Al Gore’s book, The
Future, is fascinating and perplexing. The world is being pummeled by enormous waves
of change, and most are destructive and unsustainable. What should we do? To envision wise plans, it’s important to
know the past, and understand how the present mess evolved. The book presents a substantial discussion of
six megatrends that are influencing the future:
EARTH INC is the global economy, dominated by a mob of
ruthless multinational corporations. It’s
pushing radical changes in the way we live, work, and think. Many leaders in the world have become its
hand puppets, shamelessly selling influence in exchange for treasure and power. Earth Inc. is the monster that’s killing the
ecosystem.
GLOBAL MIND is the worldwide web that enables communication
between people everywhere. Two billion
now have access to it. It provides access
to a cornucopia of fresh information — knowledge from sources outside the walls
of culture and propaganda. The Global
Mind is our single hope for inspiring rapid, intelligent, revolutionary change.
BALANCE OF POWER is changing.
Following World War II, the world was happy, as America provided
virtuous leadership that helped maintain stability in the world. Today, the U.S. is no longer respected. Power is shifting away from Western nations
to new powerhouses, and from national governments to corporate interests.
OUTGROWTH is the explosion of unsustainable growth in almost
everything — population, pollution, consumption, soil mining, water mining,
extinctions, and on and on. Earth Inc. is
fanatically obsessed with perpetual growth, and aggressively flattens anything
that stands in its path. Bummer growth
must be replaced with the benevolent growth of Sustainable Capitalism.
LIFE SCIENCE is providing us with technology to manipulate
biological processes in new ways. We’ll
cure more diseases and live much longer.
Our ability to deliberately alter the genes of any living organism
allows us to play a significant role in controlling the planet’s evolutionary
journey. Of course, evolution must be
manipulated cautiously, to avoid embarrassing calamities.
THE EDGE is the catastrophically dysfunctional relationship
between humankind and the ecosystem. On
the down side, trashing the atmosphere and climate has created a monster we
cannot control. On the plus side, it’s
inspiring many enlightened efforts to guide civilization back into balance with
the ecosystem.
Al Gore is a charming lad with a good sense of humor. The son of a senator, Gore has spent much of
his life amidst the barbarian tribes of Washington. He eventually became the vice president and a
wealthy tycoon. While at Harvard, one of
his professors was a pioneer in climate change research, a big juju subject,
and a primary influence on Gore’s career path.
Gore is a senior advisor to Google, and a board member at Apple. He is exceptionally well informed about the
digital world, climate change, ecological challenges, global politics, and the
shenanigans of the rich and powerful.
In the book, Gore sometimes jabbers like a politician giddy
with optimism. Yes, things are a big
mess, and the status quo is in need of speedy, intelligent, radical
reform. We can fix it! Politicians rarely win elections when their
objective is damage control (Jimmy Carter’s mistake). The way to win is to wear a big smile and promise
hope, solutions, and better days ahead.
I sometimes wonder if damage control might accomplish more.
Much of the book is impressive, but its optimism for the
future is not well supported by compelling arguments and evidence. Readers learn that it’s not
too late to nip climate change in the bud.
We simply need to reduce greenhouse emissions by 80 to 90 percent. But how could we do this without blindsiding
the system that enables the existence of seven-point-something billion
people? Easy! Create a carbon tax. Shift subsidies from fossil energy to
renewables. Require utilities to use
more alternative energy. Create a cap
and trade system. If every nation eagerly
did this next week, our worries would be over.
Population continues to grow exponentially. Gore recommends that we “stabilize” population. It would be risky to actually reduce population,
because this might trigger a “fertility trap,” a terrible downward spiral of
population free-fall. When there are too
many seniors, and not enough taxpayers, pension systems collapse.
But stabilizing an enormous population raises serious
questions about how much longer we can continue to feed so many people. Agriculture is currently engaged in “strip-mining
topsoil” on a staggering scale. Each
kilogram of Iowa corn costs 1.5 kilograms of topsoil, a precious nonrenewable
resource.
Gore asserts that this can be corrected by a transition to
crop rotation, and to organic low-till technology. But low-till cropping is designed for
conventional agriculture, and works well with heavy applications of herbicide. Organic low-till is still in the experimental
phase, and is extremely difficult to do successfully, because weeds are not
wimps.
While water usage is increasing, water resources are
declining, because underground aquifers are being depleted in many highly
productive farming regions. Gore
recommends drip irrigation, wastewater recycling, and cisterns for rainwater
storage. Considering the current scale
of water mining, and the cost of high tech irrigation, it’s hard to see these
options as effective solutions. When the
water is used up, farm productivity drops sharply, or completely.
Meanwhile, another monster is rising on the horizon — global
phosphorus reserves are moving toward a crisis.
Because phosphorus is an essential plant nutrient, this will have huge
effects on conventional agriculture. Oh,
we also need to get the nations united behind reversing deforestation, fish
mining, and mass extinction.
Gore says that it would be insane to burn the fossil energy we’ve
already discovered, because this would worsen the effects of climate change. But we’re unlikely to stop. Experts aren’t sure when Peak Oil will
arrive, but it will, and it will be followed by an era of increasing
turbulence, as industrial civilization is painfully weaned. Most of the easy oil has already gone up in
smoke, and what remains is far more difficult to extract. Expensive oil means expensive food, and many poor
people can barely afford food today. Spikes
in food prices led to food riots in 2008 and 2011.
Gore adores civilization’s two magnificent achievements, democracy
and capitalism, but he laments that both have been “hacked” by the evil slime
balls of Earth Inc. If we don’t fix
this, we’re doomed. It’s time to fetch
our pitchforks and chase the slime balls away.
The solution to our problems is to restore dynamic democracy, and then
create a utopia of Sustainable
Capitalism, which will allow Sustainable Growth to continue forever! The best is yet to come!
The book provides an impressive discussion how we got into
this mess. It’s unique in that it comes
from a card-carrying member of the global elite, not a hungry dirty
radical. Readers are given a rare
opportunity to enjoy the view from the top of the pyramid. I hope that the second edition clarifies some
questionable assumptions in this otherwise fascinating book.
Gore, Albert, The
Future — Six Drivers of Global Change, Random House, New York,
2013.
1 comment:
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