An understanding of what we face re social collapse due to climate change in 30 more generations, not now, but in 500 years.....can lead to personal reflection, grieving, transformation and new grounds for action, rather than despair and apathy.
Some of the questions I’ve been posing to myself the past ten years are:
- What do I mean by social collapse? Human caused global warming.
- When will that come? Not for another 500 years, 30 generations from now.
- What should I do in my community?
- Talk about these issues. Write cli-fi novels and produce cli-fi movies.
- Am I counter-productively implying we should give up trying to fight climate change since the major impact events won't happen for 500 more years?
- No no no. Fight fight fight.
- Is my point of view the same as the “survivalist” or “doomer” perspective?
No, it is not. I am not a prepper or a survivalist or doomer.
- Are there spiritual or New Age implications to my perspective?
- That's up to you to explore. I am an atheist, and I believe there is no god or gods and that religion is based on superstions and folk myths. It is of no use to me.
- Am I you a credible and ethical person?
- Sure am!
- What can we do to explore these topics further over the next 500 years? Read below:
In answering such questions, I want to say that I am not an expert but I am sure we as a humanity face an inevitable social collapse in 30 generations from now.
What do I mean by social collapse?
By the term “social collapse” I mean to imply an uneven ending of normal modes of sustenance, security, pleasure, identity, meaning, and hope in 500 years. 30 generations from now.
When will these events come?
In 500 years, around the year 2500 A.D. (anno destructus), some 30 generations from now.
So we need to start thinking now about how our descendants on Earth some 500 years from now can find ways to respond at such a time with bold and imaginative compassion.
We will not see social collapse happening in the West in 5 or 10 years. We need to think long term and not go in for what false prophets say now about the End coming in ten years or 2-3 decades at most. No, we are safe for another 30 generations. But we need to start planning for our descendants and teach them with guide books and novels and movies so that they will be prepred for the Climapocalypse in 2500 A.D. (Anno Destructus)
As a thought experiment, as someone in my early 70s, I am now exploring what a 500-year window will look like. No matter what age you are, you should be exploring these ideas, too.
What should cultural and literary gatekeeprs now do?
They should promote the publication and release of cli-fi novels and movies to explore all this in emotional terms the way art and literature can.
- What do I mean by social collapse? Human caused global warming.
- When will that come? Not for another 500 years, 30 generations from now.
- What should I do in my community?
- Talk about these issues. Write cli-fi novels and produce cli-fi movies.
- Am I counter-productively implying we should give up trying to fight climate change since the major impact events won't happen for 500 more years?
- No no no. Fight fight fight.
- Is my point of view the same as the “survivalist” or “doomer” perspective?
6 comments:
What's the basis, approximately, for 500 years rather than, say, a 50-90 years timeline?
Interesting speculation, but I also wonder where you get the '500 year'
estimate. Feedback loops are very hard to predict. Odds are just as high we
deal with climate disaster within 100-200 years, as that 500 number.
So please share if you have some scientific basis for your projection.
There are several factors to take into consideration as well: Acidificaton of the oceans
will result in massive sea life die-off and a planetary shift could well come from
arctic and antarctic ice meltdown which could lead to any number of huge climate shift scenarios including war over resources, like food and water.
Pure generous guess, based on what I read. Some say 1000 years, others 5000. I put it as 500 merely as a window to consider. But my feeling, just personal, is that too many westerners are saying we have only ten years left. 100 years. I just want to be generous so as to give people a chance to relax and then fight fight fight. But I cannot see the future. I can only feel it. 50o years is what I feel. James Lovelace has influenced my thinking in this.
George and Jean-Louis, I am no expert and just feeling my way through this. I am not using science for my vision. You both May very well be right, too.
Ah, ok. I find your rationale interesting because I have been thinking that the prospect of absolute doom hasn't been doing much to motivate people w.r.t. climate change. We may need to hold out the prospect of at least limited survival in the long run to give people, hmmm, a sort of "fallback hope", so that they're willing to fight for improvement. Even though we may go through peak oil, massive agricultural declines (weakened bees, subtropical droughts and desertification, etc.), sea life extinctions, and sea level rise, there will still remain vast swathes of the planet where life may be able to go on. (I've also seen some recent claims that, coal aside, there aren't enough fossil fuels left to produce steady CO2 increases down to the 22nd century, but I've got to look into those.)
Good topic Dan, thanks for posting. I like your CliFi thread on Facebook as well.
My thinking is that unless we commit to huge development of renewables, like wind, solar, wave power, geothermal... many countries will revert to the dirtiest and cheapest of all, coal. There are gigantic coal reserves remaining in North America, Australia, Asia, any many believe some of the biggest untapped coal basins are in Africa. I lean toward the expectation that sea level rise, climate shifts, such as extreme drought will result in some rather large forced migrations during my grandchildrens' lifetimes, and displacement of large populations creates a lot of problems. Just ask the folks in the northern Sahara and Syria. As George said above the big unknown is the feedback loop. Once all that methane locked in ice gets loose, all bets are off. Can we say gigantic monster hurricanes even within the next 50 years? I believe we can.
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