Well, folks, I guess this is goodbye. Things are looking seriously iffy so I thought I had better get my farewells and adieus bidded before the internet crashes. What the heck am I talking about? Well, it’s tough to know exactly where to start. Here’s a pared-down list:
*Breeding Like Rabbits: in 1960, the population of the world was around three billion people. Today it’s over six billion and growing fast.
*Everything is One: homogenization is hyper-accelerated, due to the interconnectivity of everything. My friend Dan Fast, who lives with natives in remote jungle locations in Peru, told me this past year that he heard a couple of tribesmen arguing about how much RAM they had in their hard drive. Furthermore, when I went on a white-water kayaking trip down the Urubamba river (read: middle of nowhere) waaaay back in ninety-seven, a Machiguenga villager going the other way in a dugout canoe pulled out a disposable camera and took my picture. And one Asian country that had over two thousand varieties of rice fifty years ago is now down to FIVE. It’s a Coca-Cola world, my friends, and masato is a thing of the past.
*The Bakers are Eating all the Pies: Twenty percent of the population of the world is using eighty-five percent of its resources. Somewhere around three billion people are living on two dollars a day or less. “Oh, well, the cost of living is higher here”, you say. Well, yes, I suppose you would say that, you arrogant dink.
*Watch that Thermometer: There is a rapidly growing consensus in the scientific community that global temperatures are increasing at rates unprecedented in the last hundred thousand years. Glaciers worldwide are almost ALL receding, the ocean levels are rising daily, and moisture is becoming quite localized. Deserts are expanding, lakes are shrinking, and people are getting thirsty. Massive brushfires are breaking out in Africa and in the Americas. What is more, the current administration of United States of America staunchly refuses to sign the Kyoto accord, an attempt to reduce greenhouse gasses (of which the U.S. is the greatest producer). It is generally thought that their refusal to do so is predicated on the fact that it would lower their GDP by point-five to two-point-five percent.
*The Microbes Strike Back: Because bananas can go from Costa Rica to England in days, so can any of the myriad of tough diseases that are bouncing around. You think you’re invulnerable to AIDs because you’ve never been to Africa and live in small-town Saskatchewan? What about the trucker who stops by for a cup of coffee and gives your morally licentious Aunt Thelma a meaningful wink? Do you always put on gloves when Aunt Thelma cuts herself in the kitchen? Huh? Do ya?
*Boom: The explosion of global connectivity has proved nearly impossible to regulate. This creates a new kind of economic tyrant who can do whatever he wants, and gives marginalized groups of naughty people (i.e. terrorists of all kinds) opportunities to wreak havoc on a much broader scale - add this to all sorts of freak, destructive new weather patterns, widespread disease, rampant pollution, the decline of ecological diversity, and the fact that when people get hungry enough, they get violent - and you have the recipe for human nitroglycerin.
Doom, doom, doom - Boom! Am I exaggerating? Not about that list of catastrophes, but maybe about the end of the world. It doesn’t have to end like this, you know. We could stop being selfish. We could start putting others before ourselves (or if not that, then at least even with us). We could give up our self-destructive ways and live smaller, humbler, less exciting lives.
Ah, but who am I kidding? That will never happen. I’ll never give up my sweet-action, bright-red 1991 Honda Civic Hatchback and you’ll never give up your fast food fries. I guess I’ll see you on the flip side. Bye.
Got an angry comment? Write to
jlbarkey@hotmail.com.
