Pandemics

I was riveted by this recent article in The Tyee. You can read the complete article here. The major points of the effects of pandemics:

(1) Immutable Forces of History

(2) Pandemics Thrive on Upheaval

(3) Pandemics are Social Accelerators

(4) Pandemics Reflect the Civilization in Which they Flourish

(5) Pandemics Erode Trust

(6) Pandemics Always Discriminate

(7) Pandemics Spawn Irrational Social Movements

(8) Pandemics Possess Long Tails

(9) Pandemics are Biological Icebergs

(10) Pandemics don't End with a Political Command or vaccine

Excerpt:

"The technosphere represents a quasi-autonomous metabolizing system composed of concrete, plastic and steel infrastructure. It runs on fossil fuels, and its ever-growing complexity now requires artificial intelligence. Unlike the biosphere which generates no waste, the technosphere gobbles energy, water and resources only to spew out continuous streams of poisonous waste such as carbon dioxide, mine tailings and plastic garbage. The technosphere’s human-created components now weigh more than all living creatures on Earth.

Pandemics, which can play the role of constraining rapidly growing populations of any kind, act as a sort of biological blowback to this relentless conquest.

Moreover, they are not random. They remain critical barometers of our social and economic fragilities. They accompany ages of discord like crows and coyotes on a rotting elk carcass. Disorder and violence follow in their wake. They accelerate every bad trend in society, whether it be political disintegration, inequality or the rapid advance of dangerous technologies such as AI. And they unleash dangerous social movements."

The whole article is well worth the read. The multiple upheavals on our planet right now are merely a symptom of massive and dangerous underlying symptoms which we ignore at our peril.

Violence

I must stop watching the news at night. I resolve over and over again to do just that and then tell myself - well just the headlines, well, just five minutes, and then before I know it, it's the whole sorry flood of it, on and on and on.

What kind of effing planet are we on anyway?

We have the obscenity of billionaires spending in frivolity, in lavishness, in greed with the pollution of private enormous yachts and private jets and multiple homes with millions and millions starving.

Meanwhile - (now stop here if you don't want to get depressed and move on to a sunny blog)

Lebanon: the whole economy has tanked and seniors, yes seniors, have had their pensions, their life long savings, erased and are living on the streets in poverty, depending on charity to sustain themselves. Forget any medications.

Israel and Palestine:  at it again, my land, no my land, here's a bomb onto your camp, I'll teach you. And on it goes.

Sudan: well, unbelievable starvation and desperation.

Russia-Ukraine, war crimes, toddlers dead in their mothers' arms.

The oceans are dying, warmed just about to extinction. The quantity of icebergs here for the last few months is staggering. Greenland is finally green I would imagine.

Forest fires in Canada are at a record high and the polluted air has hit most of the northern and mid USA in a yellow poison along with the major cities here. Millions of hectares gone forever.

Heatwaves in the southern USA at record temperature highs.

Maternal deaths in the USA are one of the worst in the world. And the rights of women and gays eradicated by their corrupt Supreme Court. The USA desperately needs to change its entire system of democracy. I mean, seriously, Trump running again? Is this a joke? A traitor president? 

It's violence everywhere. Wars between countries, wars on women. 

Constant violence waged upon the only planet we have.

We are a pathetic species.

And yes, maybe I should stick this old head in the sand and go nah-nah-nah and shut off the news.

But seriously? We are on the road to extinction, at least I believe that.

You? Do you have any hope for us at all?