James' Marvelous Blog: Irrational hopelessness?

If you are prone to depression or scare easily I urge to read no further, dark tiding are within.

When I was a teenager, I would occasionally have short lived fits of depression, usually after listening to Pink Floyd or watching a Mad Max marathon.

Fear of an uncertain future, our energy consumption was growing exponentially, the threat of nuclear war (this was before the end of the cold war mind you), the seemingly relentless AIDS epidemic, the advent of biological weapons. It was scary stuff.

But you swept it under the carpet, realizing that this would likely not come to pass, and you got on with your homework, developing you inadequate social skills and figuring out what you were doing with your life.

It's been a while since I felt that feeling looming doom. You watch movies or read books like "The Road", "The Book of Eli" or even "World War Z" and you can examine in a more cerebral way what it might look like if it all came to an end.

Maybe the death of my brother-in-law has taken me to a dark place but, in the last month three new items crossed my path, and I don't follow the news that much, so this is just the stuff I caught.

The March 15th episode of Quirks & Quarks on CBC: Beyond Antibiotics

Antibiotics play a role in cancer treatment, in transplant medicine, and in keeping premature infants alive. But we've been in an arms race with bacteria, as they have evolved resistance to our drugs. We've stayed ahead of them by introducing new medicines, but the pharmaceutical cupboard is nearly bare.

A march 19th piece in "I fucking love sience" entitled: According To A Nasa Funded Study, We're Pretty Much Screwed

Two key social features are identified that contributed to the collapse of every civilization studied: “The stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity," and "The economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]"...

... Nevertheless, contrary to much of the reporting, the model does not provide a useful timeline for when we can expect to see the world we live in turn into something that resembles a post-apocalyptic nightmare, although studies of the convergence of climate and resource challenges suggest we may witness drastic food crises within a little over a decade

And finally a comment heard at the end of a radio broadcast discussion about oil reserves. I can't remember what show, or who was talking but the guy essentially said:

Oil supply doesn't worry me, phosphorus supply worries me, all our crops rely on a steady supply of phosphorus, 90% of the worlds reservers are in Morocco. When those start to run out, there are very few alternatives.

Someone talk me down, because this stuff is scaring the shit out of me.

You don't have to read fiction to see the kind of suffering this leads to. It's been going on in sub Sarahan Africa for ages and in much of Asia.

And we bury our heads in the sand. That's what we've always done. The enormity of the problem is overwhelming if you don't.

So what do I do? It was easier to bury my head in the sand when I was a teenager, I didn't have kids to worry about, to wonder if the world I've brought them into is going to Hell in a hand basket.

I don't know if anything can be done, even if I chose not ignore the problem.

Someone give me hope.

Nevertheless, contrary to much of the reporting, the model does not provide a useful timeline for when we can expect to see the world we live in turn into something that resembles a post-apocalyptic nightmare, although studies of the convergence of climate and resource challenges suggest we may witness drastic food crises within a little over a decade.
Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/environment/according-nasa-funded-study-were-pretty-much-screwed#4Vt3eYpIy6yzg08d.99An

According To A Nasa Funded Study, We're Pretty Much Screwed
Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/environment/according-nasa-funded-study-were-pretty-much-screwed#ZRDyhTvzsEoQzRhT.99

James' Marvelous Blog

Friday 28 March 2014

Irrational hopelessness?

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