I have long had a suspicion that something is terribly wrong with our civilisation. At first it was just what I could see with the naked eye, the policies of neo-conservative governments in the US (not such a surprise) and, my heart bleeds to say it, my own native Denmark.
It is not that the political alternatives are on the right track, but knowing what I know now, these governments will only serve to propel us faster past the brink of oblivion at which we now stand.
Political Bankruptcy
That true democracy ever existed anywhere is debatable, all we can know for sure is that it certainly doesn't exist in the Western World. Thomas Jefferson warned us a long time ago that if we ever bestowed the rights of individuals on companies, we would thrust ourselves into a new era of dictatorship, worse than any that had come before, only, this time no one would notice. To know that this is true you only have to observe curiousities such as the fact that the fallacy that is "free trade" is universally accepted as a "right" of companies, while on the other hand, plentiful supply of food and water is not considered a "right" for human beings. That makes perfect sense of course...
The rule of companies permeates up through the upper echelons of our societies, controlling all decision-making policies in all major so-called "democracies", blocks most reasoned debate (as newspapers are owned and sponsored by companies too), and cuts off and discredits any scientist or researcher who strays too far from accepted dogma. Granted, some countries, like the UK, allow a far greater freedom of operation from its academics than say the US, but overlying political strategy remains the same, and leads to the same end result: End of Civilisation.
To see all the facts underlying this quick-intro, I recommend you read anything Noam Chomsky (you can't read too much). Hailed as "perhaps the most important academic alive", Chomsky strips the veil from our eyes and shows us the grim truth of the people we have entrusted with power.
A Divided People
Eckhart Tolle, Author of the "Power of Now", hit the nail on the head when identifies humanity as a species infected with "ego-possession". We identify with the ego that our mind creates as the image of ourselves. Our true selves, as anyone privileged enough to have observed such moments of clearness and peace, only reveals itself when you shut off the mind, and the ego with it. Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am", and he was close to the truth, but when all thought ceases, you're still observing your mind. Who's the observer? The silent watcher? That is what you could label your "Being" or "Soul" for lack of a better word. A state of peace completely attuned and connected to the surrounding universe.
The ego, as mind-construct, can only exist by separating itself from that around it (otherwise it would be indiscernible and thus non-existent). Therefore it spends every moment attaching labels to itself: "sad", "lucky", "Catholic", "in shape", "man", and builds a wall against those who are of opposed "labels" ("happy", "unlucky", "protestant", "fat", "woman").
This fact is made all the more disturbing by the recent discoveries that we are one of the most inbred races on the planet, with a smaller genetic diversity than the average group of chimps. Reason: 10.000 years ago our numbers were reduced to as low as 10.000 by a global catastrophe (which nature has recently been discovered, I will speak of that another day). We are truly, family, yet we spend our lives hugging the illusion of "us" and "them".
To get the full details on these fascinating insights I recommend Eckhart Tolle's "Power of Now", and a "A New World", as well as Peter Laszlo's "The Whispering Pond".
Religious War
No construct of the ego serves as a more powerful separator of people than the mass delusion known as "religion", whose flaws, dangers, and fallacies were finally fully exposed in Sam Harris' "End of Faith" and Richard Dawkin's masterful "The God Delusion".
Together with our sick political system, religion more than anything magnifies our nature for division, bringing with it no benefits whatsoever that could not be procured from more rational and less damaging sources.
For the full argument, refer to the books above, but also take the time for Lomas and Knight's four books: The Hiram Key, The Second Messiah, Uriel's Machine, and Book of Hiram, that not only reveals a sober interpretation of the history that created the monotheistic religions of the present day, but shows how these religions hounded and destroyed the original "religion", a movement based on understanding of the universe, brought down the balance of the sexes (laying the responsibility for 1000 years of persecution, rape, and oppression almost solely on the last remnants of the Roman Empire: The Roman Catholic Church), and sowed the seeds for the era of unreason and superstition that persists to this day.
