Why we are all doomed.

And collapse will occur; there is no avoiding it now I fear. The reason is simple mathematics. We have 6.5 billion people in the world today. About one quarter of the world's population currently live in absolute poverty (on less than US$1 a day). Half the world's people are living in poverty (on less than US$2 a day). [Poverty Facts] This leaves around half of the world's population living on more than US$2 a day. [World Poverty Map] Of these maybe half have a standard of living that we consider acceptable in the western world.  (Clean drinking water on tap, good housing, education and health care, freedom to travel, not to mention all our consumer needs such as cars, computers, packaged foods, electronics, etc.) The problem is that for this quarter of the world to live such a lifestyle, what we think of as an average middle-class lifestyle, nothing special, we are using up more than 100% of the earths renewable resources. [20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world's goods] It is estimated that we exceeded the world's sustainable limits some time in the late 1980?s and we have been living more and more in the red ever since.

Also add to the equation that the world?s population is set to reach 10 billion within 50 years [at current growth rates of 75 million a year], and the majority of the addition 3+ billion people will be added to developing nations.

So while the richest quarter of the world's population are using up resources faster than they can be replaced, the poorest three quarters are, not unreasonably, wishing to move towards the same standard of living. Look at China and India to see this is fact. (That's over 2.4 billion people just there.) If we are already using the earth's resources beyond a sustainable level, then imagine the damage we will inflict trying to give an additional 8 billion people the same standard of living. It's simply not possible. To be sustainable in the future, the world's richest quater would need to substantially reduce our standard of living to share around the resources with the developing world, and I don't believe that is going to happen. Are you prepared to reduce your consumption of everything by at least three quarters - starting tomorrow?

'Inequalities in consumption are stark. Globally, the 20% of the world's people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures - the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%. More specifically, the richest fifth:

Consume 45% of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5%

Consume 58% of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4%

Have 74% of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5%

Consume 84% of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1%

Own 87% of the world's vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1%?

[http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Consumption.asp]

Why is it impossible? Because thousands of years of genetic programming have hardwired our brains (and therefore all our political, social and economic systems) to compete, to dominate and control others, for our own advancement. I believe that this programming is so ingrained that there is no way we can 'evolve' in time to a model of sharing instead of competing. Our economic systems are so driven towards excessive consumerism that actually reducing our consumption simply does not compute. For the system to work there must be 'growth' - more manufacturing, more selling, more consuming. Every year corporations must generate a greater return. It's a self-consuming spiral that we do not have the will power to escape.

[World Poverty]

We are clever though, and we are using technology and manipulative political and financial systems to artificially extend our capacity to exploit the earth's resources. We steal resources from the developing world, and from future generations (by permanently depleting these resources) to extend ourselves beyond the worlds natural carrying capacity. But like the proverbial rubber band, it can only stretch so far before it breaks, and once it's broke no amount of cleverness will repair it.

And this is I think the clinching reason why we are doomed: Human nature, programmed for competition, greedy for a (mostly unnecessary) luxury lifestyle, will not be able to make the evolutionary leap from 'competition' to 'cooperation', in the timeframe required to prevent the catastrophic environmental collapse that our unnatural technological and social/financial systems are currently delaying, but cannot ultimately prevent.

'Oh we will change when it gets really bad' I hear you say. Yes, maybe, but by then it will be too late to undo the damage. Proof that we won't change in time lies with Greenhouse gases. We have had more than 20 years of evidence that things were going wrong, and yet we have done virtually nothing to reverse the problem. We are barely retarding the rate of destruction, let alone reversing it!

So where are we heading? Well one thing I think we can be assured of is that we will try to solve this problem the same way we solve every other problem - by competing. Once upon a time we competed to be the first to exploit a natural resource. In the future we will compete to exploit the dwindling remains of those resources. Globalisation is the outcome of this competition. The definition of 'Globalisation' should be 'the most effective exploitation of worldwide natural and human resources to obtain financial gain for a few.'  In the last few years we have seen this manifest in 'Free Trade' agreements, which are a misnomer, and are in fact purely designed to strengthen the position of the economically strong and make the exploitation legally binding. (Up till now they have exploited by conning the developing world, but now they are waking up to the ruse.) [No trade justice] [Ripping off the poor]

Large corporations will continue to compete ruthlessly until economic domination alone is not enough, and physical force is required. War over resources is inevitable. It will be disguised behind ideology, and it will be the final nail in the coffin for the 'cooperation model'. We have of course already witnessed this in Iraq, but the real danger will be when the conflict comes between two equal powers. Even then I still think that common sense may prevail, and we will hopefully avoid another (final?) World War, but in the mean time we will be distracted from the real disaster, that of environmental collapse, so in the end it won?t really make any difference.

Governments will continue to write white papers on the problems, and hold summits, and assure the fortunate quarter that they are working on the solution. But, based on every summit held to date, nothing of any substance will actually be done. (Cynical maybe, but unfortunately true.) The unfortunate three quarters will continue to struggle and suffer, and grow increasingly desperate. Corporations (and the small elite group that control them) will continue to amass a staggering financial power base. [51 percent of the world's 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations. A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world's poorest 2.5 billion people. In other words, about 0.13% of the world?s population controlled 25% of the world's assets in 2004. - Poverty Facts] Corporations will continue to usurp power from so-called 'democratic' governments, just as the do now. The world's weather systems will continue to dramatically alter. The cost of everything will rise sharply, and availability will dwindle. There will be an increase in piracy, civil war and corruption. People in the third world will not only start to starve to death, but also of thirst, as the worlds supply of drinking water dwindles. [A mere 12 percent of the world's population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World - Poverty Facts] Civil wars will spill over and draw in neighbouring countries.

So conflict is inevitable, which while it is actually economically quite advantageous (as long as you are not the looser), it will bring tremendous suffering to many millions. Suffering for the worlds unfortunate three quarters goes without saying. Suffering will simply extend to 95% of the fortunate as well. Only the most successful competitors will have resources to live in comfort (that super-rich 0.13%), but when the underlying social structures collapse they will of course go down as well. Environmental collapse will trigger the inevitable conflicts that will reduce us to a tribal society or worse. Billions will perish and much of the world will be reduced to wastelands. The outcome might no be so bad, but the suffering to get there is not something I want to witness, yet it may happen in my lifetime.

And a quick word for those that think we will all just fly off to another planet when the crunch comes, think about this. If we can't maintain a fully functional working planet, perfectly evolved for our specific needs, how the hell are we going to build one from scratch? Absurdity! We are not going anywhere in the next 100 years, and I estimate that collapse will occur sooner then that, possibly as early as 2050.

So enjoy the next few years. We will look back longingly to this time and remember when the world was an amazing place to live, and lament the bounty we have squandered, the home we have destroyed.

C2006 Scott Hamilton
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