I have the increasing feeling that our world and lifestyle is going to undergo a radical change within the next 20 years and after, a change for the worse...
All the causes for the destruction of humanity are adding up :
- global warming : much faster than expected; I wouldn't be surprised to see hundreds of millions of people displaced because of rising sea levels. The most worrisome region is Bangladesh and Eastern China. Developed countries and coastal cities will have easier to fight off the rising sea levels with dykes and concrete walls. The consequence will be a massive migration from badly hit areas toward other regions, a probably a massive flux of refugees toward developed countries.
- BSE (mad cow disease), or more exactly the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) : I expect it to be a second AIDS on a much worse scale. The disease is new and has an incubation period of about 20 years. This disease is of course incurable and the patient may takes months, if not years to die.
- rise in cancers and health problems because of new technologies, especially electromagnetic waves (mobile phones, Wi-Fi...). It usually also takes between 15 and 25 years before cancers start appearing massively.
- Islamic extremism and terrorism : WWIII will be Islam against the rest of the world. It has already started. Like the 100 years' war between France and England, or the 30 years' war between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, the "fightings" are sporadic, not continuous, and happen in various places. We don't realise it because when we think of WWIII, we compare it to WWI and WWII, which were continous wars. My fears is that terrorism might become so bad that it will degenerate in a more open conflict with religious or ethnic cleansings. The world is already becoming like Israel on a bigger scale. What if terrorists target nuclear plants instead of public transports ?
- worldwide financial crash : The US and Japanese economies have become so deeply intertwined that Japan is already drawing the US economy down, and thelow USD is keeping the yen low. Each country has invested massively in the other country's currency, especially Japan in USD. If a major earthquake hits Tokyo and ruin Japan' economy, Japan will have no choice but to withdraw its USD savings to rebuild the country, bringing down the whole US economy with it, and with the US the rest of the world. It will be worse than we think because Japan is already suffering from increasing Korean and Chinese competition, and will have a very hard time to recover, unlike after WWII. It is even possible that Japan becomes poorer than South Korea and Eastern China within the next 20 years, even without earthquake. Another problem is that the Chinese economy is extremely reliant on American investments, and if Japan goes down because of a major earthquake, China will suffer too, bringing chaos to the country, and possibly an open Sino-Japanese conflicts, as the two nations hate each others. The earthquake could happen anytime now, and almost certainly within the next 10 years.
- surge in the poors around the world : while gaps between the rich and the poor are increasing in developed countries, the populations of poor and very poor countries are rising at a worrying pace, so that the proportion of poor people worldwide is actuallly increasing. This will be even worse once Western countries and Japan will all have reach the point of population decline.
- deforestation and ecological destruction : the Amazon and other tropical forest are disappearing fast, and with them thousands of animal and plant species that we will never see again.
- lack of water : soon we will be fighting for fresh water on earth. Some of the biggest freshwater lakes have already gone dry (e.g. the Aral Sea), and with always more billion people on earth, always more pollution, the world will be fighting for water before 20 years.
- lack of food : studies predict that 90% of edible fish species in the ocean will have disappeared by 2048 (this is irreversible). If we continue to overfish at the current pace, there will be no more fish in the world's oceans in less than 50 years. It will surely happen sooner as countries like China and India will fish more, and the world population will have reached 8 billion in 2028 and 9 billion in 2050 (yes, half more than now). Add to this the salinastion and pollution of soils in developed countries due to over-farming and the excessive use of chemicals, which render the soil less fertile on the long run.
Combine all this in your mind to get the big picture. In 50 years' time, the ocean will have risen by several meters, but will contain no more fish. The world will be 50% more populous, but will have much less food, will fight for water. People will continue to fight for religion (e.g. Islam), but with always more destructive means, until nuclear plants are sabotaged or nuclear weapons are used. In only 20 years, many people, especially in developed countries and big cities around the world, will be suffering from more cancers, various other health disorders, high stress, and probably new epidemics of vCJB. Poorer countries will be effected by AIDS more than ever, and possibly new strains of TB, or influenza (like SARS, bird flu, etc).
When will humanity disappear from the earth ? What seems certain is that humans will have destroyed the biggest portion of other animal species on earth before they finally go.
