The State of the World

I’m Going Down. Barcelona, 2018

It’s Halloween and what might be the current “State o’ the World”? 

Not good, I would say. Pretty scary, actually.

Consider…

—We are currently going through a Sixth Extinction (Holocene Extinction or Anthropocene Extinction). Current rates of species extinction are somewhere between 100 to 1,000 times the normal biological background rate. (Will your kids ever get to see a wild elephant, gorilla, rhino, or lion? Or will the only survivors be in zoos? How are the coral reefs of the world doing?)

—Human-caused-global warming (or climate change, if you wish) continues with no sign that the world is interested in cooperating to combat it. Many reports seem to say that it is worse than we think, that scientists actually tone down their pessimism in their reports (perceived political pressures), and that the process is actually accelerating–in fact, we may already be well beyond the tipping point. (Many still believe it is all a hoax. Better to believe the oil companies rather than boring scientists, right?)

—The rise of right-wing governments and nationalist ideas that promote a “me first” policy. With this, I mean extreme right-wing, not just “conservative”–which means there is much less chance of international cooperation on the environmental issues that affect us all. Indeed, beyond my own country, the recent election of Bolsonaro in Brasil bodes muito ruim for the Amazon rain forest, the lungs of the Earth. (Then there is Russia, China, Italy, Germany…all moving either to the right, toward more autocracy, or both.)

—Our continued emphasis on short-term economic growth at the expense of a long-term human vision. Just when we were making progress with such quaint notions as “sustainability”, we seem to have fallen back into the old pattern of simple exploitation–the extraction of resources and the reduction of environmental protections/regulations. Money talks. (Quarterly reports, in the grand scheme of the long-term survival of our species is really quite a primitive idea.)

—Economic policies here in the USA and around the globe that continue to exacerbate inequality between social classes. The rich get increasingly richer and there is very, very little evidence of the promised “trickle down”. This is bad news for overall social stability, both in the USA and around the globe. (Take the latest GOP tax cut heavily favoring the rich, as an example. And how about the outlandish ratio of CEO compensation to that of the average worker? And the poor, remarkably, keep voting for GOP candidates.) 

—The current crop of humans who can’t seem to think critically and, instead, are easily manipulated with fear, hate, conspiracy theories, and a clear anti-science agenda by certain vested interests. (Witness: Faux News, Breitbart, et al, and the continued support for Donald Trump by many Americans–and now we have “enthusiastic” citizen vigilantes actually committing violence against innocents based on all the hateful rhetoric coming from these sources. The fact that many of the current mid-term races–Senate, House, Governors–are even close depresses me.)

—Continued population growth which increasingly stresses the Earth’s resources. When I was born, in 1958, the world was at about 3 billion lost souls. We are now over 7.5 billion and counting. The pattern is similar in the USA: 185 million or so when I was born–nearly double that now. And we all want our automobile, house with the white picket fence, and the latest plasma TV and iPhone.

All-in-all, I would say the human bean (sic) just is not constitutionally capable of thinking long term and of the common welfare.

World-wide democratic institutions, and our planet itself as a haven for us humans, have never before been under such a serious threat.

The End Result?

I’ll probably be dead and gone when it happens, but–assuming the above trends continue–I would guess that we will see, sometime within the next 100 years, a significant conflict or combination of events that will lead to a large, sudden, and tragic reduction in the world’s human population. So, warn your kids.

The good news? Mother Earth will be just fine. Don’t worry about her. She will simply shrug her shoulders, readjust, and find a new (temporary) equilibrium–whether we human beans are around or not.

Yep. I’m having dark thoughts today…

P.S. I could be totally wrong.