This is the first of two entries. How long it will
take me to write the second... I do not know. This first
will be a black comedy of what I feel we can expect on earth
through 2050. It's grim. But I'm writing it to set a tone
for my second installment. I believe we're doomed by our
momentum. I've felt like this for a while now and I'm only
recently forming my response to a done deal. Take my
despair. It is a gift I offer you with the kindest of
intentions. It is perhaps a tired and worn thing but I will
return soon with another post - to polish it, and make it
something you may very well come to cherish. Until then.
There is a flood coming. Not an actual flood aside
from the kind we get normally during the Spring Thaw around
these parts. And not the Biblical (ne Sumerian) kind
involved with the retribution of some unhappy Omnipotent in
the sky - though this is closer to the truth. The coming
deluge and it's aftermath will be the direct result of
capitalism. A hard rain is gonna fall.
I'm not the first, or the smartest, or the most
eloquent to speak these things but they are still fringe
opinions and it's entirely likely I'm the first person
you've seen talking this way. Such uniqueness makes me a
prophet and I knowingly assume the mantle of incredulity,
ridicule, and hostility that entails.
First and foremost, the earth as we know it is
already dead. The Water Wars and Famines have begun. They are
relegated to the least stable and prosperous parts of the
globe thus far so we'll not really notice them in the 'first
world' just yet. You'll have to dig a bit to find the short
piece (maybe just an op-ed) toward the bottom of your
mainstream news site of choice. You might also be able to
measure the slight bump to inflation in your rock-solid
currency or the barest slowing of the markets. But these are
still below the background noise levels in the Winter of
2020 and won't be pinned with certainty on the Apocalypse
just yet. Wait for it.
Welcome to 2030. At the centers of our empires we
continue to consume unabated. Our cars are electric, The
iPhone XXIV generates its power from body heat and our
shopping sacks are cloth. Technology, one might think, has
saved us. The captains of industry have leveraged the smarts
of the lab coats and we can proceed business as usual. A
neo-liberal utopia. Brave future.
Welcome to 2030. Only somehow we never sprung back
from the small recession of 2024. Inflation, while not
running away, isn't really stable. Food production in China
and Argentina has fallen by double digits for four years in
a row. And an already stretched W.H.O has just begun a major
operation in Finland where melting permafrost has awakened a
virus common among deer in the Pleistocene. It began
infecting herds of reindeer in 2028 and has now made the
jump to humans. It has so-far proven uncontainable.
Welcome to 2040. The permanent Mars colony just
celebrated it's fifth anniversary and the first birth of a
Martian. Jenna Glick weighed in at twelve kilos. Small by
earth standards, but to be expected there. This comes as
good news to the ESA who has begun hearings to scale back
funding for the project under pressure from cash-strapped
governments. A terrorist group in California calling itself
"Water for Drinking" has begun disrupting service to area
almond farms. Globally, large swaths of densely populated
coastline are being abandoned adding to the numbers of
persons already dispossessed by the side-effects of local
temperature and precipitation fluctuations. UN estimates are
that the total number of persons displaced environmental
refugees now totals one billion persons.
Welcome to 2050. On April 18th of this year the
Associated Press printed the obituary of Greta Thunburg who
died from an attack of asthma exacerbated by particulate
pollutants. By the end of this decade, global population
will plateau as still births, deaths from untreatable
infection and decreasing life expectancies catch up to a
declining birthrate. Every government still in existence has
instituted some form of rationing of essential goods and
services. In the eastern US there is ample electricity and
ample petroleum products, but little to cook. What call
there is for clothing and housewares is now answered
regionally. Organized religion is booming and the Mars
Colony has been abandoned.
