This is the first of five posts; the others follow on with some ideas about where we (i.e. the human race – nothing small about this!) are heading.
Some thoughts on the state of the world
It’s possible to get quite depressed about the state of the world and it’s prospects, if you let it get to you, although I recognise that’s pretty stupid as there’s nothing I – or any individual – can do about it. Nevertheless, although undoubtedly an exercise in futility, I thought it might be interesting to try to imagine how things might be fixed – or at least how they might be stabilised. (You have to be seriously unwise to venture into this kind of futurism, but people take the junk associated with Nostradamus seriously, so what the hell!) Unfortunately, the first step in this process has to be an assessment of where we are now, which is a recipe for getting depressed, but let’s proceed.
I’ll start with the fairly basic question of whether we’re likely to live in peace or get obliterated by war. There has been no war that has directly affected the populations of the developed western countries[1] since World War II; whole generations have grown up with the idea that peace is normal and material prosperity is all that matters, that this is how things are, and will remain. In fact there has never been complete peace in the world; in recent times there have been wars in Korea, in Vietnam, between Britain and Argentina, between the Israelis and Arabs, in Iraq (twice), ugly conflicts in the Balkans, as well as civil wars and upheavals in various African (e.g. the Congo, Sudan, Sierra Leone), South American and Asian countries, and of course the long-running war in Afghanistan. (The United Nations recognised 49 major conflicts around the world in the 1990s, in which more than four million people died.)
Anyone who is at all aware of what’s going on in the world as a whole will know about all those disturbances, but for most people they’re not events that impinge on them in any direct way. Of course there have been a few terrorist attacks (the so-called 9/11 attack on the twin towers in New York, bombs on trains in Madrid and London, a few smaller bombs here and there) but, although these generate a great deal of fuss and hand-wringing, they directly affect only a very small proportion of the population. So peace seems to be a permanent state of affairs in our societies and we are able, generally, to ignore violent conflicts that don’t affect us directly and go our merry way, with ever increasing standards of living and ever more focus on our own comfort and individual satisfaction.
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| Sunset in the Pacific - conventional peaceful scene but it doesn't reflect human behaviour |
Western societies have also got used to the idea that continual economic growth is normal and can be expected to continue. In general we’re convinced that the world is driven by economics and that economics provide the ultimate measure of all values and a valid basis for most decisions. We’re obsessed with the price fluctuations on the stock exchanges, with short-term economic growth (measured by GDP - an irrational parameter that distorts assessment of the real well-being of people), with demand for and consumption of goods and services, with the housing market, balance of trade, incomes and jobs, and so on and on.
But we have to ask whether our modern system of global trade and economics is rock solid stable. The market crash and financial crisis of late 2008 suggest that it’s not and, for reasons I’ll outline further on, there has to be a very high probability of future hiccups that will de-rail the whole edifice, with unforeseeable results. (For starters, just think about the fact that China owns a huge amount of the escalating debt of the United States: trillions of dollars. Now imagine China and the US getting into a serious argument!)
The way we in the ‘west’ have been living in the last 100 years (particularly the last 50) has resulted in the utilization of more than half the (known and suspected) oil reserves of the earth, so we are in the era of peak oil; from now on the fossil fuel that drives our societies will become increasingly scarce and expensive. That obviously has huge economic implications. And in the course of using the oil we have pumped into the atmosphere vast quantities of CO2 and other gases that trap the long-wave radiation emitted by the earth, so that temperatures must gradually rise. Burning huge quantities of coal – which is not going to run out – contributes substantially to this. We have also destroyed – and continue to destroy – wonderful ecosystems, and we have degraded vast tracts of land, where soil fertility is declining because of the agricultural practices we have used and continue to follow. This has implications for food production.
A very big problem that’s going to affect our prospects of living in peace, of stable economic systems and of energy supplies, is human population growth. Our numbers are exploding! The actual and projected numbers of humans don’t matter all that much – they are big numbers: about 6.5 billion (six and a half thousand million) alive now, expected to reach more than 9 billion in mid-century. A great many of these people live in the mega-cities round the world (Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Bombay (Mumbai), New York City….) with their traffic congestion, pollution and slums. I think big cities are truly horrible places, but I have been privileged to spend most of my life with lots of space around me, away from high concentrations of people and seething traffic. Most of the millions (billions?) of people who live in big cities have never known anything else and don’t know what it would be like to live more relaxed and pleasant lives – a sad reflection on the present state of the human race, but there’s nothing that can be done about that.
Not only do these multitudes of people have to be fed but, increasingly, a high proportion of them aspires to the standards of living and eating enjoyed by those in the profligate and privileged ‘west’. Well, those aspirations aren’t going to be fulfilled. There are already food shortages in the world, ameliorated in desperate areas by food aid shipped in at considerable expense from areas of plenty, with the expenditure of yet more fossil fuel, but the supply and transport of this food depends on donations, which don’t keep pace with needs. Countries that have to buy food – which includes most north African and Middle Eastern countries – are finding that prices are going up. This is already contributing to social instability, and people keep reproducing enthusiastically so the problem keeps getting worse.
[1] By ‘western’ societies I mean those of the so-called western countries: Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Many - in fact most – other countries are (to varying degrees) highly westernised, in the sense that they contain modern institutions that are apparently consistent with western practice and materialist approaches. The differences lie in the assumptions about basic philosophy and approach to government that underlie their political and social systems.
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