Three little things...

It seems to me that without three major upheavals, the human race—and perhaps all life on earth—is doomed.

1. An end to war, warmongering, the weapons industry and so on.

2. A rapid reduction in population, eventually stabilising at less than 10% of the current level, and perhaps as low as 1%.

3. Development of cheap—or preferably free—and abundant clean energy available to everyone.

That's all. Just those three little things. Not much to ask really... But without any one of them, what hope do we have?

But, I hear you ask, what about pollution? What about food production? What about climate change? What about the north-south rich-poor divide? What about... But if you think about it, those things all depend on the three things in my list. Pollution? Mostly caused by the use of fossil fuels, and of course by our bloated population, and by the agricultural methods that our population has forced on us. And by wars and weapons production. Also much easier to clean up if you have lots of clean energy to spare. Food production? We can easily produce enough to feed 10% of our current population. Even 50%. Just not 100%. (Or maybe even 100%, except that inequalities of distribution keep so many starving while others waste food in the most disgusting way. Ever watch children's TV shows from the US? Ever notice how often they have food fights?) Climate change? Again, the combination of population and the use of fossil fuels. The north-south rich-poor divide? Well that's a tougher one. But if there's abundant clean energy and no population pressure, it will certainly be easier to solve than it is in our current conditions.

Fifty years ago, I would have said that the priority was to work on human psychology: doing whatever is possible to keep people with personality disorders away from power, building people up, developing the captain and so on. If that could have been achieved, then point #1 above would follow automatically. Point #2 could have been achieved much more easily and with far less trauma, since the population fifty years ago was less than half what it is now. Potentially even point #3 could have been achieved by now, especially if the talents of all the mathematicians and physicists who work for the military-industrial complex turned their efforts in that direction.

But none of that happened. As Yoda might have said: Immaturity, childhood trauma and poor psychological development lead to fear. Fear leads to large families, greed and lust for power. Large families, greed and lust for power lead to overpopulation, war, pollution, poverty, pestilence, climate change and extinction... Now we're facing the results of that.

The plight of life on earth is now so fragile, so urgent, that it's too late to start from root causes. Without a short-term (a century or two?) effort to address the symptoms directly, the patient will not survive long enough for any vaccination to help. We need to act now, and boldly, to have any chance. Once we're more secure, then we can go back to working on psychology. But for now, I think we need to get on with it, and if a few people's feelings are hurt, well frankly that's a lot less serious than what would happen to them if things continue as they are. There are worse things than losing your job in the bomb factory, not being able to have children, or having your oil company's profits collapse. Sorry about that, but making bombs, having children and extracting oil are not just part of the problem: they are the problem.

Next question: What can I do to help with even one of these three?

And I have no idea.