Okay, it’s “lonely voice crying in the wilderness” time. Here goes with the “End of the World as We Know It” essay. Enjoy it, because from now on I will be able to say “I told you so,” and that’s not half so much fun to hear.
We have been living in La-La Land for decades, now, and the time of the Great Reckoning is upon us. Those of us in the Overdeveloped World have to realize that our way of life is unsustainable. It’s not working for us, and it’s certainly not going to cope when all the emerging middle class of the Catching Up World start trying to consume at the same rate.
Our standard of living is about to take a big hit. The only thing governments can do is ease it in as slowly as possible and spread it around as fairly as they can. This, of course is not going to happen. We’re just going to keep wasting the environment until everything basically burns up, and the rich will continue to make money until the end while the poor take the biggest hit.
Hospitals
What is hitting our hospitals right now is the result of our too-little-too-late response to COVID. We didn’t start the mandates soon enough, we didn’t approach them with enough rigour, and we relaxed them too soon. The hospitals and health workers paid, and now everybody is paying. No, sorry, only the sick are paying. The rest of us are doing just fine. Why worry?
We should worry because COVID is not over. We are about to be hit by the BA.5 variant, which is the worst yet, but time and again we hear the air-headed, “Other countries are just getting on with it.” Like USA, for example, which has just under three times the number of deaths per unit of population as Canada.
Inflation/recession
Everything that is happening right now costs money: COVID, Ukraine, Global Warming. We borrowed on the future to get through COVID, but that can’t continue. The inflation statistics are telling us a stern message: everything costs more than you want it to. Get used to it.
Global Warming
It’s probably already too late. All these governmental targets of 2030 and 2050 are ludicrous. In the first place, the actions promised will once again be too little, too late, and those targets, if we’re allowed to achieve them, won’t cut the mustard.
However, that’s not going to happen. The onset of global warming will come far quicker and destroy our environment and economies far faster than the most optimistic predictions. I mean, how many summers does the Northern Hemisphere have to burn up until we notice? Once every five years? Three years? How about two years in a row?
The Roman Empire failed because it was a Ponzi scheme that required new conquests on the periphery to pay for the lifestyle back home. The Russian Empire failed because it was an economic mistake that required destruction of the environment to maintain its growth. The American Economic Empire is failing because it requires a steady 3% average growth in business profits, which in the long run is unsustainable.
Basically, the way we’re living has the same flaws as both the Russian and the Roman systems, and we’re approaching the tipping point.
“Progress:” the Latest Four-letter Word.
Our society defines progress as businesses getting their three percent growth per year. If you look at the top countries on the list of livability, population satisfaction, and all the other things that count, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, and Netherlands have kicked Canada from the podium. They have a better form of government (Proportional Representation) and that means the governing party focuses on the welfare of the population.If we continue to focus on the profits of the major corporations instead of our own welfare, those businesses will burn up the world as long as they’re making money and then go bust and disappear, leaving us to sweep up the ashes.
The Bottom Line
We need a government with the guts to lay it on the table. Politicians must act. But politicians act because voters tell them to. So tell them. It’s the worst of bad luck that the Green Party chased off after the red herrings of racism and feminism just when we needed them to focus our attention on climate change, their main mandate. So, contact your MPs and MLAs and tell them what you think. Tell them their supporters want action, not profits.
Younger generations, please stop whining about not getting what previous generations expected. It simply isn’t going to happen. And in turn older generations, stop telling your descendants to stop whining because “they never had it so good.” They don’t have it so good, and they’re never going to. Everybody, stop trying to get what you can’t, and instead create a better life with what you can afford.
All generations must get together and stop this runaway trainwreck from happening, and they have to do it yesterday.
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