The plan is actually quite simple. By now, everyone knows
that climate change will make much of the world uninhabitable. Huge storms will
cause catastrophes including loss of infrastructure, migration and massive
deaths. Food will become scare -- over half of the arable land on the planet
has already been destroyed.
The richest of the planet, the one percent, have a plan. It
is probably not a conspiracy but rather a shared implicit logic that grows out
of preserving self-interest. More and
more the lines of that logic are becoming clear.
Massive amounts of money are poured into arms and the
military needed in order to control the unrest and wars that erupt as a result
of changing conditions.
Because of the disruption of climate change as well as the
wars that result, close to 90% of the world’s population will disappear. (Many
scientists agree on this percentage.) That will leave just enough people to
assure the infrastructure (food, industry, security) that would allow the very
rich to continue in their lifestyle. In fact the 90% who will disappear are, in
any case, dispensable within the current economic structures.
Massive restrictions on freedom and powerful military
deployment will be needed to make sure that the population remains faithful to their job of
producing enough to keeping the workers in the economy alive and satisfied as
well as, especially, to maintain the lifestyle of the very rich.
Should the planet swing entirely out of control, a
last-ditch emergency plan would be to set up on another planet. The proposed
one-way expedition to Mars is a trial balloon in that direction, an avant-guard
who will work out the details of establishing a human colony elsewhere.
Ultimately this would, once again, imply the transfer of a very small group (0.1%
of the 10 % that remain, along with enough people to work to keep them in
comfort). In a sense, society will continue to be normal in the sense that there
will be approximately the same propositions of super-rich, middle class and
poor. In that sense, everyone will continue to find their place though the
scale will be reduced. Those who retire
into self-sufficiency, who provide for their own food sustainably will be
inundated with hungry outsiders or raided by armed looters.
Am I exaggerating? Am
I retreating into science fiction? Not entirely. This is a scenario that could
be realized within the next fifty years, that is to say, within the lifetime of
many of those already living on the planet. What is needed is a massive, global
upheaval. I am pretty sure that, at some point, it will come. However, I am
also sure that the super-rich will be ready with their (massive) security
precautions in place.
There is of course an alternative, a difficult one but one
that is quite realizable. As long as we continue to contribute to the destruction
of the planet required by the growing inequality between the super-rich and
those entirely abandoned by the world economy, the logic described above will
surely work its way forward. Fiddling with the current economic and political
structures have repeatedly demonstrated little or no changes in the patterns. Why is it that most people in the world, who
are very aware of the general lines of this process, continue to follow their daily
routines. We accept the political and economic processes with resignation and
believe that the imperfections will be dealt with by those who hold public
office? What could be more insane?
