Dilemmas can be the fertile ground that give rise to profound insights and then radically changed behaviour. The Zen and Taoist traditions of Oriental spirituality use paradox as the principal means of transcending the limitations of ordinary understanding. Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, describes itself as "living in the question". In Christianity, a confrontation with a seemingly irresolvable impasse can lead from a "dark night of the soul" to a life-changing epiphany. In each case, a mounting tension within an unresolved perplexity finally breaks free into a new way of experiencing and being. Unfortunately, these transformations are so stressful that they can come close to wrecking the individuals in which they occur.
Just as individual people can transcend dilemmas on their way to personal transformation, so too can cultures move beyond them on their way to higher levels of awareness, compassion and sophistication. And dilemmas are the hallmark of our technological civilization these days. The strategies that will solve most of our major environmental problems seem to arrive in tandem with self-defeating consequences. We are left with solutions as the problems. Consider some examples:
• The demand for oil is beginning to overcome supply. We need more oil. But oil is a major source of the planet's greenhouse gases. The more oil we find and burn, the worse the global warming problem becomes. Our civilization is founded on oil but our biosphere is being wrecked by oil.
• Coal is a fossil fuel which we have in huge abundance, enough to supply our energy needs for millennia. But it is extremely polluting and a high producer of carbon dioxide. If we continue to use it as we have been, global warming will get worse, levels of emitted toxins such as mercury will continue to rise, and we could cook and poison ourselves off the planet. Technologies to remedy these problems are considered uneconomic, unproven and enormously challenging. "Capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fired plants at current rates," reports the New York Times, "would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide – a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars."
• Human population is expected to rise to over nine billion by mid-century, a 50 percent increase over present numbers. Higher living standards are the most humane method of reducing population growth. But elevating the world population to Canada's standard would require four planet Earths, and an elevation to Portugal's level of comfort‹ the lowest in the European Common Market ‹ would require a quadrupling of the world's economy. Since our economic activity is already functioning at 25 percent above the planet's sustaining biological capacity, reducing population by generating more wealth seems an impossible option.
• Improved health practices in wealthy countries, together with humanitarian efforts in poor ones, are increasing longevity, a process that counteracts efforts to reduce population – a self-defeating solution if the world's basic environmental problem is too many people.
• Rising wealth in Asia and elsewhere means that people are eating better: more complex foods and more meat – a far less efficient source of nutrition. This trend, coupled with other factors such as climate change and the conversion of edible grains to ethanol to offset fuel shortages, is forcing up the price of food beyond the affordability of the world's poor. Food riots are causing international instability and political stresses in those countries that can least afford the chaos and economic cost.
• Flying produces nearly 10 percent of global greenhouse gas effects. Consequently, a movement is building to vacation closer to home and do less business travelling. Considering that our sustainable emission rate of CO2 emission is calculated to be about one tonne per person per year, just one return trip from Vancouver to Hawaii generates more than two years of that allotment. But hundreds of millions of people depend on the worldwide travel industry for employment. If large numbers of people stopped flying to distant destinations, many economies would collapse.
• Genetic engineering offers hopeful potential for meeting food supplies on a planet of rising demand and falling production from ecological stresses. But genetically altered crops can contaminate other crops, are biologically unproven and are prone to corporate exploitation. The benefits could be considerable but the risks are enormous.
• Climate change is altering the way we are able to live on the planet, and will likely have the most disruptive effect on countries that are already poor – by 2100, severe droughts are expected to rise from three to 18 percent of marginal agricultural areas. Since most greenhouse gases are coming from wealthy countries, does this present them with the ethical dilemma of being responsible for the well-being of the starving?
These are just some of the dilemmas that confront us now. And they are likely to increase in intensity and complexity as time passes. Such dilemmas are disruptive and stressful. But they can also engender resourcefulness, innovation and radically new behaviour. Whether we will be able to learn from them remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: if these challenges don't ruin us, they will make us wiser.