saw some random post, which I cannot now find, for which this seemed relevant, so here goes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am now 61. In my youth I was convinced the world would end very soon, mostly via nuclear war, with variations including ice ages, epidemics and so on. As I moved into my late 20s and 30s, built a sort of career, married and started a family, my attitude began to change. A simple survival mechanism I suspect, which I observe in my own children - a complete loss of interest in dystopian futures (because if thats what you beleive, why have babies, buy a home, plan for a future that will never happen) - which arguably is the problem for the doomsayers (mostly green) - the average Joe or Josephina cannot cope with staring into the abyss and trying to live a life. Fine as a feckless teenager or early twenty something singleton, no use to young marrieds looking for a decent school for their infants. Now, I am no longer responsible. My children have flown the nest. My wives have disposed of me. I have learned how to live on very little, and to enjoy each day as it comes. I am truly one of the lucky ones. But from the perspective of 60-odd years I can see how much poorer my world has become, how an entire country which was once nothing but jungle, rubber trees and a few scattered kampongs and small towns has turned into a giant housing estate with oil-palm plantations (Malaysia), in fourty years. And I know this is happening all over the world. This is not a gradual change on any timescale apart from the busy day-to-day humans, this is planet wide change happening in a real sense almost instantaneously. So it turns out my teenage nightmares were not nightmares at all, but a reality. I still tell myself that in all ages old(er) men and women have felt this way about the world (for precisely the same reason as I feel this way, because we really do remember what it used to be like) but the fact remains that the pace of change that we have experienced is several orders of magnitude greater than anything prior to 1800. And were still breeding like rabbits, and were not, yet, dying like flies. So, I think, quite dispassionately, that we are heading off the cliff. No great matter to me, but I feel for my children and their children. I tried to write a book that told this story with a happy ending. I believe there can be one, but that there will be a great deal of pain before we reach that point. I believe that there is a genuine qualitative difference between the world problem Malthus described, and where we are now. He saw the problem but didnt understand the timescale, or the impact of technology and plentiful cheap energy. We neither see the problem or understand the timescale.
Posted on: Mon, 26 May 2014 17:53:58 +0000
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