Yoors
Premium
2020 is a warning that our civilization is starting to fall apart
Translated from Dutch. View the original post
here
Some centuries have world wars. Others have Moonshots. Our big challenge is the collapse of #beschaving prevent.
Your gut knows it's going badly, very wrong. Pandemic, depression, authoritarianism, melting North Pole, fires. Perhaps by now you have a suspicion that we are living at the dawn of an era of catastrophe. Three to five decades of disaster are now ahead of us. Your brain disputes it - it does what it does, extrapolating forward based on past experiences. But that's not good right now. The old world is gone. The new one is here to stay: the one we live in now, where nothing seems right, everything has been turned upside down and chaos, uncertainty and fear reign. Your gut's right, and your brain's not right. You can see from here the end of our civilization, if you look, written in great fire, flood, plague, drought, famine, poverty, despair. It's not an illusion - it's a warning to us, back in time, from the future.
Your gut knows it's going badly, very wrong. Pandemic, depression, authoritarianism, melting North Pole, fires. Perhaps by now you have a suspicion that we are living at the dawn of an era of catastrophe. Three to five decades of disaster are now ahead of us. Your brain disputes it - it does what it does, extrapolating forward based on past experiences. But that's not good right now. The old world is gone. The new one is here to stay: the one we live in now, where nothing seems right, everything has been turned upside down and chaos, uncertainty and fear reign. Your gut's right, and your brain's not right. You can see from here the end of our civilization, if you look, written in great fire, flood, plague, drought, famine, poverty, despair. It's not an illusion - it's a warning to us, back in time, from the future.
When Bangkok walks underwater
The coronavirus mercilessly presses the world on the facts. Not many people would have thought that we were so vulnerable to a natural phenomenon. That does not promise much for the future, when climate change could once again force us to radically change our way of life. And the consequences of climate change, which can create instability and conflict. In this episode, we're zooming in on an area where that threat is huge and growing: The Asia-Pacific.
When Bangkok walks underwater
This region extends from New Zealand, to China, to Thailand. The potential impact of climate change on this region is enormous. What does it mean, for example, for the stability of the countries? What happens when low-lying Bangkok is flooded and millions of people have to migrate? And why are the threats to the Asia-Pacific also important to us, here in the Netherlands? You'll hear it all in this episode of The Strategist.
-Laura Birkman, senior strategic analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies
-Tom Middendorp, former commander of the Armed Forces and now special stragic adviser at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.
The coronavirus mercilessly presses the world on the facts. Not many people would have thought that we were so vulnerable to a natural phenomenon. That does not promise much for the future, when climate change could once again force us to radically change our way of life. And the consequences of climate change, which can create instability and conflict. In this episode, we're zooming in on an area where that threat is huge and growing: The Asia-Pacific.
When Bangkok walks underwater
This region extends from New Zealand, to China, to Thailand. The potential impact of climate change on this region is enormous. What does it mean, for example, for the stability of the countries? What happens when low-lying Bangkok is flooded and millions of people have to migrate? And why are the threats to the Asia-Pacific also important to us, here in the Netherlands? You'll hear it all in this episode of The Strategist.
-Laura Birkman, senior strategic analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies
-Tom Middendorp, former commander of the Armed Forces and now special stragic adviser at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.
2
- Report this post
