Kaze, February 2019
Will we see “Apocalypse” soon?
Saburo KATO
These days, I cannot shake the feeling that our civil society will eventually facecatastrophic consequences/apocalypse not so far in the future IF the current serious
economic, social and political situations continues.
Of course, I am not at all waiting for the apocalypse, but I cannot remove theimage of catastrophic collapse of our civilization especially when we recall that the current
civil society was developed consuming such powerful fossil fuels as coal, petroleum andnatural gas in a relatively short period of time.
In fact, it was in the 19th century when we started to use a large amount of fossil
fuels. Since then the powerful energy generated by fossil fuels have been a driving forth ofgrowing industries of the world. Science and technology have been sophisticated to meetthe needs of industries. Backed by ideological support of Liberalism, Democracy andGlobalism, they have been spurring the “growth”, which was resulted in continuousdevelopment and transformation of global environment both in ecosphere and humanhabitation. The human population on this globe was almost quintupled from 1,600 million
in early 20th century to 7,600 million now in 21st century, and the growing population havebeen and is still seeking for ever-expanding economy for their living.
Those energetic economic activities are heavily relied on natural resources
including fossil fuels and/or metals. We have enormously consumed those earth’s finite
resources so far and are still consuming them, leaving almost no room for additional
development for the future generation. It is clear that the Spaceship Earth has reached abreaking point and is now going beyond its capacity, screaming under the pressure ofexcessive development. So called “climatic catastrophe” observed in various parts of theworld would be one of the symptoms. Moreover, biological species have been decreasing
in number and deteriorated in quality under the human pressure. Despite these SOSs
signals from the Nature, we have been and still are in a frenzy to woo wealth and comfort,
and keep our eyes closed to those signals.
Having seen the blind attachment to “growth” for decades, I cannot but wipe out
the nightmare that, in the midst of our desperate struggle for wealth and happiness, ourindustrial civilization would collapse not so far in the future. By the way, my image of thecollapse of the Earth would be that we lose control of our social system, and hundreds ofmillions of people are suffered, if not extinguished, under the following situations.

1) Natural environment
Extreme climate syndrome frequently takes place all over the world; concentrated
downpours and resulting floods/mudslides will take many lives and seriously
damage public infrastructure, frequent wildfires caused by drought and heatwaves,
deterioration of fauna and flora, and overall decline of natural environment.
2) Daily life
Our daily life will be disturbed by climate disasters, food and water supply will
become unstable, transportation system will be frequently cut off, and heatstrokeand various infectious diseases will be spreading all over the world. Under these
difficult situation, rich people will be able to survive for the time being using theirfinancial power, but poor people will be losing their ways of living. This will be acause of serious social instability with frequent demonstrations. It may even lead toterrorism.
3) Business and industries
Social instability will negatively affect business and industries for sure. Commutingof company employees will be frequently disturbed, and business activities will besuspended for a long time due to collapse of roads, bridges and highways. As wehave already experienced, tourism will be heavily damaged, which will seriously
prevent normal and stable business activities.
4) Politics
The increasing cost for disaster recovery will press the budget of national and localgovernments. It will become enormous and may cause financial difficulties if
devastating natural disasters occur every year. If the restoration costs 5-10% of GDP
every year, the national budget will be heavily pressed and the government will haveno choice but to cut public services to avoid financial collapse. This will, after all, leadto social instability and may trigger the rise of populism or fascism, claiming forelimination of the gap between the rich and the poor.
5) Cultural activities
Such concepts as liberalism, democracy, basic human rights, and fairness and equity
have been recognized as basic and important values of human beings and have beentaken for granted in many years. However, these values could be lost once we arecornered by environmental destruction and suffered from resulting food shortage.
We have already seen the desperate efforts of people in mid-East, Africa and SouthAmerica moving to rich and developed Europe and the US. We never know what will
happen if things become more serious in the near future.
To avoid catastrophic end of the earth, following two points should be fullyrecognized, not only by politicians but also many citizens of the world.
Firstly, we have to keep in mind that the global environment is finite. We are alreadyabout 70% beyond its capacity. We need to put this fact as a basis of our economic,
political activities and also our daily lives.
Secondly, we have to stop a GDP-first policy that we so far have stuck to. We
believed that the growth of GDP will bring us happiness forever. Such convenient gadgets
as bullet trains, highways, flights, air conditioning, PCs, smart phones, etc. have beenintroduced into the market, and we have been racing for their consumption. Nowadays, itwould be almost impossible to give up those convenient gadgets. It is time we change ourmind and learn to satisfy with a reasonable level of convenience in order to lead a
comfortable life far in the future.