In 1995 I saw a vision of a series of very large catastrophes which were designed to wipe humanity of the face of the Earth – except if we were able to survive somehow. A kind of a test of our abilities as able and adaptable creatures. First a great economic crash, huge social unrest, a nuclear war, a great flood, then runaway climate change, an asteroid strike and earthquakes. And a safe city designed to save us, all in one long vision. It has always been my belief that it takes a series of events to kill off a major species. We are currently in the sixth major extinction event, created in large part by our effect on our planet. Habitat loss and pollution are pushing thousands of species of mammal, plant, fish, bird and insect into extinction, at times before we've even discovered them.
As we push the boundaries of what we can do this planet we must assess not only how we can cut carbon emissions and clean up pollution, but also how we might survive any or all of these potential disasters. Social unrest largely comes about via economic difficulties, and our economies are fragile. Much more fragile than our leaders like to admit. Any of the major disasters listed above could trigger a major recession or even collapse. Modern capitalism is prone to reacting to major events negatively.
War on the other hand requires unstable regimes attacking other sovereign states. And in a globalised economy, all the major players have their destinies linked to each other. China relies on the West to fuel its resurgent economic rise to power. And the West relies on China to supply its goods and its credit. However, despite the signs of recovery, the recovery is still heavily reliant on debt. Debt is supplying demand for goods and services, just like it did before. Real economic growth is missing from our current recovery. And debt will again spill over into economic crisis. How big it is depends of the cumulative effect of debt, credit crash, recovery and debt again, with each recession and debt build up adding to the previous one – the only factor being confidence.
Asteroids, earthquakes, runaway climate change and so on are all in the longer term with time scales being centuries maybe even millennia. Even though each of these events would have an impact, on their own it is unlikely to push mankind to extinction. Put them together in a chain, maybe it could?
My vision does not get weaker and less relevant over time, as you would expect after almost 20 years since I saw it. In fact the threats become more real, the acceptance of threat is moving from fringe science, as it was in 1995, to mainstream science, to political will to public fear of disaster. The next stage is to prepare the economy for major shocks, which may involve scrapping or controlling stock and commodities markets. Then the buildings and infrastructure, disaster preparedness, as we have seen in recent examples, including the storm that hit the East coast of India, where millions of people were evacuated and lives saved, to early tsunami warnings and a shift in power generation from nuclear to safer systems. The world is moving towards better infrastructure and planning in preparation for large disasters. But is it enough?
Read more at: http://www.hopeandfury.com
As we push the boundaries of what we can do this planet we must assess not only how we can cut carbon emissions and clean up pollution, but also how we might survive any or all of these potential disasters. Social unrest largely comes about via economic difficulties, and our economies are fragile. Much more fragile than our leaders like to admit. Any of the major disasters listed above could trigger a major recession or even collapse. Modern capitalism is prone to reacting to major events negatively.
War on the other hand requires unstable regimes attacking other sovereign states. And in a globalised economy, all the major players have their destinies linked to each other. China relies on the West to fuel its resurgent economic rise to power. And the West relies on China to supply its goods and its credit. However, despite the signs of recovery, the recovery is still heavily reliant on debt. Debt is supplying demand for goods and services, just like it did before. Real economic growth is missing from our current recovery. And debt will again spill over into economic crisis. How big it is depends of the cumulative effect of debt, credit crash, recovery and debt again, with each recession and debt build up adding to the previous one – the only factor being confidence.
Asteroids, earthquakes, runaway climate change and so on are all in the longer term with time scales being centuries maybe even millennia. Even though each of these events would have an impact, on their own it is unlikely to push mankind to extinction. Put them together in a chain, maybe it could?
My vision does not get weaker and less relevant over time, as you would expect after almost 20 years since I saw it. In fact the threats become more real, the acceptance of threat is moving from fringe science, as it was in 1995, to mainstream science, to political will to public fear of disaster. The next stage is to prepare the economy for major shocks, which may involve scrapping or controlling stock and commodities markets. Then the buildings and infrastructure, disaster preparedness, as we have seen in recent examples, including the storm that hit the East coast of India, where millions of people were evacuated and lives saved, to early tsunami warnings and a shift in power generation from nuclear to safer systems. The world is moving towards better infrastructure and planning in preparation for large disasters. But is it enough?
Read more at: http://www.hopeandfury.com
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