A Trajectory Towards Armageddon

 

A Trajectory Towards Armageddon

 

The world is experiencing extreme weather attributed to climate change (credited to human activity), the disappearance of many species of flora and fauna, and warnings of an extinction-level event as bio-diversity vanishes, World War III, social upheaval, and the unprecedented migration of desperate populations abandoning unstable environments, expected to worsen when the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica collapses at the end of this decade--or sooner--rising sea levels between two and ten feet and flooding low-lying and coastal areas.  Continuing our current actions is only making matters worse.  Destabilizing the environment in the name of commerce, greed, and maximizing profits for short-term gain, capitalism without a conscience, politics, and mutual distrust and fear of one another are acting in concert to threaten our habitat, and as a result, humanity’s survival.  It is absolutely critical that governments, along with industry, take immediate steps to subvert disaster.

The captains of industry and corporate overlords, together with governments and their political objectives, threaten destabilization of the environment in the name of financial profits and political gain. At a point, wealth—along with political advantage--becomes superfluous, an unneeded surplus; at this point, additional wealth and advantage are senseless and what started as a means to an end becomes a sport for some and an institution for others.  That game leads to a zero-sum game: a game for one is a corresponding loss for the other and eventually terminates at null—one side has everything, the other nothing, a zero-sum balance.  Game over.  This applies not only to financial gains and losses but to the survival of our species as well.

Capitalism (simply a mechanism of exchange) is a valuable instrument providing structure, goods and services, and livelihoods to those that provide them.  Capitalism without a conscience however, is harmful.  Without morality, without scruples— qualities we must give it--undervalues some and overvalues others, establishes a caste system, creates division, leads to disparity, inconsistency, mistrust, thoughtlessness and a careless, headlong pursuit of wealth and privilege, and eventually, an uprising as balance seeks to return; while wars are often fought over spiritual beliefs, most often they are fought over resources and inequality—This includes both previous world wars.

Currently, NATO is facing off against Russia over Ukraine, and China is poised to invade Taiwan.  Russia’s economy is under heavy sanctions and feels threatened by Ukraine’s move to join NATO and the European Union (E.U.); and as a result, Russia is threatening to cut off its oil and natural gas exports to the E.U.  China has its eye on Taiwan’s 41-billion-dollar a year semiconductor and electronics industries and is determined to become the world’s new dominant superpower.  The Middle East is tumultuous with the U.S., Russia, and Iran--close to becoming a nuclear power--conducting proxy wars while religious extremists run amok.  Chaos has sent refugees streaming into the E.U. and elsewhere.  The U.S., Russia, China, and Israel—Israel under constant threat and attack from the Islamic State—are all nuclear powers.  World War III is one misstep away.       

According to Prussian General and military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”  While religious beliefs are a dynamic involved in the anarchy of the Middle East, fossil fuel—petroleum, oil—is at its core.  Fossil fuel is the cornerstone of the world economy and the petrodollar is its unit of exchange.  The petrodollar is any U.S. dollar paid to oil-exporting countries and most international transactions revolve around it.  Both Russia and China are interested in replacing the petrodollar with their own currencies.  The U.S., of course, is opposed to this.  Fossil fuel, which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is believed to be the cause of global warming--and the world is reliant on it.  In effect, fossil fuel is not only driving current world politics but also environmental destruction and sadly, efforts to distance ourselves from it are hindered by the fossil fuel industry itself and the world leaders who are heavily invested in it; indeed, entire economies, industries, and jobs are dependent on it.  Other resources such as rare-earth minerals (used to make high-tech devices such as rocket engines and satellites, for instance), and more common elements such as coal, water, metals, and food come into play, but none as significantly at the moment as petroleum.                 

Balance is the natural order, even to the point of nothingness.  The cost to humanity and personal lives presently escalating into political turmoil, civil unrest, and violence—motivated by inequality, fear, panic, distrust, anger and supply chain disruption, amplified by a worldwide Covid pandemic--aside, the expense to the biome is also exponential and ruinous.  We must remain mindful that humanity and the environment are closely connected and that a bio-diverse environment supports healthy life and balance, and that a lack of bio-diversity and unbalance creates an environment wherein the only thing left to consume in the end is whatever remains to be consumed, to the point of a zero-sum balance.  While commerce and industry are not exclusively responsible for the condition of the world, they play a significant role.  Commerce and industry impact world politics and mutually they influence world events.  World events affect the world at large and continue to do so exponentially.      

While the institutions of government acting in concert with industry should unquestionably provide the world community a fair and equitable distribution of wealth and privilege and seek to maintain equilibrium—if for nothing else, then in the interest of self-preservation—it is absolutely critical that moderation and self-restraint become attitudinal in regards to the bionetwork that sustains us.  This first step, taken with resolve and calculation, may pull us back from a rapidly approaching catastrophe, a very real apocalypse.

In regards to the ecosystem, greed and maximizing profits and consistently appropriating something from a finite source, especially one that’s use significantly contributes to environmental degradation--to say nothing of reckless and irresponsible waste disposal and a hard lean towards built-in-obsolescence, coupled with a disregard for the well-being and contentment of the masses--only leads to short-term gains, and in the long-term, a complete loss of revenue: an end in sight.  It is a formula that yields diminishing returns adding ultimately up to zero, while sustainability, moderation, fairness to one another and self-restraint lead to stability and consistent revenue.  This should put things into terms that economists, businessmen and women, and politicians can easily understand.  In other words, in the long run, less equals more.  And simple, clear-headed reasoning should lead one to recognize that a resource, once exhausted, ceases to be a source and that without a source, a means of sustenance, organic entities and institutions wither and die.  Also, world leaders need to step back, take a deep breath and begin an honest and sympathetic dialogue—This is urgent and categorically essential as nuclear powers facing off against one another have the ability to unleash widespread and even total devastation.  Our current trajectory is arching towards disaster.  Unless we pay immediate attention to our environment, both sociologically and in terms of organic bio-diversity and sustainability, we are moving towards a collapse of society and an end to life as we know it, Armageddon.  

 

Donald Dean Mace

       

Donald Dean Mace is a poet, writer and contributing editor to Ariel Chart.