LOOKING AHEAD
- Peter Seidel
- February 19, 2019
- Forum Papers
- Forum Paper
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LOOKING AHEAD
An NPG Forum Paper
by Peter Seidel
If you are driving down a road at 60 miles an hour and suddenly notice that you are headed straight for a tree, it is good to know this so that you can do something about it. Information about the future we are headed for as a planet is readily available, and makes it clear that it is filled with dangers we can do something about. What we are doing now will affect the lives of our grandchildren and those who will follow them. What kind of a world are we going to leave them as a result of the way we live today? A caring person would quickly change direction for their sake. One would think that responsible, rational governments would be concerned about future generations and look into this, but they limit their thinking to the next few years, and then primarily to economics.
In 2006 I was asked to write a scenario on the possibility of the extinction of the human race for a journal called Futures. I had never given that any thought, however the idea was intriguing. I wrote a piece entitled, “Is It Inevitable That Evolution Self-Destruct?”1 Since then this possibility has been becoming ever more likely.
What I write here are not the words of an expert in any specific field of study, but rather those of a thinking person who looks at available information, analyzes what it means, and considers where it will take us as time moves on. What I present here is not opinion, but rather authoritative data on changes taking place and how they project into the future.
As humans we tend to believe what we want, often going against rational thinking and scientific facts and findings, unidentified flying objects and a refusal to accept that humans are contributing to climate change, for example. Although evidence clearly shows they are inevitable, most of us avoid thinking about future food and water shortages. The information that follows has not been made up, nor do I find pleasure in relating it. It has been taken or derived from reliable sources such as U.S. government agencies, and the United Nations. To make things easier to grasp, I sometimes have turned annual figures into daily numbers by dividing by 365. For the sake of your grandchildren, please read on and take these findings seriously.
BURSTING OUT OF OUR ECOLOGICAL NICHE
Our species, homo sapiens, may have been living on our planet for about 200,000 years. For nearly all of this time we filled a stable ecological niche. As with other species, a number of factors like starvation, disease, parasites, and in the case of humans, a long lactation period kept us in balance with other forms of life. As our brain developed over time, we managed to mitigate unpleasant restraints on our numbers. About 10,000 years ago humans discovered the plow and started planting and harvesting crops to expand and stabilize their food supply. With this, their population increased and their niche expanded at the expense of other species. After James Watt patented the steam engine in 1769, the Industrial Revolution was upon us and human impact on the planet expanded at an accelerating rate.
We here are now living in a minute instant of time in a tiny segment of our galaxy, not to mention the universe, yet for most of us “Here-Now” (right here right now) is everything and the rest is of little interest. We have some interest in the past, which we cannot change, but virtually none in the future, which is what we are making right now…
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