by Elaine Durbach

December 18, 2008

As this dizzying year winds to an end, pundits everywhere are predicting dark times ahead, but their linking of the dots leaves out connections that point to something very different.

As the theme for the Dec. 7 Super Sunday fund-raisers across the state stressed, we Jews are one people. That was more than nice words, as donors rose to the occasion, giving even as they faced financial uncertainty themselves.

But perhaps that sense of shared responsibility goes much further, to this country as a whole and — more than ever before in human history — to the global community.

Is this wishful thinking? Given the dire forecasts, we could all do with some upbeat fantasies. But what one commentator called our “national irrational euphoria” in response to Barack Obama’s election might not be so irrational after all. Maybe the change we’re sensing is this inescapable sharing.

The very enormity of our current crises holds out hope. The domino effect of all these problems — markets collapsing around the globe, impending shortages of fuel and water and food, accelerating climate change — shows we can no longer afford petty divisions.

Just as party lines have blurred in the debate about the federal bailout, with Democrats working with the White House and Republicans castigating Wall Street, so, too, are international foes finding common cause.

If the Americans become poorer, so do the Chinese. Even Russia, crowing at first over the crisis in the West, now finds that if no one can afford gas, the value of their most prized commodity plunges. Arabs and Africans, Indians and Latin Americans — they are all in this with us.

Think of the international confabs of the past few months. Have you ever heard so many leaders getting together with so few accusations and dishing out so little blame?

When rice shortages sparked riots in Asia and Africa, shoppers in Costco found their purchases limited. The pain might not have been the same, but the supply lines tugged all the way to New Jersey.

Rising prices might hit the poor first — but then the impact spreads. Dwindling demand is pulling down businesses and bureaucracies, spreading the pain with remarkable evenhandedness across class lines and national borders.

Do you know anyone who feels insulated from what’s happening? Without bombs exploding or towers falling, we have discovered a commonality our spiritual leaders have long sought to teach us.

Al Gore must find comfort in this. With his documentary An Inconvenient Truth he lit a wildfire of international concern about global warming, but no amount of political will or earnest campaigning could have brought about a decline in the production of greenhouse gases as sharp as the one triggered in just a few months by the credit freeze.

Rising gas prices have cut driving, and — at long last — even as those numbers have plunged, energy conservation has remained a priority. The three auto company bosses who begged Congress for help found themselves treated like pariahs, not just for their financial mistakes but for making the gas-guzzling autos we used to love.

Not so long ago, things were very different. When the United Nations tried to sound the alarm about impending ecological catastrophe at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 16 years ago, Third World and First World countries blocked action, bickering about who was to blame and who should pay for solutions. Those questions remain, but no one — not even the Bush administration — denies any longer that we are in this together.

Unfortunately, dwindling profits might mean less money available for alternative energy. It could also mean less investment capital for green start-ups. But with an incoming administration committed to developing renewable domestic energy sources, and a work force desperate for jobs, we have a scenario even green pioneer Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring, would have celebrated.

Domestically, something had to change. In a country where some people pay more for storage lockers than others pay for home rentals, and garage sales are a way of life because we have more goodies than space, the status quo had to shift. The prospect of layoffs is teaching a new work ethic, frugality is becoming chic, and even kids’ Christmas and Hanukka demands are shrinking.

New paradigms don’t emerge out of complacency. It’s tragic that millions of people will suffer in the process, but it’s shake-ups that produce innovative ideas. The accident at Chernobyl did more to boost international cooperation on nuclear safety than years of smooth functioning. In the same way, the global cataclysms of this crazy year — natural and man-made — might yield the breakthroughs we need to build a better coordinated and more harmonious world community.

One people, one community, and one planet.

Elaine Durbach is a staff writer for NJJN.

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