The idea that global politics are a terrifying blend of natural disasters, belligerence, and deadly military potential isn't unique to this decade, but holy fuck, did it ever just get weird.
In a long article, Charlie Stross breaks down the way that climate change, human reactions to climate change, and economics are turning the world into a place overrun by heavily armed racist kooks with the power and willingness to destroy everything in their race to get rich enough to buy a mountaintop retreat before the seas rise.
A good parallel read is Bruce Sterling's "general health-check for our world's many regions and peoples," which includes such nuggets as "Iraq remains a catastrophic mess. Since they're so visibly keen
on sectarian ethnic-cleansing, they ought to abandon the shell of
the national order and form balkanized mini-states. It makes sense,
but I don't think even that would help them."
Oh, and "Russia is so lastingly humiliated by their failure to globalize
that they've become a 'troll state… Americans used to have all kinds of practical "reform" advice for
Russia, but that's worse than useless now. If you show up in Russia
and tell 'em to follow the American Dream, it's like showing up with
whooping cough at a house party for tuberculosis."
But anyway, here's my summary of the next decade:
1. The weather's going to get worse.
2. We're going to see more and more unscrupulous huckster types leading revanchist, nativist right wing political movements and banging the anti-immigrant drum, world-wide. Civil rights include the right to free movement; this makes civil rights an easy scapegoat and target for the angry populist nativists. Sensible media capitalists (those with a sense of self-preservation) will pander to these assclowns. Courageous media capitalists (those with the odd ethical bone in their body) will stand up to them and get themselves assassinated or imprisoned. Luckily we have the internet except, oops, Facebook owns it and FB will do whatever they're told. (And if not Facebook, Google. The internet is infrastructure, and if annoying dissidents are drinking from the pure tapwater of honest news and you own the pumping station …)
3. This is going to happen both in nominally/formerly Christian countries and in the Muslim world. Both sides will see each other in a mirror and hiss like cats, but it doesn't really signify anything. Fear of terrorism is a rallying point, so expect unscrupulous politicians to use crack-downs on their local minorities to bolster their popularity. This will of course include crack-downs on civil rights because nothing annoys a political entrepreneur trying to posture as a strong leader like a civil rights lawyer with a good case.
4. The ongoing 1300-year Sunni/Shi'ite cold war will continue, sometimes hotter, thanks to climate-induced disruption in the Middle East and the eventual collapse of the Saudi petrochemical economy. The ongoing Saudi succession crisis isn't going to help (as we just saw).
6 None of this political posturing is going to do jack shit to roll back the already-in-train effects of climate change so the immigration pressure will continue, driving trends (2) and (3).
7. Don't buy long term coal or oil futures.
[Charlie Stross/Charlie's Diary]
(Image: Erde 3, Karin Frank)
