Don't worry, be happy!

Maybe we are doomed? Like lemmings heading over a cliff or into a wall? The year 2100 is like a an impenetrable barrier, fringe of doom, where nobody dares to go but we’re being swept along in a tsunami of change. Despite the Y2K threat, we had little problem reaching the 2000 milestone but 2100 seems like a mountain too high to climb. Humanity making it to 3000 seems like science fiction! It boggles my mind that policy makers, government or futurists are weary to project any further than 2100. Not just because they’re afraid but maybe because the “system” is locked into a slow motion disaster. Even the insurance industry is weary to make projections past 2100 even though a child born 20 years ago could live beyond 2100. My Dad keeps telling me how sorry he feels for his grandchildren's generation who can't find decent work or even hope to own their own home! Are these children considered lost causes or expendable as ecological collateral damage? Today’s ecological challenges are quickly becoming tomorrow’s intractable problems like biodiversity mass extinctions, exponential growth and climate change. Any solution is hopelessly complex because all major environmental issues are inter-related, you can't fix one without fixing them all!

We are already well beyond the point of no return and deep down, most of us know it. I had the choice of becoming a soldier or an environmentalist when I left Montreal as a 20 year old to start my environmental sciences degree at Trent. The military did not want me or my pacifist ways. When I look back at the issues of the day, acid rain and ozone holes, I miss those blissful times before we had technology and know how to know how big our problems really were. If I’d known then what I know now, I wonder if I would have gone into this field? Like a medic entering a killing field with little more than a few bandages and lots of morphine to help his comrades. But now we’re paralyzed by too many choices, too much information and an impending reality crunch that feels more like a death march. I know no one is listening to this voice in the wilderness and I'm OK with that. Maybe I could have tried harder but what's the point, we're all toast!

It’s become quite evident that we broke the planet so we're responsible to fix it. We know we can’t pay our way out of this disaster. As my brother Pierre used to say, we’re so screwed we don’t even know it! It’s strange and a bit sad to know that in my lifetime (if I get to live as long as my father at 87), this will be the last generation to live a relatively "normal" life on earth. WW II must have seemed like humanity was stark raving mad and on the verge of annihilating ourselves. But we conclusively ended that war with nuclear weapons which bought us time to figure out strategies for our survival. What did we do? We had a baby boom! So many intelligent people of the post war era must have thought (and still do) that the environmental crisis was minor in comparison to the nightmare scenario unfolding of a global nuclear annihilation. Unfortunately and sadly we squandered this time of peace. The environmental challenge is no doubt, the ultimate test for humanity. But our feeble yet beautiful human mind is still in a hunter-gatherer mode and we can’t get our primitive brain around this problem. We are a victim of our own success and the problem has become much bigger than us! We’ve been led down the garden path and now our garden is becoming sterile. 

We’re like children running around with scissors and knives and explosives etc. with no supervising adults around who care or are capable of protecting the innocents. In short, we don't have a long time. In fact, we are running out of time! Instead of fighting mad men like Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and the next generations of Putin and Trump etc., we should have been fighting together to solve environmental problems that were becoming evident at the turn of the nineteenth century if not before. Maybe war and conflict is a catalyst for technology development that is needed to eventually solve our problems, and if not, for Elon Musk to build spacecraft that can ferry humanity and other keystone species to another planet. A tall order to save ourselves from ourselves! Perhaps the biggest disappointment would be that we pull out all stops to save our planet from dying (or from killing us) and it’s not enough because it’s too late. Maybe it’s better to act like they did in the roaring 20’s, having decadent fun while the dictator’s plotted their revenge? It can be argued that it’s better to try something noble than do nothing at all because the challenge is too big, a mission impossible. Humanity would never have made it this far with this kind of pessimistic thinking! So don't feel guilty, it's not your's or my fault and it probably would have happened anyway. Don't worry, be happy!

My take on fake news and the threat it poses to humanity and the environment

It seems to me that fake or manipulated news is a symptom of an erosion of trust and confidence in democracy. There was an earned trust in the “real news” print media in its heyday because they could afford to hire people to fact check and ensure sources were credible and secure. Now they need fake news checkers but of course they can’t afford that either in their current weakened state!

Everything has changed in the digital age and the old business model of conventional print news is under attack by the digital revolution. After all, who reads newspapers and questions anything anymore?  

Digital news is dominated by an ever smaller number of incestuous media giants who are either divided and conquered or bought off by lobbyists trying to serve their political masters. The so-called manipulation of news is nothing new. It has been floating around in the clouds since the early days of the digital age of naïveté and competing for ever scarcer advertising dollars. News has become a tool for manipulation by the highest bidder!

There is no fire-wall or astute editor to stop the flood of fake news because any news is good news if it sells papers. These polluted waters have infiltrated the infrastructure of democracy like salt rusting away our trust in the institutions we rely on for prudent political action for society to thrive and survive. In other words, fake news is manufactured to serve political and corporate interests by obfuscating the credibility of unbiased and factual reporting of world events. The saying that the truth is the first casualty of war is more relevant today than ever but who really cares about history anymore?

I think the looking glass that mirrors the truth has been shattered by the digital age. The contaminated digital information puts the political and economic perception of reality at risk. The readers of digital news from Facebook or Fox News are like children getting cut on the sharp edges of the new digital age mirror. Society needs to wear down the sharp edges but this takes time that we don’t seem to have the patience for.

Many thought it was about employing cost-cutting measures and becoming more efficient until we realized too late, how manipulated and vulnerable we have become with the digital news delivery system. The digital age is a double edged sword and there's no going back to bows and arrows!

Perhaps the real danger in this confused state between what’s real and fake, is the threat to our way of life posed by things like climate change and species extinction?  Maybe we've become paralyzed from too much information? Maybe our hearts and minds are tied in knots with confusion while our old empire of knowledge and wisdom burns around us? So many questions with few answers that are probably wrong anyway!

Geo-political power relationships are hanging in the balance with this so-called cyber warfare generation. It is much more than a threat to democracy, it’s a clear and present threat to civilized behavior and the environment! I just hope that God is not fake news because we need his help more than ever!