

The Coming Crunch 

by Richard Heinberg


Most of us will be lost in the confusion. An awareness that
something extraordinary is happening will develop in most of the
people, for even their leaders will be confused into polluting
themselves. It will be difficult to decide whom to follow. . .
. Those gifted with the knowledge of the sacred instructions will
then live very cautiously, for they will remember and have faith
in these instructions, and it will be on their shoulders that
the fate of the world shall rest. 

-Hopi Prophecy

It's not polite to talk about the end of the world. I've noticed
that when the subject comes up in conversation, some people become
agitated, others obsessive, still others dismissive. And the discussion
never seems to go anywhere: after all, since there is no way to
know when, whether, or how some universally destructive cataclysmic
event might occur, there seem to be no clear ways of forestalling
it. Why talk about something vague and distressing, concerning
which there is apparently little that any of us can personally
do?

Yet the topic keeps coming up-with increasing frequency, it appears.
Perhaps it's our proximity to the millennium; maybe it's just
a pervasive angst resulting from stress and overwork. In any case,
a widespread fear of some overwhelming disaster unquestionably
exists throughout much of the world today. Rather than repressing
it, let's explore it. Why do so many people believe we
are living in apocalyptic times? Are there grounds for this belief?
If so, what might be a reasonable response?


Disquieting Signals 


The simplest explanation for a proliferation of end-time expectations
is the global rise of religious fundamentalism. As Michael Grosso
details in his new book The Millennium Myth: Love and Death
at the End of Time, the idea that the world will one day lose
its moral footings and be consumed in wars and natural disasters,
clearing the way for a new age of peace and saintliness, is to
be found in many religions and lies at the heart of a few modern
political movements as well. For communists and nazis as much
as for Muslims, Zoroastrians, Pentecostal Christians, and Jehovah's
Witnesses, the present world is a den of depravity whose cleansing
destruction is inevitable and necessary. Even Aboriginal Americans,
Africans, and Australians have expectations of universal death
and rebirth; the Hopi have gone so far as to insist on having
their traditional prophecy proclaimed at the United Nations.

So, as millions of people turn to religion for relief from the
social and psychological pressures brought on by economic &quot;growth&quot;
and technological &quot;progress,&quot; we should expect our psychic
airspace to be saturated with millenarian fears and hallucinations.
This might explain why people who have near-death experiences
often report prophetic visions of imminent global chaos, or why
&quot;future-life&quot; progression hypnotherapists (such as Chet
Snow and Helen Wambach, authors of <I>Mass Dreams of the Future</I>)
find that their hypnotic subjects nearly always &quot;see&quot;
Earth changes, extreme weather conditions, dramatically increasing
political tensions, and general destruction around the year 2000.

However, more than a few current anticipations of apocalypse seem
to be grounded in something other than myth.

This spring the New York Times published an essay by R.
Taggart Murphy titled &quot;The Crash of 1998,&quot; in which
the author predicted that an inevitable further contraction of
the Japanese economy will likely drag the U.S., and eventually
the rest of the world, into a depression comparable to that of
the 1930s.

Other economists have been predicting a crash at least since the
mid-'80s, in view of huge unrecoverable loans to Third-World countries
taken out during the last twenty years at the encouragement of
the IMF, the World Bank, and various international investment
banks. The recent $50 billion bailout of Mexico was intended to
prevent a default that could have sent the world economy reeling;
it is doubtful that the U.S. or other northern countries will
be able to afford many more similar bailouts in the future. Of
course, the money from such bailouts goes not to the people in
the country concerned (the loans don't, either), but to bankers,
investors, and industrialists; the people pay through a reduction
in real income. Essentially, the complex-sounding business of
international investment often boils down to a simple matter of
extracting resources as cheaply as possible wherever they exist,
and driving down labor costs as far as they will go. This has
the effect of ruining local economies, impoverishing populations,
and destroying ecosystems. It is a process that cannot go on indefinitely,
and the near-meltdown of the Mexican economy was an early indication
that inherent limits are in sight.

Then there is the problem of overproduction. According to Jeremy
Rifkin of the Foundation on Economic Trends (and author of The
Future of Work, computer-based automation has the potential
to eliminate the jobs of over half of the present work force,
and the growing high-tech/ information sector can absorb only
a fraction of these workers. Inevitably, job loss will shrink
effective demand just as automation increases production; the
result could be an economic catastrophe.

Still other economists say a crash is likely to result, somewhat
paradoxically, both from the growth of U.S. private and government
debt and from misplaced efforts to trim the U.S. budget deficit.

With so many potential pitfalls in sight, even the normally upbeat
World Future Society is hedging its bets in its promotional literature
by including the passing remark: &quot;A worldwide economic collapse
is extremely likely in the next few years.&quot;

In the U.S., and to a lesser degree in Europe, this economic uncertainty
seems to be fueling a political shift in the general direction
of fascism. Politicians play on the fears of white upper- and
middle-class males by scapegoating traditionally underprivileged
groups (women, immigrants, and racial minorities): &quot;they&quot;
are lazy, inferior, or sinister; moreover, &quot;they&quot; want
what &quot;we&quot; have, and so if &quot;we&quot; feel economic
security slipping away, it must be &quot;their&quot; fault. Consequently
lawmakers are simultaneously dismantling parts of the social welfare
safety net that appear to benefit the less-privileged (thereby
increasing the likely incidence of destitution) and criminalizing
poverty (through local ordinances directed against the homeless).

