The next 30 years.

[paranoid marvin]

This is basically it. We live in our houses with our lights and supermarket food and none of us can comprehend that changing - including me. But it will, I believe.

Done wonders for the oul anxiety though cos what’s the point of worrying about the small things?

Covid demonstrated just how quickly the world could turn upside down. And just how quickly we could adapt to that change. Lenin said something along the lines that we are only three meals away from anarchy; well, times have changed and now we are arguably one toilet roll away.

But we shall see. I suspect that most of us alive today will be spared from the worst of the disruption to come. There is still time and there is still hope

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

POLITICS is the elephant in this room, so nothing to say.

 

[Swank]

POLITICS is the elephant in this room, so nothing to say.

I wish, but no liberal government seems to be able to act like environmental collapse is actually more pressing than the cost of tuition, immigration policy, health insurance, gas costs. When everything is important, nothing is. So we twiddle our thumbs, regardless of partisan gridlock.

The number one factor in the upcoming US election will be grocery costs. Not runaway greenhouse effect.


Imagine if all the people that care deeply about social justice, trans kids, Zionism, sports equity, veganism, mindfulness, first time home buying or whatever else were as invested in basic human survival.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I'm hopeful after reading The Fourth Turning by Neil Howe & William Strauss. Written in 1997, it chronicles the earth shattering human events every 4 generations (80-100 years). The most recent familiar ones (going backwards in time) were WWII, the American Civil War and the French/American revolutions. One of the fascination parts is how they describe the same four generational character traits recurring after each turning. It's the closest thing I've seen to a non-supernatural crystal ball.

If the authors are right, we are about to enter the climax of the latest fourth turning (perhaps we're there already - it feels to me like something cataclysmic is near) and after whatever upheaval occurs, the world will be back in business immediately afterwards and move ahead positively for another 50 - 60 years until the decline begins once again to the next fourth turning at the end of this century.

 

[Foxbat]

I tend to agree that nothing will get done until it's too late. I'm reminded of the ending of the 1951 movie When Worlds Collide. The rocket builders are viewed as crackpots but, in the end, everybody is fighting for the limited number of seats. No rockets for us I'm afraid.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

The weather is the ultimate payback here, can't be bribed, controlled, bullied, or bluffed. Its like a warm ice age type event. The gods are back in town. The only difference is that we can see it coming, but we can still get surprised by how bad it turns out. Every time it rains there is unrepaired damage left over. We will have to change the way we build stuff.

In terms of where we are historically, our relation with the weather is about what it was 1,000 years ago. Equilibrium is not coming anytime soon. People will have to adapt to it. Because it is more powerful than we currently are, major changes will be made. Business as usual is the norm but the way things get done will be changed. And if the changes aren't good enough, they will get knocked down as they should be and its back to the drawing board. I wonder about the stability of some the modern designs in sustained winds. Will it be be better or worse to be odd shaped.

 

[Swank]

I'm hopeful after reading The Fourth Turning by Neil Howe & William Strauss. Written in 1997, it chronicles the earth shattering human events every 4 generations (80-100 years). The most recent familiar ones (going backwards in time) were WWII, the American Civil War and the French/American revolutions. One of the fascination parts is how they describe the same four generational character traits recurring after each turning. It's the closest thing I've seen to a non-supernatural crystal ball.

If the authors are right, we are about to enter the climax of the latest fourth turning (perhaps we're there already - it feels to me like something cataclysmic is near) and after whatever upheaval occurs, the world will be back in business immediately afterwards and move ahead positively for another 50 - 60 years until the decline begins once again to the next fourth turning at the end of this century.

I don't know why the Civil War would be considered important. An internal war of a backwater nation long past the end of Western slavery.

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

I don't know why the Civil War would be considered important. An internal war of a backwater nation long past the end of Western slavery.

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself. And that the 4-generation (80-100 year) thing only works if we ignore WWI. Anyway, it is always easy to find patterns in random events after the fact.

 

[paranoid marvin]

There are people around the world currently experiencing cataclysmic events; as there have been around the world in every decade of every century since time began.

