive from bees.Yesterday's post may have been too obscure for some. I was attempting to draw attention to the latest UN report on global biodiversity Global Biodiversity Outlook 3, which is not a happy read. Here is a summary paragraph from page 67:

"The trends from available indicators suggest that the state of biodiversity is declining, the pressures upon it are increasing, and the benefits derived by humans from biodiversity are diminishing, but that the responses to address its loss are increasing. The overall message from these indicators is that despite the many efforts taken around the world to conserve biodiversity and use it sustainably, responses so far have not been adequate to address the scale of biodiversity loss or reduce the pressure."

On average, since 1970, wild vertebrate numbers have declined by almost one third, with highest losses in freshwater ecosystems (41%) and in the tropics (59%) (page 24). "The proportion of warm-water coral, bird, mammal and amphibian species expected to survive into the near future without additional conservation actions has declined over time." (page 29) There is more area designated as protected, but pressures on biodiversity are increasing.

Why does it matter? Well, apart from the inherent beauty of God's diverse creativity (which was part of the point of yesterday's post), here is a useful answer from page 23:

"Biodiversity is the variation that exists not just between the species of plants, animals, micro-organisms and other forms of life on the planet – but also within species, in the form of genetic diversity, and at the level of ecosystems in which species interact with one another and with the physical environment.

"This diversity is of vital importance to people, because it underpins a wide range of ecosystem services on which human societies have always depended, although their importance has often been greatly undervalued or ignored. When elements of biodiversity are lost, ecosystems become less resilient and their services threatened. More homogeneous, less varied landscapes or aquatic environments are often more vulnerable to sudden external pressures such as disease and climatic extremes."

Which brings us back to honeybees. Honeybees are not the most threatened species. They are not the most rapidly declining species. But they are becoming one of the new poster species for illustrating the economic value of biodiversity, because their contribution to the global economy through pollination is a staggering £26 billion per year (more than AU$43 billion). Honeybees are the primary pollinator for 90 commercial crops worldwide, including cotton, coffee, soya beans, clovers (used for cattle feed), nuts, sunflowers and a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, like apples, oranges, strawberries, onions and carrots. Without their work, our diet would be far less tasty, since one third of crop species grown in the US would decline, disappear or become prohibitively expensive.

But since 2006, honeybees in many countries have shown alarming drops in population, often with entire colonies suddenly collapsing (in what has been creatively called colony collapse disorder). As yet, the causes are not well established. Although this problem is not global and its severity can be overstated, it is nonetheless emblematic of our dependence upon a highly complex and only partially understood network of life which is rapidly unravelling under our influence.
Bee troubles have even made their way into Douglas Coupland's most recent novel, Generation A, something of a belated sequel to his iconic novel Generation X (which coined the phrase). Not far into the future, bees have apparently been driven into functional extinction, and the narrative traces the tales of five individuals who are all suddenly stung, becoming unlikely symbols of hope in a world grown more fragile and desperate. It wasn't a perfect novel, but it was fun. I give it a bee minus.