Crime and terrorism are purportedly about to engulf us, and the
only possible remedies (say the politicians) are stiffer laws
and more prisons. So, President Clinton's &quot;anti-terrorism&quot;
bill, which severely undermines civil liberties in the name of
national security, sails toward implementation. (The official
U.S. definition of terrorism now includes any "plan"
or "conspiracy" to "disable a conveyance,"
which means that in principle someone could face a twelve-year
prison sentence for thinking seriously about slashing his own
bicycle tires. The new definition also includes the commission
of any illegal act for the purpose of influencing public
policy&quot;-which presumably would refer to an expression of
civil disobedience like trying to protect a redwood grove by sitting
in front of a bulldozer.)

Economic instability and political fear-mongering are in turn
feeding upon deepening ecological dilemmas. Global warming is
starting to produce freakish weather patterns; cities are running
out of landfill space while industries search for new sites to
store toxic waste; soils are being mined and eroded at a record
rate as population growth puts unprecedented pressure on farmers
to increase yields by any means necessary; sources of fresh water
are simultaneously being fought over and polluted; forests are
disappearing by the millions of acres per year; and the oceans
are being overfished to the point that many once-abundant edible
species are nearing extinction.

These gnawing economic, political, and environmental problems-the
widening gap between rich and poor, creeping fascism, and a decline
in the Earth's ability to accommodate further human demands-seem
likely to compound and exacerbate one another, possibly paving
the way for an even grimmer prospect: a general war.

Antiwar activist and historian Michael Andregg has spent the past
dozen years studying the causes of general wars (those, that is,
that involve many countries across large geographical regions)
throughout history. In a 1990 paper titled &quot;If Present Trends
Continue, the Next General War Should Begin Between 1997 and 2002,&quot;
Andregg noted that &quot;The most common cause of war in history
has been competition for territory and . . . resources.
He also cited population pressure and inequalities of wealth as
frequent factors: The starving generally do not start wars;
they are too weak. It is those somewhat richer who see the trend
of things and the suffering which awaits, but who still have surplus
resources, who begin [wars]. Economic and power elites, ever vigilant
to threats to their privilege, are quick to resort to state repression
or scapegoating conquest.&quot; I recently asked Andregg if the
dissolution of the Soviet Union had made a general war less likely;
he replied that it hadn't, because the ideological conflict between
communist and capitalist blocs hadn't figured much in his analysis
to begin with. He believes that the factors pushing us toward
war are instead (1) population growth, (2) inequalities of wealth
between and within nations, (3) corruption of governance, (4)
lack of effective international conflict resolution systems, (5)
fundamentalist religious philosophies, (6) ethnic violence and
hatred, (7) instability in Eastern Europe and Western Russia,
(8) unexpected aspects of the developing ecological crisis, and
(9)millennialism. Andregg told me that since the publication of
his paper little has happened to alter his time table.

Then there are those who say that Mother Earth herself will put
a stop to human foolishness. While psychic Gordon-Michael Scallion
has been firing off one prediction after another (in his monthly
Earth Change Report of incredibly massive California earthquakes
that never seem to materialize on schedule, other observers see
the likelihood of different, but perhaps even more dire geophysical
events. Recently the television program Sightings reported
that the ice pack over Eastern Antarctica is showing signs of
instability, probably as a result of global warming; if it were
to become unstuck and slide into the sea (a real possibility,
according to the program), the world's ocean levels would rise
by 150 feet and tsunamis, earthquakes, and global climate change
would likely follow. I've tried to verify this story, with only
partial success: a recent Time article (3/20/95) told of
icebergs the size of Luxembourg that are now breaking off the
Antarctic ice pack at a rate of one or two a year; and a quick
check of recent geophysical literature showed only that climatologists
and geologists are concerned about an Antarctic meltdown over
a period of decades or centuries (catastrophe, yes; tomorrow,
probably no).

Meanwhile, biologists tell us that the human immune system is
breaking down in response to pollution, and that deadly new contagious
diseases are likely to appear, partly as a result of pathogenic
microorganisms evolving immunities to existing antibiotics (see
Laurie Garrett, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases
in a World Out of Balance. At the same time, the strange
(but widely confirmed) observation that male sperm counts in humans
and other animal species have decreased by about 40% in the last
50 years is being linked to estrogen-like chemicals in pesticides
that now pervade the entire food chain. If this last trend continues
for just a few decades more, the human race could lose the capacity
to reproduce itself and eventually become extinct.

If this isn't enough cause for worry, all we need do is turn to
astronomers like D. Steele (author of Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday
Comets: The Search for the Million Megaton Menace That Threatens
Life on Earth, who warn that a comet or meteor impact could
wipe us out at any moment; or to sources of cosmic wisdom like
Asaria (the human &quot;channel&quot; by whom a Galactic Intelligence
named Ashtar contributes a regular column in a New Age magazine
in southern Colorado), who predict UFO mass landings within months-though
this might actually be our salvation instead of our ruin.

