The Dutch cabinet will activate the first phase of the national oil crisis plan on Monday as global energy markets are disrupted by renewed instability in the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has reportedly blocked a key shipping route and opened fire on commercial vessels, sending oil prices sharply up and down. The United States is also continuing to detain ships in the Strait.
I can’t look into the future, but there are two verses from the best German poets which come to my mind.
One is from Goethe:
It translates to:
Faustus: “Who are you?”
Mephistopheles: “I am a part of that force, which always wants the evil, and always creates the good.”
The other one is Friedrich Hölderlin:
“There where is danger, arises what rescues.”
I do not want to make fun of this - for many fellow souls especially in South Asia, this is already an emergency. And there is no doubt that our civilization is in deep crisis. We must find answers to this. What we do now - collectively and individually - will count more than ever.
I wholeheartedly agree, especially as someone with close friends and living in Bengal. I don’t even know how hot it gets there these days, but there’s a (very regrettably) good chance some of them may perish due to the heat.
But with that said, my concern is that individual action, or even collective actions by governments, on a planet with 8 billion people on it, simply isn’t enough in the grand scale of things. I believe that we have made enough technological advances to withstand an oil crisis, but what we need these days is a forcing event to push governments to adopt them and individuals to accept the transition. I am… cautiously hopeful that this could be that forcing moment.
And by the way, thanks for sharing those verses. I understand very little German, but even I can appreciate how beautiful those lines are.
Thanks.
For sure, we need collective action, urgently. But we still need individuals which pave the way.
In a way, we need to re-invent our civilization: We need to cease to use fire for everyday needs. This needs every brain we can muster.