The Year 2062.
So Nepal is on the year 2062, their New Year's starts on 14 April, and they are 1:15 minutes off Delhi time. Let us think, as Macke and I did, on 2062.
As you may be aware, the world is probably entering what is know as "peak oil", where the production of fossil fuels (oil and its derivatives, natural gas, and coal) begins to decline. We're not running out of oil-- that will take 300 more years-- but we are entering the phase where we can no longer keep increasing the production of fossil fuels.
NAH! screams my technophile friend Whorne-- "we will make FUSION economically viable and all our problems will go away!" Well, aside from the fact that fusion-- despite many billions of dollars of investment and years of research hasnt yet produced any meaningful return on investment-- if the lack of energy doesnt become a problem, climate change or the looming crisis in world food production will.
So what will the year 2062 look like? Well, fossil fuels will be expensive. That means...localised agriculture. No more Caesar salads that get transported to Toronto from California in Fenbruary, and no more plastic crap from Wal MArt that was made in China. Many of us won't be online. Some our our relatives might have died from the conflicts that are probably coming up. The Army and the government are probably the main ones using motor vehicles. The U.S.-- which no longer has the water supplies, topsoil, fossil fuels or local infrastructure necessary to maintain itself-- has fragmented into smaller political groups. Las Vegas Phoenix and Houston are ghost towns. China has had 30 years of civil war after its agricultural system enters prolonged crisis due to overuse. India is in the same position. So is Europe.
Locallay, we all have gardens. We wear old clothes. We spend a lot of time sitting around playing cards. It's colder in winter cos heat is expensive. Our kids are short and sick cos there's less protein to feed them. We've learned to fight, and we're organised into small political units of 40-100 people. Men who have money, as always, have access to women. There's polygamy. The rule of law has changed back to locally administered communally-based "hearings" to do with crimes, and vigilante justice. Some body f**ks with you, you f**k them back. We eat less meat.
I'm willing to bet we'll have memories of "the collapse" and we will look back on this time of relative plenty as a kind of golden age. We'll wonder how the "ancients" did things like build massive skyscrapers (they're collapsing-- we salvage steel and other goods from them) and roads that go into insane places. We will be amazed that anybody was ever fat. We'll wonder how we had so much and f**ked it up so thoroughly.
Did your job basically involve manipulating symbols? Were you a teacher, businessman, person in marketing, computers, or government? You're probably kinda screwed cos what will matter will be your ability to grow food or make things tradeable for food.
The people who are going to be OK are those who live the way they did 1000 years ago, and whose ecosystemic environments aren't destroyed. Bhutan. Nepalese mountains. Southern Indian islanders. Ceylon. People in the upper Amazon. Industrialised nations' citizens-- get ready to rumble. Things are going to get ugly.
So welcome to the year 2062. Nepal. WHere satellite dishes get carried for 7 days on the backs of burros to places whose inhabitants don't understand most of the languages the dishes speak. Where the Army and the bus lines use fossil fuels, and everybody else shivers and burns wood. Where 80% of the population grows corn wheat and squash for a living and lives on about $2 (U.S.) a day. Where the wealthy own 5000% (that's right) more than the poor. WHere life is local, hard, cheap, slow, and short.
Of course I could be wrong. That would be nice. Look here for a much more detailed version of what I've just written about.
Going rafting. Stay tuned for Annpurna (2). Will Macke and Butch make it over Thorung La? Does the Polish Chick successfully lure Macke into her bed? What happens to the Mad German and Team Dubai? And where are those goddamned Maoists?
As you may be aware, the world is probably entering what is know as "peak oil", where the production of fossil fuels (oil and its derivatives, natural gas, and coal) begins to decline. We're not running out of oil-- that will take 300 more years-- but we are entering the phase where we can no longer keep increasing the production of fossil fuels.
NAH! screams my technophile friend Whorne-- "we will make FUSION economically viable and all our problems will go away!" Well, aside from the fact that fusion-- despite many billions of dollars of investment and years of research hasnt yet produced any meaningful return on investment-- if the lack of energy doesnt become a problem, climate change or the looming crisis in world food production will.
So what will the year 2062 look like? Well, fossil fuels will be expensive. That means...localised agriculture. No more Caesar salads that get transported to Toronto from California in Fenbruary, and no more plastic crap from Wal MArt that was made in China. Many of us won't be online. Some our our relatives might have died from the conflicts that are probably coming up. The Army and the government are probably the main ones using motor vehicles. The U.S.-- which no longer has the water supplies, topsoil, fossil fuels or local infrastructure necessary to maintain itself-- has fragmented into smaller political groups. Las Vegas Phoenix and Houston are ghost towns. China has had 30 years of civil war after its agricultural system enters prolonged crisis due to overuse. India is in the same position. So is Europe.
Locallay, we all have gardens. We wear old clothes. We spend a lot of time sitting around playing cards. It's colder in winter cos heat is expensive. Our kids are short and sick cos there's less protein to feed them. We've learned to fight, and we're organised into small political units of 40-100 people. Men who have money, as always, have access to women. There's polygamy. The rule of law has changed back to locally administered communally-based "hearings" to do with crimes, and vigilante justice. Some body f**ks with you, you f**k them back. We eat less meat.
I'm willing to bet we'll have memories of "the collapse" and we will look back on this time of relative plenty as a kind of golden age. We'll wonder how the "ancients" did things like build massive skyscrapers (they're collapsing-- we salvage steel and other goods from them) and roads that go into insane places. We will be amazed that anybody was ever fat. We'll wonder how we had so much and f**ked it up so thoroughly.
Did your job basically involve manipulating symbols? Were you a teacher, businessman, person in marketing, computers, or government? You're probably kinda screwed cos what will matter will be your ability to grow food or make things tradeable for food.
The people who are going to be OK are those who live the way they did 1000 years ago, and whose ecosystemic environments aren't destroyed. Bhutan. Nepalese mountains. Southern Indian islanders. Ceylon. People in the upper Amazon. Industrialised nations' citizens-- get ready to rumble. Things are going to get ugly.
So welcome to the year 2062. Nepal. WHere satellite dishes get carried for 7 days on the backs of burros to places whose inhabitants don't understand most of the languages the dishes speak. Where the Army and the bus lines use fossil fuels, and everybody else shivers and burns wood. Where 80% of the population grows corn wheat and squash for a living and lives on about $2 (U.S.) a day. Where the wealthy own 5000% (that's right) more than the poor. WHere life is local, hard, cheap, slow, and short.
Of course I could be wrong. That would be nice. Look here for a much more detailed version of what I've just written about.
Going rafting. Stay tuned for Annpurna (2). Will Macke and Butch make it over Thorung La? Does the Polish Chick successfully lure Macke into her bed? What happens to the Mad German and Team Dubai? And where are those goddamned Maoists?
posted by Butch at 11:34 AM
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