Is it True That the World, As We Know it, Ends at 2050?

On Mother’s Day, I took Jane to Chapters to get a couple of books.  One was about art, but the other was Jared Diamond’s Upheaval.  I finished it myself yesterday, stunned by one of the book’s key takeaways:  the chances of the world as we know it ending by 2050 are 49%.  That’s right – 49%.

There’s a lot of thirst for treatises like that in these COVID-19 days.  Opinions from all sides abound everywhere, but when someone like Diamond speaks, well you have to at least hear the popular author out.

In times of crisis, fearful outcomes are a natural part of conversations.  So, let’s start with one of the Diamond’s most troubling claims:  “Today, the risk that we’re facing is not of societies collapsing one by one, but because of globalization, the risk we are facing is of the collapse of the whole world.”

This is a vital point, since we frequently think of particular nations or empires falling to ashes.  Diamond says that this time is different; it’s about a network of things – nature, nations, technology, diplomacy, etc. – contributing to each’s decline.  In other words, it’s an exponential threat.  It makes sense that in a globalized world that its greatest threat would be global in scope.

But how did he arrive at the date of 2050?  That seems awfully exact.

It’s nothing really complex, just basic stuff.  Fisheries, farms, soil, topsoil, fresh water – these have used up unsustainably for decades and just a bit of scientific research caused Diamond to figure out that about three decades is all we’ve got left until shortages of such things become global.  “By 2050, either we’ve figured out a sustainable course, or it’ll be too late,” he concludes.  Keep in mind that Diamond thinks the chance of this are roughly 50/50 (or 49%).  

How do we set about averting the tragedy?  Acknowledging its veracity is his first suggestion.    Yet, he’s clear that a large part of that confession is the affirmation that we could actually do something about it, if we could get our collective act together.    The solutions are ones we already know, he says, and more people are convinced of it than ever, but the will to act has not yet reached the critical point.  

Just like COVID, he reasons.  Scan the world and you see some countries gettting it under control, but then there are many others that can’t summon up the resolve.  Their systems are failing and even the citizenry can’t work up the courage to act and vote differently.  The problem is that this phenomenon is happening across the globe at the same time.  In a globalized world, there is no bastion of safety, just nations surrounded by challenge.

It is estimated that our endangered world, with its $80 trillion in GDP, dedicates only 25% of that sum to public expenditures – healthcare, education, care for the elderly, environmental reform, etc.  That’s exactly why so many nations were caught flat-footed when COVID-19 announced its presence on the scene.  And it’s remains the reason why some of those countries still lack the resources necessary to curtail the pandemic.  

Here’s an interesting projection.  Folks and institutions like the Global Health Organization, who study this stuff, say that for the price of $2500 (US) per person per year in the affluent world, these great dangers could be averted.  Instead of collapse, there would be a new resolve, new possibilities, a more sustainable future.  But as of yet, we refuse to do it.  No government will call upon us to make that sacrifice because, well, they want to be re-elected.  And all those citizens with beautiful homes, cars, and investments, believe they are too penny-poor to sacrifice $2500 a year to save their children’s future.

If leaders, followers, and the rest who just don’t care to do either, decide in a decade or two that it’s time to take action, it will be too late – by a lot.  If we don’t make our difference now, then the world Diamond prophesizes about will be upon us, and even if he’s off by a few years, we will curse our inaction.  We will be tempted to blame government, which is fitting.  Governments will blame us – equally valid.  But it will be our children who will fix us with their withering glare, wondering why we piddled away their future before they had time to correct the imbalances.

Thirty years, that’s it.  Thirty years to rouse ourselves from our lethargy and invest just a portion of bounty to pull off the greatest miracle in history.  What are the odds?