The American Civil War was a tragedy; many parents lost a son, many wives a husband. Casualty wise it is far from the bloodiest; the Punic Wars 2000 years before had at least double, and WWI more than twenty times. But one thing it did do was to shape the world we live in to this day. Only WWII had a greatee impact on world events.

 

[Swank]

There are people around the world currently experiencing cataclysmic events; as there have been around the world in every decade of every century since time began.

The American Civil War was a tragedy; many parents lost a son, many wives a husband. Casualty wise it is far from the bloodiest; the Punic Wars 2000 years before had at least double, and WWI more than twenty times. But one thing it did do was to shape the world we live in to this day. Only WWII had a greatee impact on world events.

What did a Civil War in one country do to shape the world?

 

[paranoid marvin]

What did a Civil War in one country do to shape the world?

It unified the country into the United States of America. Which pretty much dominates - for good or for ill, world affairs from then until now.

If the Confederate states had permamently seceeded from the Union, then who knows what would have happened.

 

[Swank]

It unified the country into the United States of America. Which pretty much dominates - for good or for ill, world affairs from then until now.

If the Confederate states had permamently seceeded from the Union, then who knows what would have happened.

I suspect they would be a small, poor country and the remainder would still be the US of today. They lost because the fundamentally strong parts of the US was in Union territory, and the US had already done things like open Japan prior.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

It wasn't until the 1950s when air conditioning became common place in the south that it became an industrial powerhouse.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I don't know why the Civil War would be considered important. An internal war of a backwater nation long past the end of Western slavery.

The authors are American and mainly concentrate on US history in the book, though there was plenty of major upheaval around the world in the same decade (Paraguayan war which embroiled all of South America, Britain effectively sending China into decline with the second Opium War and the Austria-Prussian war & unification of Italy which reshaped Europe. Not to mention the terrible Circassian genocide by Russia at the end of a war that lasted a century).

If the American Civil War hadn't happened or the result had been different, it's hard to see how the US would have become the super power we know. IMO, it is more likely the States would have ended up as motley collection of countries like Europe or South America and the world would be a very different place.

All conjecture and speculation, of course. Which is fun!

 

[KGeo777]

Speaking of the next 30 years, in 1995, the ST: Deep Space Nine episode "Past Tense" part 1 was set on August 30, 2024. The Gabriel Bell Riots are almost upon us!

 

[paeng]

"Downslope"

“Solving” this net energy dilemma is not a question of ingenuity, mind you. Adding more complexity and more technology always comes with an increased energy demand. As low cost drilling techniques fail to keep up with the depletion of easy to get oil, and will have to be replaced by ever more energy intensive methods, the situation can be expected to worsen even if we just try to maintain a steady supply of fuel. The question, whether we surpass the peak of November 2018 or not, will thus become moot. The aggregate net energy from oil (available for other uses) will most likely start to shrink after 2025 — no matter what we do. This is going to be one major event, a true turning point not only for western nations, but to the human enterprise as a whole. Combined with a looming peak in aggregate crude oil and condensate production (scheduled to arrive by 2030) it will be no longer possible to pretend that we have enough fuel to do everything we want. Actually, we would have to contend with less and less fuel production year after year.

Don’t expect anyone to come on TV and explain you all this. Mainstream economist are just as clueless about our deteriorating energy situation as our leadership class. Some of them at least understand that (for good or bad) fossil fuels underpin everything we do: from growing food to making cement and steel, or — for that matter — solar panels and wind turbines. Needless to say, none of our betters and elders are interested the slightest how hot it will be for our kids, or if New York will become the next Venice by the end of this century… Or, that it would cost more energy (and as a result more money) to extract the remaining oil, gas and coal than what the economy could ever handle without collapsing. As long as drilling newer and newer holes, or building more and more “renewables” remains profitable thanks to government subsidies, the grift will go on. Until it no longer can. (Never mind the $280 billion problem caused by the millions of abandoned wells, or the the fact that neither wind turbines nor solar panels can be built or recycled in the absence of fossil fuels.)