For
months since projections from my research converged on a likely
future for humanity that culminates in near-term extinction, I
have been watching the news for evidence of whether it is true or
false. I have been particularly interested in environmental news, and
political news in the United States based on our disproportionately
large influence on global economics and governance (not to mention
its direct impact on people I know).
To
maintain my sanity, I treated this effort as somewhat of an academic
exercise. I even began writing a "global
survival plan" to identify the full spectrum of risks to
humanity and strategies to deal with them. This entire effort I
documented publicly on the Internet, including almost-daily updates
on Twitter.
Throughout I was able to maintain a sliver of hope that my
apocalyptic version of the future might be wrong or avoidable, hope
that was dashed just a few days ago as the choice for president was
locked in.
My
hope for the future centered on the chance that people could change
their values from a focus on gain for small groups to survival of the
world's population in time to avoid extinction. Both politics and
economics are expressions of values, and they have become unhealthily
intertwined with a focus on reaching and then exceeding any and all
limits to the number and complexity of artificial environments that
can be created and controlled by a rapidly decreasing number of people.
It is precisely this limit-seeking behavior that is responsible for
our current crisis, as species critical to our planet's habitability
are being starved and consumed, and physical systems such as climate
that maintain healthy natural environments are putting increasing
pressure on them and us.
The
electoral process in the United States has narrowed the choices for
president to two people who by word and deed encourage limit-seeking,
but with different opinions about what social and environmental costs
can be endured in the process and who should control and benefit from
the environments it creates. Neither candidate seems willing to
champion what to me are the two greatest values, life and longevity
for the world's population, which would require repudiation of the
limit-seeking that has provided their personal power, and
acknowledgement of the damage, pain, and death it has caused – and
threatens to cause.
A
revolution is brewing here and elsewhere in the world as the personal
impact of concentrated limit-seeking becomes more painful for the
majority. My research has
indicated that the concentration is due to a combination of
resource scarcity and our economy's reward of the manipulation of
money to a greater extent than what that money represents: the
manipulation of physical resources to create artificial environments.
Unfortunately, most of the revolution's focus has been on
manifestations of the latter, economic flaw, and not on what is
becoming the dominant cause: resource scarcity. That focus seems to
be behind the political calculations of the revolution's leaders,
which allow up to a decade or more for it to reach fruition (assuming
the rational candidate and her collaborators get power), but there is
much less time to deal with the resource scarcity problem.
All
political and economic actors now and into the foreseeable
future need to make repairing our relationship with the biosphere
their top priority, while working to heal the relationships
between people so we can minimize pain and death along the way. I
have felt the urgency since I first discovered the dynamics behind
it, and as one of those actors (as we all are now) I have struggled
with my own similarly opposing priorities – self vs. planet –
without satisfactory resolution. Hope that the worst outcomes could
be averted sustained me, despite growing evidence that it was
groundless. With what I perceive as a fatal delay now officially
built into the political system of the most powerful nation on the
planet, and an uncomfortably high probability that the delay will be
replaced by negative action (if the Republicans win), I can no longer
even act as if hope is justified.
Hope
and fear both attract followers, which was starkly evident during the
recent political conventions. I am not seeking followers, nor am I
attracted to fear. If the longevity of our civilization and our
species is as limited as it appears, then I believe we must try to
make those last days as honorable and decent as possible, just as we
try to do as individuals with our own, always-limited lifetimes. It's
hard to remember that sometimes, especially when in the grip of
despair as I have been episodically during the past three years; but
writing this has helped, and I write it to also help others.
