Looking to the Future

In continuing to think about the looming crisis of environmental changes that James Lovelock describes and what we can do, I think there are some positive possibilities. It is possible that in the next decade or two the national systems we have in place will collapse. They are based on a disappearing energy resource (oil) and on agriculture and global trade. Between the ending of the petrolium age and the drastic changes in environmental conditions, the economies underpinning the existance of this civilization will collapse. Though this could be a horrible disaster resulting in a return to brutal barbarism and feudalism, there are alternatives.

Nature shows that what survives is that which adapts and we humans have proven to be adaptable. The reality is that we have become globally interdependent. In the new reality of a hotter world, some areas, many areas, will be unlivable due to water shortages and failed agriculture. If we are to avoid wars over resourses, famines and mass death, we will have to move from this system of profit based competition which will collapse at any rate taking many with it, to a global system of humanity based cooperation.

Only by moving to a global system of cooperation can we survive. This will be the challenge of the coming years. Beneath the juggernaut that is our present system of global capitalism and competing nations there already exists the civilization that will relpace it. It can be seen at the World Social Forum as well as in organized world protests for peace and environmental actions. The internet has allowed global communication of people and we constitute a power above and beyond the fragile crust of a brutal ruling class whose power rests on delusion that will crumble due to a changing reality. We have already been called "The Other Superpower" and though we do not have armies, we are a nation without borders and that's what it will take to survive. It is up to us to be prepared to take control of our regional resources and to build that global cooperative from the ashes of what got us here.