Trust
Artists --the true visionaries. They've seen the Mad Max Postman coming,
and written it into modern legend. Ordinary men on the corner, polled on
what they saw coming, answered, ---just for starters---
Global
warming, ozone depletion, even worse in 2005 than last year...algae depletion
in ocean due to toxic seawater, also simultaneous deforestation (both of
these causing a total lack of oxygen, hence our suffocation). They foresaw
the lack of water. By 2025 demand for water will be 50% greater than the
global fresh water supply.
There
was hindisght too, like the 25% loss of global topsoil in the last 50 years,
the pervasive pollution, an exponentially growing human population, 6 billionth
child born and 2 billion of those people dependent on industrially created
nitrogen fertilizers for their food and the soil is fresh out of tilth
having been superfarmed for two centuries so food could get plenty scarse.
Then
they all knew about JOB depletion. The world will have to create 30 million
jobs per year for the next 50 years to employ the growing population and
just isn't doing so as people can't afford the expensive toys being made
and are simply using their old stuff.
Then
there's oil production peaking peaking in about 2005 so we can't drive
cars on gas somewhere mid through the 21st century. Then the loss of ocean
fisheries, also quite imminent. These have been ruthlessly overfished by
those trawling barges with freezer holds, the size of modern cities.
Then
there's the strong number of genocidal civil wars in third world countries
like Timor, Rwanda, Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, where the death squads
kill entire villages, in Timor a third of the population murdered and after
the U.N. soldiers leave, a U.S. supported 'monkey' (called POPULAR SUPPORTED
but 'taint so ) ascends the throne ---seemingly just released from some
dungeon where the former regime had him.
So
OKAY, we have starvation, war, military puppets ---then, the fourth horseman,
the plagues. Mad Cow disease in the meat supply, collapsed immune systems
in modern city dwellers, chronic fatigue requiring Starbucks medication.
A cancer endemic, killer flus, and AIDS, crib death, a generation of oldsters
going with Alzheimers, and babies with leukemia, brain tumors, asthma,
allergies. Then, the AIDS thing, 2 million dead in USA, 20 million infected
with AIDS in Africa, A million children orphaned, (many of them with the
disease). Everywhere in the world, there's a a 20 year drop in life expectancy,
a similar drop in life expectancy in Russia. There are antibiotic resistant
bacterial strains to all kinds of diseases, and this in scarsely 75 years
of using penicillin.
There
is also a huge, expanding underclass in the "advanced" countries, triple
the jail population of other days, a wildly speculative economy on a global
scale with an overvalued stock market bring the world economy to the brink
of a major, planetary depression with endemic joblessness and much of this
aggravated by this whole Y2K business. Like none other, the case of the
two, missing COBOL DIGITS shows us what fragility man has constructed for
himself.
What
we seem to have is a "system" rendered increasing brittle by the elimination
of redundancies in the name of "productivity" and "competitiveness", mega-mergers
making an already brittle system even more so. And last but not least,
the muscular hand of the IMF squeezing every starving third world country
into productivity which is really slave labor at bottom market, non-union
prices. And hey, a few first world countries, doing the same. Everyone
we know owes our soul to the company store! And there's no tenure or pension
safety. We're all a paycheck away from homelessness.
Every
one of these little "problems" has to be considered serious. Together they
will be devastating. If the wave crests, life in the city could become
hazardous. People need to have prepared ---with alternatives. We
are in the position of having to create a global "emergency preparedness
plan". And failing that, what's your family's plan? Do they have a vacation
cottage 50 miles from a population center with an orchard and septic tank
and water source? A solar generator? A tribe of goats for fertilizer, a
squadron of chickens for eggs?A few bags of chickpea, wheat, soy, corn,
vegie seed? NO? Why ever not? You really need that QVC brooch? That Lexus?
That S.U.V? More than you need LIFE?