The Revenge of Gaia
Leading climatologists, among them Royal Society member James Lovelock, have long understood that the planet operates as a whole, that biology, geology, climatology, and physics, are not separate sciences describing separate systems, but part of a unified system, called Earth System Science.
James Lovelock refined this theory into his "Gaia Theory", attaching the name of the ancient Greek goddess to his theory. In the Gaia Theory, the purpose of the planet's regulatory system is always to adjust itself towards the optimal conditions for whatever lifeforms exist on it, and so it would, if we had not thrown the system irrevocably out of whack through 150 years of mismanagement of our planet's natural resources, arrogantly setting ourselves up as stewards of the world, a role that we are incapable of fulfilling.
Around a black hole is a boundary, known as the Event Horizon. You would not notice that you passed beyond it, but once you do, there is no return, nothing can stop you from being pulled slowly towards the all-consuming singularity at the centre and crushed to smithereens.
So it is with our civilisation. James Lovelock offers a glimmer of hope. The time for "sustainable development" has long come and gone, but a "sustainable retreat" can still salvage the remnants of our civilisation, and perhaps over many centuries allow the planetary system to return to its normal modus operandi.
I offer no such hope. While there is great promise in the individual humans I have met throughout my life, I have seen nothing from our political, industrial, and religious leaders to suggests that they have the wisdom, the foresight, and the will to take any of the extreme measures that are now necessary.
The rate of temperature increase per decade is now close to a level estimated to be almost "science fictional" in nature by climate experts in 1987. A rise of 4 degrees Celsius will cause the Greenland glacier to melt away (permanently) and the tropical rainforest to turn into desert. At the current rate of development this scenario will have unfolded before 2060.
We are caught in a positive feedback loop, where everything we do strengthens the effect of the mistake that came before it. To list just a few:
- We fell more and more trees for agriculture, industry, windmill parks, mining and residence. We're cutting scars in our lungs while poisoning the air around us.
- We're reducing the amount of aerosol in the atmosphere, something acting as an artificial sunblock, reducing temperature slightly.
- We persist on burning fossil fuels or investing money in useless "sustainable energy" such as windmills, or utter madness such as "biofuels" (destroying valuable forest land to plant energy-inefficient crops to burn)
- We vilify nuclear power, the only energy source that can maintain our present civilisation at a reasonable cost to our surrounding world.
- We waste billions on wind energy and other dead-ends, while our only permanent hope: fusion energy is being criminally neglected.
- We obsess with preventing dangerous carcinogens, wasting billions, when the main carcinogen, and greatest trigger for cancer is: Oxygen!
It is a telling testament to the danger we pose to the planet that some of the most verdant spots on the planet are those surrounding nuclear waste repositories. Even the wildlife is abundant as the few months cut off the average animals life because of radiation, is much preferable to the consequences of living next to humans. Where we are not, the planet thrives, with or without radiation.
For the full account of our slides to destruction read James Lovelock's "The Revenge of Gaia".
What Must Be Done, But Will Not
Only the strictest of measures have any hope of working now, but some of the necessary steps include:
1. Population Control: A benevolent form of population control must be found. In the West our changing lifestyle has already led our women to have healthy birthrates (reducing populations). This must happen worldwide. The planet will, at most, be able to support 1.5 billion people. We are currently estimated to hit 8 billion soon. It is a tragic consequence of our current state that for every life we save, we push our race one step closer to extinction.
2. Total nuclearification: All energy that can be supplied from a nuclear source, must be provided by a nuclear source. Major increase in funding for fusion power must be given, as it is the only realistic hope for a stable clean energy source to supply our needs.
3. Worldwide Rationing: Energy rationing needs to be implemented immediately. Usage of computers etc., should be encouraged, though, as the humans sitting in front of the screens are actually very energy-efficient from a planetary perspective. Redesign of air planes and cars to become more energy-efficient must happen, or usage of these means of transportation restricted.
4. Cessation of all Felling: All felling of forestland must cease immediately. Extra spending must be implemented for all forest-fire fighting units. Re-forestation of all possible areas.
