Chaos: Strike the Match

Tonight Aaron and I went out for a movie. We went to see Syriana. I highly recommend it for adult audiences. I'll warn you there are some graphic scenes (this adult chose to turn her head for a moment or two).

I think I started pondering the relationship between energy and chaos sometime during the first Gulf War. Maybe it was all the news clips showing us the burning oil fields. Mind you I'm not talking about physics. Well maybe it applies somehow, but I took physics 101, a.k.a. Physics for Poets, so I wouldn't know if it does somehow apply to physics. No, I'm talking about people.

I wonder what it will look like if our energy resources are depleted. I have a sickening feeling that the world as we know it will turn into chaos. Think back to how people responded after Katrina, after they were left stranded for awhile. Then there is always the scene with the minivan near the ferry in the recent movie War of the Worlds. The thought of such chaos has been a bit disturbing to me, and so I choose to safely push it back into my mind as something that could happen, but hopefully won't in my lifetime.

Tonight I thought a little more about this potential chaos. I realized that it is not so much a matter of if the match will be struck, as it is when will the match strike. As I pushed that thought around in my head for a bit, I realized something far more realistic. The match has already been struck, and for us, in the Western hemisphere, the chaos seems contained to "over there." It is only a matter of time before the flame of chaos spreads and engulfs society as we know it.

So, I don't know. Some people think it would be wrong to fight a war for the control of oil. What would you do one winter, if your baby's lips are a little blue and she's crying, there's no more electric or gas to heat the house, and you've burnt the last of your furniture? What if a war broke out for the control of water, or food?

I don't have the answers, and I think it's all pretty frightening. Really, I'm just thinking out loud tonight.