A Troubled Future?
From this piece by CBS News:
More frequent and intense global challenges — in the form of disease outbreaks, financial crises, or the negative effects of climate change or new technologies — are likely to stress already brittle systems of government and international organizations over the next two decades, according to a comprehensive forecast compiled by U.S. intelligence officials and released on Thursday.
It also says the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may have already accelerated some negative trends, including nationalist sentiment and skepticism of international institutions, while stalling incipient progress in poverty reduction and gender inequality.
“COVID-19 has shaken long-held assumptions about resilience and adaptation and created new uncertainties about the economy, governance, geopolitics, and technology,” the assessment states.
The “Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World” report — the latest iteration of an unclassified product issued every four years by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) — lays out for policymakers and the public what it says is “an array of possible futures” by 2040.
The 156-page document is meant to serve as an “assessment of the forces and dynamics” that the NIC, which provides long-term strategic analysis to the Director of National Intelligence, believes will shape the international security environment in years to come. It is the product of broad consultations with experts, academics and international groups, as well as officials from multiple U.S. intelligence agencies.
It’s hard to imagine how this could not be the case, based on climate change alone. What happens when super-storms, wildfires, droughts, sea-level rise and heat waves cause food shortages and render vast land masses uninhabitable? (How many times are we going to rebuild Puero Rico before we throw in the towel?) Well, at a minimum, this means greater contention over what’s left. Among its many horrific consequences, this fuels racism, nationalism, and fascism, because people are growing angry, and terrified that there won’t be enough resources to go around.
What happens if (and it’s very likely) that we learn that COVID-19 is the first of an indefinite number of pandemics that continue to ravage the world economy? The standard of living for everyone except the super-rich goes down, resulting in even more tension between the people of the world.
Those are two reasons that our civilization needs to learn to cooperate, and address these issues as a unified whole. Yet, as we’ve noted before, there is no precedent for this in human history, and current trends suggest that we’re being pulled further apart, not drawing closer together.
At the same time, there are more than 200,000 groups around the world working feverishly, even as you read these words, to promote environmental and social justice.
It’s quite the battle.