All the causes for the destruction of humanity are adding up :
- global warming : much faster than expected; I wouldn't be surprised to see hundreds of millions of people displaced because of rising sea levels. The most worrisome region is Bangladesh and Eastern China. Developed countries and coastal cities will have easier to fight off the rising sea levels with dykes and concrete walls. The consequence will be a massive migration from badly hit areas toward other regions, a probably a massive flux of refugees toward developed countries.
- BSE (mad cow disease), or more exactly the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) : I expect it to be a second AIDS on a much worse scale. The disease is new and has an incubation period of about 20 years. This disease is of course incurable and the patient may takes months, if not years to die.
- rise in cancers and health problems because of new technologies, especially electromagnetic waves (mobile phones, Wi-Fi...). It usually also takes between 15 and 25 years before cancers start appearing massively.
- Islamic extremism and terrorism : WWIII will be Islam against the rest of the world. It has already started. Like the 100 years' war between France and England, or the 30 years' war between Catholics and Protestants in Germany, the "fightings" are sporadic, not continuous, and happen in various places. We don't realise it because when we think of WWIII, we compare it to WWI and WWII, which were continous wars. My fears is that terrorism might become so bad that it will degenerate in a more open conflict with religious or ethnic cleansings. The world is already becoming like Israel on a bigger scale. What if terrorists target nuclear plants instead of public transports ?
- worldwide financial crash : The US and Japanese economies have become so deeply intertwined that Japan is already drawing the US economy down, and thelow USD is keeping the yen low. Each country has invested massively in the other country's currency, especially Japan in USD. If a major earthquake hits Tokyo and ruin Japan' economy, Japan will have no choice but to withdraw its USD savings to rebuild the country, bringing down the whole US economy with it, and with the US the rest of the world. It will be worse than we think because Japan is already suffering from increasing Korean and Chinese competition, and will have a very hard time to recover, unlike after WWII. It is even possible that Japan becomes poorer than South Korea and Eastern China within the next 20 years, even without earthquake. Another problem is that the Chinese economy is extremely reliant on American investments, and if Japan goes down because of a major earthquake, China will suffer too, bringing chaos to the country, and possibly an open Sino-Japanese conflicts, as the two nations hate each others. The earthquake could happen anytime now, and almost certainly within the next 10 years.
- surge in the poors around the world : while gaps between the rich and the poor are increasing in developed countries, the populations of poor and very poor countries are rising at a worrying pace, so that the proportion of poor people worldwide is actuallly increasing. This will be even worse once Western countries and Japan will all have reach the point of population decline.
- deforestation and ecological destruction : the Amazon and other tropical forest are disappearing fast, and with them thousands of animal and plant species that we will never see again.
- lack of water : soon we will be fighting for fresh water on earth. Some of the biggest freshwater lakes have already gone dry (e.g. the Aral Sea), and with always more billion people on earth, always more pollution, the world will be fighting for water before 20 years.
- lack of food : studies predict that 90% of edible fish species in the ocean will have disappeared by 2048 (this is irreversible). If we continue to overfish at the current pace, there will be no more fish in the world's oceans in less than 50 years. It will surely happen sooner as countries like China and India will fish more, and the world population will have reached 8 billion in 2028 and 9 billion in 2050 (yes, half more than now). Add to this the salinastion and pollution of soils in developed countries due to over-farming and the excessive use of chemicals, which render the soil less fertile on the long run.
Combine all this in your mind to get the big picture. In 50 years' time, the ocean will have risen by several meters, but will contain no more fish. The world will be 50% more populous, but will have much less food, will fight for water. People will continue to fight for religion (e.g. Islam), but with always more destructive means, until nuclear plants are sabotaged or nuclear weapons are used. In only 20 years, many people, especially in developed countries and big cities around the world, will be suffering from more cancers, various other health disorders, high stress, and probably new epidemics of vCJB. Poorer countries will be effected by AIDS more than ever, and possibly new strains of TB, or influenza (like SARS, bird flu, etc).
When will humanity disappear from the earth ? What seems certain is that humans will have destroyed the biggest portion of other animal species on earth before they finally go.
etrified: