ASSUMPTIONS

out walking in a sunfilled late morning along a levee south of vancouver with a dear but departed friend (not expired, just gone from view) the topic of global warming and the future of humanity came up. she, who is degreed in biology, engineering and research ecology, decreed that humans are fucked. about this she was unequivocal. i had thoughts but initially said nothing, as the time and place were beautiful and i wanted to inhabit both a little longer. but i filed away my simple thoughts for perhaps another time and place.

it occurred to me that any talk of the future necessarily involves assumptions and i immediately noted two in her pronouncement: one, the notion that the technology needed to survive global warming will not continue to evolve along useful lines and: two, a corporate-dominated world economy and governance model is the last form of organization earth humans will ever employ.

the evidence for both these assumptions is just not there, in my view. on the contrary, i find ample evidence that: one, technology does continue to evolve along useful lines. but whether that will happen, and whether it will lead to solutions to the major existential threats to earth's biosphere — nuclear war and global warming — is not at all clear. and precisely because it is not clear, it is most useful to assume that something can and will be done about it. otherwise, why try? and two: there is a time for every organizing principle and i think a good case can be made for the time when competitive private enterprise and private capital is probably the most efficient way to exploit new conditions. but every time imposes on its people new sets of requirements that demand new solutions more suitable to the present and near future.

in our near future, global problems will need to be overseen by global institutions that ultimately have a controlling interest between and even within the corporations and nation-states of today. this is inevitable unless tragedy obviates the need for any governance of any kind. 

we don't need to learn these lessons from history, as any real thinker knows (with the possible exception of historians) but nevertheless the lessons are there for the concerned who need reassurance.