Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battlelines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments, and those who believe that we must live within limits. The vicious battles we have seen so far between greens and climate change deniers, road safety campaigners and speed freaks, real grassroots groups and corporate-sponsored astroturfers are just the beginning. This war will become much uglier as people kick against the limits that decency demands. (my emphasis)
This split, combined with the fact that we're losing, paints a truly daunting picture of the future. It's not that those concerned with life on earth will eventually win, and that we're just getting there slowly; it's that our arguments and policy proposals are failing, pollution is opened up more than it is being restricted, countries (even formerly nice countries like Canada) are breaking rules without feeling any consequences, bad infrastructure is increasingly built (like coal-fired power station), and wherever you look, we are losing ground.
Not only that, but we're losing time too - climate change is only going to speed up as Greenland's trapped carbon is released, along with other 'tippers' around the globe. We're not going to avoid a 2C rise. I doubt we'll avoid a 4C rise. There's too much power held by the expanders, too much momentum in their favour, too many ways to make profit from climate change.
For our future is one of violence and death. As fertile land turns to desert, whether through drought, vast temperature increases, GM crops or lack of healthy agriculture (e.g. soil being killed by reliance on petro-chemical fertilisers), the healthy land will increasingly struggle to support the (still) increasing human population. And starvation will ensue. But not only starvation. With starvation comes desperation. And desperation in a world with industrial military power (where there's lots of profit to be made) leads to war.
Of course, war will also come because the expanders want to gain increasing control over dwindling world resources - capital that can be mined and used once, and is then gone forever. But the expanders don't care - as long as they profit.
The human population is climbing close to 7 billion people. It is predicted to increase to 9bn. But the world cannot sustain us - it can't even sustain the current 7bn for long, and the rate at which we are expending and destroying global environmental capital (non-renewable resource use, soil-health decrease, fresh-water supply depletion, etc.) means that in the future we will be able to support even less. And by the future, we're talking the next 50 years.
My prediction, based upon all the evidence (from climate scientists, sociologists, global politics, even from seeing the (increasing) power of the climate sceptics), is that 7 billion humans will die by 2060. That could well be within my lifetime, and quite possibly be within yours. Of course, we may be some of the 7bn that die, and so never see it all, but that won't stop so many from dying.
The horror of our future is only starting to be realised, but horror it truly is. Now is the time to lay to rest your belief in an always-improving society, to challenge people's belief in the 'stability' of status-quo, and to start preparing for the worst of it. Now is the time to realise that red stains in the carpet are really not that important, and that although the future may contain wine (for there's always money to be made from alcohol/ism), carpets will become rare and expensive - a valued resource that you can't afford to replace. And so you will need to know that removing red wine from a carpet is really quite easy: dampen the carpet with a wet cloth, pour salt onto it, leave for a few minutes, rinse and repeat.
If you survive the future you won't be able to afford replacements. Reduce, Re-use, Repair, Recycle, Replace Make do!
