Southern Jordan Desert (Wadi Rum)

Wadi Rum, 20:00, Two days before the full moon.

Driving into winding, sand-filled canyons on the back of an old toyota land cruiser, I feel the connection to our environment reaching out for me. Like lightning, which travels both down from the cloud and up from the earth, I feel the link between myself and the world forming and strengthening. We reach a small Bedouin encampment nestled within the sandstone cliffs under the light of a strongly waxing moon. After settling and dinner, our Bedouin hosts begin playing traditional music and clapping (somewhat) to the beat. Although I enjoy the songs and dance of the Bedouin people, I hear much more clearly, the call of the wilds. I head out of the camp, venturing just to the top of the nearby sand dune, and wait for my heartbeat to return to resting. The absolute silence is uncanny, not a sound but the lingering laughter of the group reaches my ears as I watch a small beetle make his way across this sandy landscape. Evidence of others passage is visible through footprints and the tire tracks of other trucks hauling sightseers through this gorgeous landscape.

The barren nature emboldens me to not worry overmuch about disturbing natural habitats over the next 48 hours, but at the same time I feel that with every footstep I am making my mark on this land, changing it in some small way with just my presence. The rock and sand which have been here for centuries have have an intrinsic worth and yet, with our intellect and planning, humans have changed this landscape forever. Building dams and reservoirs to catch and contain what little water does fall, humans have conquered this landscape, bending the rules of nature to our whim. But there is a limit to nature's elasticity, and with too much bending, comes irreparable damage to our ecosystems.

Although we see this place as a barren wasteland, bereft of human meddling, there were copious signs of human involvement in this place. Plastic and glass was often visible, strewn at random across the sands, with the occasional fire ring dotting the landscape. Now don't get me wrong, fires have been a part of our survival kit for generations untold, but glass and plastics are a fairly new addition to the human element. Used pottery can be smashed and will return to the earth from which it was made. Plastics and glasses are nigh on indestructible, and will mar the landscape for centuries to come. This is emblematic of our western relationship with the world. We extract what we need, use it once, then bury the refuse under piles of the same, simply for the convenience of bottled water. How can we expect to live continuously on the only world we've got unless we choose to live within a closed cycle of giving and taking?

Living within our means in an economic sense means making sacrifices, forgoing the extraneous and choosing to focus only on that which is necessary for survival. If we look at the world's ecosystems like a giant stock portfolio, we must only use the yearly growth, not the capital if we want to live sustainably. Take a second to calculate everything that, as an individual, you consume from this world's resource pool. Now balance that against what you give to the environment, and that is your net environmental impact. Is your resource intake greater than your environmental output? Mine too.