5. Change of the Food Industry: All non-efficient farming must be stopped, including, sadly, organic farming. Major research on synthesized foods must begin.
6. Industry Control: Production of all non-essential goods must be stopped or subjected to strict production quotes (to allow for continuation of such culturally necessary goods as music, books, sports equipment etc.).
7. Reroute Emergency Help: If we spend a dollar supporting a humanitarian cause, we should spend that dollar supporting an environmental support organisation instead. This may seem cruel at first, but it makes perfect sense: If we do not save the remaining forests, most everyone we support now with our money, will die anyway. First we save the planet, then we can start thinking about saving ourselves. Everything else is equivalent to trying to resuscitate people on a drowning ship. Even if you succeed, they'll drown minutes later as it is, you should be down plugging those holes in the hull!
If these, and many more, measures are not taking, then our only hope is, ironically, that a comet strike or major volcanic explosion will cause the atmosphere to be covered by a layer of dust for long enough to cool us back to a healthy level.
The Day After
What then, will the world look like, when the disaster strikes, when all those who have not heeded the warnings see the full extent of their idiocy, and all those millions more who had no choice in the policies that caused the Armageddon to unfold, suffer the consequences?
My prediction is that most will not perish in the initial disaster (though hundreds of millions will), but will simply lose the will to live in the barren years that will come after. Great areas of the world will turn into a chaotic mess, ruled by warlords and bands scrambling for the limited resources left across a dystopian arid landscape dotted with ruined cities.
The waters will raise to a maximum level of 8 metres from their present level, taken valuable land with it into the deeps, maybe forever, and flushing nations such as Denmark, Holland, and many small islands around the world off the maps.
As temperature rises to five degrees above current levels, only the southernmost tip of South America, Madagascar, New Zealand, Northernmost Europe, Alaska, Northern Canada, and the Himalayan region will not have turned into scrub and desert. The rest of a the Earth will be an arid wasteland, and will eventually turn into a mirror image of the Martian landscape.
It is in those few regions that we must build our "Fort Lasts", the last strongholds of this civilisation. We must prepare these magnificent structures now, as our contingency. They must be self-supplying, nuclear powered citadels, where we will store all the collected knowledge of our civilisation and were the greatest experts and champions of our race can seek refuge. From there, they will watch the end of the world, or rebuild a new, and better, from the ashes, holding on to our knowledge through the Dark Ages, like the monks did before them...
A Ray of Hope
Even if you do not believe any of this, or choose to ignore it, you may ask, how do I find hope, if I truly believe in all this? I have cast aside hope in religion, hope in our leaders and our civilisation, and hope in our future. What is left?
First of all, the "Power of Now" teaches acceptances of every moment, no matter how bad, and while you cannot be happy that the world ends (that would be insane), you can be at peace with it. And this is how I feel.
But there is some hope left, and much work to do. If there is a new world to be build on the other side, I want to be there to help lay the foundation. I have a hope that there will be leaders worth following in this future, leaders who will listen, knowing the errors of our past. We won't all make it through this, many won't want to, they'll find themselves unable to deal with the loss of all they knew.
Even in the far future, when the Earth is uninhabitable, an advanced enough civilisation could move on. The huge moon of Saturn, Titan, is basically a slightly smaller version of the Earth, just "in the freezer". Once the Sun expands it girth and destroys the Earth, a highly advanced technological civilisation could make its life on Titan for a billion years after.
So I see it as a duty to be there for this second chance, if we are given it, and work hard to take advantage of it, for it will certainly be our last. Everyone who makes it will share one responsibility above all: To make sure that the people who are in power today, will never come to power again, and have the opportunity to repeat their mistakes.
A Consolation?
Is there any consolation in this grim scenario? Not much. We can hope that the people in power will wake up in time, that their hands will not remain tied by the religion called capitalism that has put us at war with our own planet. A war we cannot hope to win.
Sadly, even if we go beyond that, our eventual fate is sealed, as is that of the universe, as latest research combining Information Theory with Quantum Mechanics has shown. For this read "Decoding the Universe by Michael Seife", but that is a topic for another day...
