The View from the Peak
(Note: Tomorrow I should finally get around to finishing and posting the next installment of my series. Tonight this is a rumination upon the current situation of the world.)
History may well look back upon 2006 and 2007 as the final days of civilization as we know it. Things are changing, and that change may soon accelerate. The signs are everywhere: in decaying infrastructure, wars over oil, falling currencies and teetering economies, and in changing climates. You can see them if you look, and feel them in your bones.
I have always wondered what the folks living in the last days of Ancient Rome felt like. Now I think I know. We stand at the edge of a precipice and will soon go over, like it or not. Rome did not fall in a day, and neither will global predatory capitalism –but it will feel like it, and somewhere in an as yet unimagined future history teachers may cover our time in less than a day.
Or perhaps not, depending on how we choose. We stand at the most momentous crossroads of human history. There are so many converging catastrophes right now, the wonder will be if we don’t plunge into yet another Dark Ages. Peak Oil is here. Like it or not, we face the downslope of Hubbert’s Curve. The question before us now is how steep the slope will be. Climate change is also here. One-third of the world will become desert in my lifetime. Half the population of the entire planet will die of thirst or drown as sea levels rise. Many will starve to death as crop yields collapse. The world’s economies are on the verge of a major depression.
My only hope as we head into the future is that we will come through on the other side, and discover something far better than what we have now: a world and a society worth living in. This is my hope and my prayer as we enter into yet another new year.
Many folks are out celebrating tonight. I am home, quietly nursing a beer and trying to decide whether I should mourn the past or toast the future.
Bottoms up.
History may well look back upon 2006 and 2007 as the final days of civilization as we know it. Things are changing, and that change may soon accelerate. The signs are everywhere: in decaying infrastructure, wars over oil, falling currencies and teetering economies, and in changing climates. You can see them if you look, and feel them in your bones.
I have always wondered what the folks living in the last days of Ancient Rome felt like. Now I think I know. We stand at the edge of a precipice and will soon go over, like it or not. Rome did not fall in a day, and neither will global predatory capitalism –but it will feel like it, and somewhere in an as yet unimagined future history teachers may cover our time in less than a day.
Or perhaps not, depending on how we choose. We stand at the most momentous crossroads of human history. There are so many converging catastrophes right now, the wonder will be if we don’t plunge into yet another Dark Ages. Peak Oil is here. Like it or not, we face the downslope of Hubbert’s Curve. The question before us now is how steep the slope will be. Climate change is also here. One-third of the world will become desert in my lifetime. Half the population of the entire planet will die of thirst or drown as sea levels rise. Many will starve to death as crop yields collapse. The world’s economies are on the verge of a major depression.
My only hope as we head into the future is that we will come through on the other side, and discover something far better than what we have now: a world and a society worth living in. This is my hope and my prayer as we enter into yet another new year.
Many folks are out celebrating tonight. I am home, quietly nursing a beer and trying to decide whether I should mourn the past or toast the future.
Bottoms up.
posted by RAS at 12/31/2006 08:06:00 PM
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