"This is an issue that cannot, and must not, be ignored any longer"
-- Walter Cronkite
"...accelerating change with more potential wild card surprises..."
"...climate change (particularly rapid climate change) is so huge in its
implications that it is hard to effectively comprehend the potential scope
of the problem.
"If you think Katrina was bad, wait until the climate rapidly changes and
among other things, food doesn't grow where and how it used to.
"...the whole world could be on the verge of a major shift that, absent the
rapid integration of a new global energy source, could be quite painful.
accelerating change with more potential wild card surprises

Big Issues for 2006
John L. Petersen
http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/
I'd like to send along to you my best wishes for 2006. It really is a
cliché, but it is kind of amazing how time flies. It doesn't seem very long
ago that we were working very hard getting ready for the turnover of the
century, wondering what might happen if there was large-scale computer
failure. Now we have another set of equally important issues that are
moving off the horizon into our near-term field of concern.
For a number of years now here at The Arlington Institute we have been
talking about the increasing rate of change and the growing significance and
implications of the big issues on our global horizon. From our point of
view, we're now watching it all happen - big, accelerating change with more
potential wild card surprises.
The best books that I've read that discuss the technological drivers of the
change is Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near : When Humans Transcend
Biology
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670033847/qid=1135618384/sr=
8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-2037452-3072145?v=glance&s=books&n=507846> and Joel
Garreau's Radical Evolution : The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds,
Our Bodies -- and What It Means to Be Human
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385509650/qid=1135617977/sr=
8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-2037452-3072145?v=glance&s=books&n=507846> . Both are
very important overviews of where we're going in terms of modifying
ourselves. The first two chapters of Kurzweil alone are worth the cost of
the book. I highly recommend them both.
Although technology is clearly one of the major change drivers that we are
living with, it is not the only one - by any means. The changing climate
has extraordinary near-term potential implications for all of us who live on
this planet. Last year Walter Cronkite wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer
that "Global warming is at least as important as gay marriage or the cost of
Social Security. And if it is not seriously debated in the general election,
it will measure the irresponsibility of the entire political class. This is
an issue that cannot, and must not, be ignored any longer." If you do not
remember the debate on global warming, you are forgiven, because it has
never taken place.
The lack of US governmental interest and concern for effectively confronting
this issue is convincing growing numbers of people that they cannot presume
that the government will fulfill their obligation to provide for the
national security of the country in this instance and initiate policies to
effectively offset the clear trend and develop contingencies for possible
climate shift. Let me recommend two recent sources in this regard.
The New York Times had a very good December book review by Bill McKibben
called The Coming Meltdown <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18616?email>
(http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18616?email) that serves up the magnitude
of the issue and how climate change (particularly rapid climate change) is
so huge in its implications that it is hard to effectively comprehend the
potential scope of the problem. If you think Katrina was bad, wait until
the climate rapidly changes and among other things, food doesn't grow where
and how it used to.
This is not a farfetched idea. Whitley Streiber has written about a
scenario where the rapidly warming arctic surface air (the subject of
McKibben's review) that has been held down by the denser cold artic upper
air masses, suddenly rises - like warm air does - and a huge amount of
frigid air displaces it at the surface and sweeps down from the pole,
initiating a mini ice age . . . in a matter of months.*
It seems to me that another issue that has the same architecture - common
structure - as climate change is peak oil. The notion that we are rapidly
approaching the point in time where we will begin, for the first time, to
extract less and less of the energy source that has fundamentally fueled the
industrial revolution (i.e. that life that most people reading this enjoy)
is profound in its implications.
The problem is that the demand, driven by population growth and economic
development of countries like the U.S. and China, continues to expand
rapidly even though the supply suddenly starts to decrease. Like climate
change this is a very fundamental factor (energy) that defines our options
for living on this planet. The notion that the most important energy source
in the world for which there is no clear alternative would rapidly start to
go away, is enough to keep thoughtful people up late at night writing
scenarios of doom.
They're doing that, of course. If you're not familiar with the peak oil
issue, you should be. Here's one of quite a few sources
<http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Preparations.html>
(http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Preparations.html) that are painting
the pictures that will remind you of Y2K scenarios.
There are those, of course, who say we will keep finding cheap oil and that
the peak is decades away. But if they're wrong (and so far, the trends
appear to be against them) then the whole world could be on the verge of a
major shift that, absent the rapid integration of a new global energy
source, could be quite painful.
Rapid climate change and peak oil are so big that they have the fundamental
requirement that you need to be working on an alternative long before the
actual event takes place or things come unraveled rather fast. To give you
a sense of that, check out this study
<http://www.energybulletin.net/4789.html>
(http://www.energybulletin.net/4789.html) by SAIC for "a government agency"
outlining three different scenarios based upon actively responding to peak
oil twenty years before the peak, ten years before, and at the time of
identifying the peak. The bottom line is that if you don't actively start
to put in place alternatives two decades before the peak, the underlying
infrastructure and economies are very badly damaged. It is catastrophic if
you wait until the peak is obvious. It's the same for rapid climate change.
There are big, deep forces at play here, committed to changing the way
humans live on this earth. Lindsey Grant, former deputy assistant secretary
for environment and population affairs at the State Department and National
Security Council staffer has written a very persuasive little tome called
The Collapsing Bubble: Growth and Fossil Energy. Grant writes things like,
"World population quadrupled in one century, a change so astonishing that it
has altered - or should have altered - our assumptions as to the human
connection to the rest of the planet." He put together his own projection
on how energy and population might interact in the U.S. in the coming half
century... (omitted for brevity - Ed. note) ... he presumes that oil peaks
about now and that coal takes over as the major fuel supporting our economy
until the coal peaks about 2075 and then everything comes apart. I think it
is interesting think about how the use of coal might (or most likely might
not) expand so quickly to take up the slack from the petroleum peak.
For more information,contact John L. Petersen johnp@...

----------------
* Strieber and Bell, "The Coming Global Superstorm" was the book basis for
the movie, Day After Tomorrow - Ed. note

------------end fwd from
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