I’m not writing this to depress anyone or to suggest hopelessness. To the contrary, I believe the attaining of knowledge and an ability to see the forest for the trees, so to speak, offers us the opportunity to prepare our minds, hearts, and support systems for what’s likely to come. What we find when we zoom out and absorb the entire picture is a totality of circumstances that is pleading with us to recognize it fully. It’s clear by simple analysis of the facts that anyone who chooses to ignore these pleas or fails to hear them will find themselves in real peril in the very near future. This is what our circumstances promises us, most likely in the near term.
I’m not solely talking about climate change, abrupt or otherwise, though I will discuss it. I’m not talking solely about financial/economic catastrophe, though I will discuss it. I’m not talking about the threat of war, or civil unrest, or agricultural collapse and famine, or water shortage, or sea level rise, or rising fascism and nationalism, or terrorism, or cyber-attack, or earth/population overshoot and natural resource depletion, or pestilence, or grid failure, or mass extinction and ecological collapse, or some unforeseen and catastrophic natural disaster. Each one of these, alone, could - easily and feasibly – mean the end of modern civilization as we know it. Each one of these, by themselves, represent very real and very present threats to the entire planet and/or to civilization as a whole. Taken all of these things together, it becomes much easier to discern the bigger picture and precisely why we should pay attention to it.
I’ll be doing this in parts, as it seems like quite a lot to tackle in one post. I’ll try to do everything I can to source each of the threats in question with reputable materials. Please don’t take any one thing as the issue. All of what I will be discussing is the issue – they all affect one another. Many will directly lead to others, like falling dominos, it will be inevitable. Again, this is not to depress, but to empower. I implore you to see the bigger picture, "the forest for the trees."
The Fragility of “Developed” Civilization (Part Two)
Continuing with the theme of the fragility of “developed” civilization is the total absurdity of the basis of its economic structuring as a whole – eternal growth. The total land surface area of our planet is about 57.3 million square miles , 24.6 million of which is currently habitable (…and holding a population of 7.5 billion human beings on those rapidly shrinking habitable sections, but I digress.) These numbers, seem to me, to be finite. So, how is it that a system, based on a model of infinite resourcing of our finite planet, can be considered in any way, shape, or form – viable? Logic would follow that it isn’t viable. If it’s not viable, by reasonable deduction – it would be inherently unsustainable, unstable, and destined to fail, would it not?
There are a few facts that cannot be argued. I was born and I will die. You were born and will also die. Our planet has not existed forever and will not exist forever in its current state. Our planet is the only planet in this solar system within the “habitable” zone, though it lies near its hot edges, our atmosphere has been able to shield humanity from the heat of our supporting star fairly efficiently. We are now performing a dangerous game of chicken with that atmospheric protection. Our planet is also the only planet which we know of within reach that can support us and life overall. Our planet has limited space. Our planet has limited fresh water. Our planet contains limited natural resources. Our planet is able to sustain life due to a delicate balance of all its resources, organic and inanimate. That is inarguable. That is fact.
Every resource we extract, burn, exploit – changes the delicate balance on our planet. Every drop, every ounce of resource we mine, siphon, bleed, squeeze from our planet and then burn or otherwise exploit – brings us that much closer to that resource no longer existing. Don’t get me wrong, many of these resources will be replenished – several thousand, million, or billion years in the future, depending on what that resource is. However, those resources won’t be here anymore supporting humans. Earth’s systems simply cannot keep up with our exploitation. We are chewing off the very limb on which we stand. Our “developed” civilization is built on Earth’s finite resources. Those resources will run out and our current system of supporting ourselves will fail. These are all facts that aren’t going away, they’re becoming much more tangible and undeniable.
I mentioned that many of the situations we face are extremely interconnected and this is very much an example of that. As the resources deplete, prices will rise. This will strain the scantily build economies of the world, which are supported by insolvent monopoly money, whose only value is based purely the faith of the public, which will be quickly evaporating along with the resources on which we depend. This is already starting.
Water is becoming more difficult to reach, if not completely running out in India, Australia, in the aquifers that support agriculture in the US, just to name a few. We are employing more and more expensive means to extract nearly every last natural resource we can get our hands on, because we’ve exhausted all ones that were easy to get to. It’s not going to be long before these depletions begin to affect the worlds economies. Again, all these fragile systems are connected and interdependent as are we if we choose to blindly rely on them being unwavering. They are not.
*I will be coming out with the next post in this series shortly. Be well and peace!
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