Changes Coming

Today’s sunrise.

My previous article described some of the changes I plan to make in the coming year relative to photography and my blog.  This article describes some of the changes I see happening in a more general sense.

I still like to keep an eye on the future and think about how I see it evolving.  I guess it is a carry-over from my pre-retirement days when I did it for a living.  The hardest thing to do relative to future change isn’t to see it but to be able to forecast when it will happen, so I’m going to describe what I see happening sometime in the near future, or next five years.

Economy

While the world economy is poised for major changes as it tries to recover from a growth scenario based upon debt, I think that we will continue to kick the can down the road and stumble on with something close to a no-growth economy, really a low growth scenario, for a short while.  But, it is highly unlikely that we will recover to a situation anywhere near like the past since the world, in general, is over extended and is relying upon a continuation of being able to exploit the earth’s resources in a non-sustainable way, and we are the worst of the lot.  We will need to change our economic systems and way of life to function on a sustainable basis, and the longer we resist doing this the greater the change will be when it happens.

Climate

The earth is slowly warming up and this is affecting the climate.  In general the biggest effect that we will experience in the near term is an increase in extreme events as the earth’s wind patterns, etc. react to this warm-up.  We probably won’t recognize the temperature changes except in the record number of maximum highs, and lows to a lesser extent, depending on where you live.  We will also experience a record number of unusual storms and unusually heavy rain falls and droughts.  These changes will cause drastic local impacts on food production around the globe which will generate increases in the price of food on a global basis.  We can also expect the recovery costs from major storm damages to increase which will be reflected in greater pressure on taxes, etc. to cover major humanitarian costs.

Natural Resources and Energy

This is the easiest area to foresee major changes.  Ever since the industrial revolution we have used up the easiest accessible natural resources including major ones like water and oil, natural gas, etc.  As we have to go deeper to extract water, oil, etc. it becomes more costly to extract them.  In the case of water, it requires more energy to pump it from greater depths and this increases the cost of food and other products which require copious quantities of water.  In the case of oil it is harder to extract from deeper depths, which are generally offshore, and this reduces the net amount of energy recovered.  The same situation exists with natural gas.  While there may be plenty available in shale, etc. it is much harder to extract which translates into a higher cost to extract and a net reduction in the level of net energy recovered per unit of energy used to extract it.  In both cases, if any problems develop, which they do because of the enormous difficulties in extracting them, the environmental impacts and costs also become higher and higher.

Politics

I’m only going to mention this since it seems to be the major topic with the press now-a-days.  It makes no difference which Republican candidate wins the primary nor makes any difference whether a Republican wins the next Presidential election.  The reason for this is that the Congress will continue to vote to maximize the short-term profits of industry and that is not in the best interest of the future of the United States with the coming changes noted above.  The reasons that they do this are based on near-term greed … for their own income, for the near-term profits to the corporation stakeholders, and for the perceived benefits by the voters who are as greedy as the rest.  People only want change when it affects others and not them.  They only think about the near term and don’t worry, or seemingly care, what happens to others.

My Conclusion

We will stumble on and not think about the long-term impact on our families and country … until it impacts our personal, and the majority of other people’s, situation in a big way.  It will probably take a major impact like extremely high costs for food and energy or major recovery costs from some major storm, or storms, that impact the Government’s ability to pay the cost, and thus their taxes, before they demand that major changes be made that are designed to correct the true situation of living beyond our means in a global sense.  To put it in other terms, we will be like the frog in the pot of water that is getting hotter and hotter until it is too late.  We will not jump out of the pot of water as it warms, and it will be too late for many when it starts to boil.