The Future Is Now
When I state that the “Future is now,” it’s not a pithy thought about mindfulness or a lighthearted reference to a meme inspired by “Malcolm in the Middle.” That would be comforting. But no, I say it as a statement regarding the irreversible, catastrophic anthropogenic climate change and biosphere degradation that are already upon us now. The beginnings of our dystopian future are here, NOW.
Which is maybe a good thing to acknowledge, the raw immediacy of that thought, since you can forget about the majority of humans acting in the long-term interests of the next generation, unlike the Native Americans who used to plan for how their actions in the present would affect the next 7 generations. Forget about the fact that people’s home ownership investments and dreams in many areas of the country will not survive inevitable loss of flood insurance or the fact that a traditional down payment and a thirty-year mortgage will no longer be available there in the decades to come. Forget about the fact that nearly all of the world’s coral reefs, which provide nourishment for 25% of all marine species, will be dead in the next 20 years, that the world may reap its last significant agricultural harvest in only 60 years or that not only polar bears, but about 50% of the Earth’s remaining species will go extinct by the end of the century. And of course, forget about the climate justice fact that those least responsible for creating this crisis will suffer the most in these same years — from searing drought, biblical rains and other extreme weather affecting their very way of life.
So forget about the humans acting in response to anything short of their own immediate, short-term self-interest. Not to save the biosphere and all its species (which provide ecosystem services that allow us to live), not for the kids and grandkids of our own species (that guarantee the continuation of our civilizations) and not even for our own longer-term self-interest. None of those things have made any difference in our determined march towards global collapse. Indeed, the only thing it seems that our reptilian brains can grasp is something that affects us right NOW, and not even then, sadly, with 100% efficacy, as numbers of COVID-19 deniers so aptly illustrate.
But the latter at least help highlight my point that the future is NOW. The creeping incidence of zoonotic transmission for corona viruses over the last two decades, ushered into our realm in no small part by biosphere degradation and climate change, finally hit paydirt with COVID-19, yet this virus will hardly be the last. And this summer was the first time the Arctic circle hit a temperature over 100°F, after melting permafrost in Siberia had already caused an ecological disaster in pristine wilderness with the collapse of an oil storage tank — a ray of light being that this very permafrost instability might throw a small wrench in Putin/Trump’s plans to exploit more oil and gas reserves as the Arctic becomes ice free. This plan reminds me of a heroin addict rejoicing upon finding new areas of the body able to accommodate a syringe for the next “fix.”
On top of temperature records being set left and right, 2020 has already seen unprecedented wildfires in Australia, once in a generation flooding in China and Japan, a “derecho” wind storm in Iowa that impacted up to 40% of the year’s corn crops, among the most active hurricane and tornado seasons on record and the return of rolling blackouts to the world’s fifth largest economy on top of intense heat waves and violent lighting storms that helped turn an already deadly fire season into a fiery inferno with over 300 brush fires burning simultaneously.
As for climate justice, this spring and summer has seen migrants, fleeing from Latin America to the U.S. or from Syria/Turkey to Greece/Europe, treated deplorably by hardline regimes, as we witness the less than empathetic response of wealthy nations to climate migrants at the beginning of what a recent NY Times piece called “The Great Climate Migration.” If you can’t understand that millions, then tens of millions and then hundreds of millions of climate refugees aren’t going to affect you in your suburban cocoon, then you really aren’t paying attention. Just look at the protests of this summer to understand how desperate people, who have been marginalized for too long, respond to hitting their breaking point. This is going to happen worldwide to the Global North as the Global South hits that point.
So don’t worry about the elimination of thousands of miles of coastal property in the coming decades, extinction level crop failures and lack of fresh water as glaciers, aquifers and rivers dry up or the disappearance of rain forest and much of the world’s flora and fauna. That’s still a couple of decades in the future — one generation, no need to break a sweat over that distant problem. But extreme weather, climate migration, social unrest, drought, multi-state societal collapse and pandemics from zoonotic transmission are already here TODAY. So how much longer do we want to just “watch Netflix and chill” while we contemplate the bleak future made possible by our collective, apathetic inaction?
Acknowledge the reality, that change must happen NOW, because the future is NOW.
