Are We Looking at the End?
Here’s an article in which some of our planet’s top minds predict the unraveling of human civilization sometime between 2040 and 2050, driven largely by the loss of biodiversity and climate change. According to these folks, the only way for our society to survive is not the deployment of technology, but the change in our behavior.
And that doesn’t seem likely, when the last Conference of Parties (to address global warming) was held in a petrostate (Azerbaijan), and was presided over by the CEO of an oil company. Moreover, the next COP will be essentially a reprise of the one that just concluded.
From the article:
In this corner, the biosphere. We’ve spent a solid year higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius; we’re wiping out species at a rate of somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 annually; insect populations are crashing; and we’re losing the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, no matter what we do at this point. Alaskapox (see photo above) has just claimed its first human victim, and there are over 15,000 zoonoses (diseases that can be transmitted to humans from animals) expected to pop up their heads and take a bite out of our asses by the end of the century. And we’re expecting the exhaustion of all arable land around 2050, which is actually kind of moot because studies from institutions as variable as MIT and the University of Melbourne suggest that global civilizational collapse is going to happen starting around 2040 or 2050.
They go on to point out that Darwin told us in 1859 that we thought the human race would not achieve sustainability, and would eventually go the way of all these other species, i.e., extinction.
These people aren’t optimistic, and their viewpoints are not childish, but neither are they set in stone.
Let’s go back that “behavior” thing. It seems perfectly possible that the 8+ billion people on this planet will do what the folks in Norway did, as an example, and simply stopped buying cars that run on gasoline and diesel.
It’s true that the zeitgeist here in the United States is rooted in a staggering level of ignorance and the indifference to the suffering of others, collectively referred to as “MAGA,” but that can fade as quickly as it came into being. The level of absurdity in today’s news could easily, at any moment, cause a watershed event in the American culture, away from the lunacy of 2024. How many alcoholic Fox News hosts can we put in change of things like national defense before we say Enough!
This isn’t over.
At left is a profound thought, but it’s one that the vast majority of Trump supporters can’t relate to. The incoming president’s billionaire friends got rich by exploiting America’s workforce, not by helping the working class achieve its own affluence and pleasant living conditions.
On this one, a reader notes. “I’m pro every form of energy!!”
I’m sure most readers agree with the author of the meme here.
As the story of Brian Thompson, the late CEO of United Health, ripples into and ultimately out of our news cycle, the subject of corporate greed resurfaces once again. It’s clear that this guy’s organization, known for its exuberance in denying healthcare claims, pissed off one too many of its customers with its avarice and lies.
When we see video clips of Greta Thunberg speaking to large audiences during international conferences, she is normally mad as hell. And given the truth shown in the meme here, is there any reason why she shouldn’t be?
I’ll grant that the Albert Einsteins of the world are actually harmed by schooling. Of course they’re bored, but perhaps worse, their capacity to employ their creative genius is thwarted by the authority of the academic status quo.
The author of the meme here suggests: “We’ll revisit this post (about the price of a dozen eggs) in four years.”
I was on a Zoom call the other day with a guy who was defending Fox News on the basis that it’s “for people who want both sides of the story.”
If you think there is a single kid in our schools who’s being taught to hate his country, you are a true moron.