Don't Think About It! 


Clearly, there is a wealth of possible doomsday scenarios, some
more credible than others. If one is expecting space aliens to
blast the Pentagon to bits and enslave humanity, one may be advised
to keep a stack of reading material close by-it could be a long
wait. On the other hand, an informed understanding of the world
economic system's vulnerability to collapse could hardly be called
the hallmark of a crackpot. Still, many people lump all concerns
about future catastrophes together and dismiss them wholesale.
Here are some arguments they use in doing so:

YOU WERE WRONG BEFORE. In the year 235 A.D., Hippolytus, bishop
of Porto, calculated (to the relief of thousands of early Christians)
that the world would continue for a full two centuries more before
the coming of the Antichrist. Wrong. Charles Taze Russell, the
founder of Jehovah's Witnesses, predicted the world would end
in 1914. Wrong. In the late 1960s, Paul Ehrlich (author of The
Population Bomb predicted that population pressure would
cause a global breakdown of political and economic systems by
the mid-'80s. Wrong again. A popular economics book of 1985 warned
of "the crash of 1990". Wrong yet again. Given that people
have been unsuccessfully foretelling the end of the world for
centuries (see Yuri Rubinsky and Ian Wiseman, <I>A History o f
the End of the World), why should anyone take yet another
doomsday prophecy seriously?

IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO PREDICT THE FUTURE; THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY
FACTORS. Who predicted the breakup of the Soviet Union in the
late 1980s? Virtually no one. Who in 1950 foresaw the impact that
television and computers would have on us all by the end of the
century? Again, virtually no one. While it may be possible to
observe social trends and project them into the future, such projections
nearly always leave out some important factor(s) that end up altering
events decisively. Why be concerned about the future, if the future
cannot be accurately predicted?

WE'RE BETTER OFF PAYING ATTENTION TO THE PRESENT. Jesus taught
that we should take no thought of tomorrow; Ram Dass told us to
Be Here Now. It can be argued that most of the ills of the world
result from people piling up wealth and weapons out of anxiety
over the future. Why not just live in the present? Life is about
discovering the unknown; the future is supposed to be mysterious.

YOU CREATE WHAT YOU ENVISION, SO ENVISION WORLD PEACE. Some prophecies
are self-fulfilling: a person who sees the world as hostile acts
defensively and may actually provoke hostile behavior on the part
of others, thus confirming his worldview. People who believe that
the world is a friendly place tend to <I>make it</I> a friendly
place. Therefore, if you want to live in a world of peace, joy,
and balance, pretend that you already do and you'll help create
that reality. On the other hand, if enough people anticipate doom,
it could ensue: widespread fear could destabilize society enough
so that opportunistic demagogues could take control and lead us
toward war, economic calamity, or political repression. Why further
inflate an apocalyptic thoughtform that is already endangering
our future? Instead of Armageddon, visualize utopia.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE. Despite all sorts of challenges, humanity
has shown remarkable resilience. We've been through two World
Wars and a Great Depression just this century-and our civilization
has managed to survive. Sure, we'll face more difficulties in
the decades ahead. But today, with our sophisticated systems of
monitoring and control, a total breakdown is hardly likely. We'll
create new technologies to handle whatever problems arise; as
always, the human race will not only get by but will gradually
advance. Humanity is on an evolutionary journey. It doesn't make
sense that we would get this far only to fizzle.

LOOK AT THE GOOD SIDE. We should pay more attention to all of
the <I>positive</I> things happening! Fifty years ago few people
had even heard of ecology; today, most people are concerned about
the environment. New scientific paradigms are changing the way
we look at the world. We may be at a critical juncture, but that
just means that we are facing a great collective opportunity.
This is no time to give in to pessimism and cynicism. We must
press on toward new evolutionary horizons!


But Think Again . . . 
I'm sympathetic to at least some of these arguments. Others I
find less than convincing. For example:

Why should anyone take yet another doomsday prophecy seriously?
Because catastrophes do happen, if infrequently. Those who predicted
the fall of Rome (as many Cynic philosophers did) were quite right.
And there were economists in the 1920s who warned that the stock
market bubble would eventually burst. Right again. Of course,
many catastrophes (like volcanic eruptions and giant meteor impacts)
are difficult to predict accurately far in advance. But ones that
are tied to measurable trends in human affairs cast their shadows
before them. It may be difficult to foresee the precise moment
an economic crash will occur, but when levels of debt, speculation,
and disparity of wealth reach extremes, the <I>likelihood</I>
of a crash does increase.

Yes, it's impossible to know the future in detail. But it's stupid
to ignore common-sense warning signs. If you stick your hand in
a fire, you'll feel pain; if you leave it there, you are likely
to injure yourself. That's a prediction. If you overpopulate the
planet and draw down its resources, you may initially notice symptoms
like deforestation and pollution; eventually, you are likely to
see mass starvation, wars, and epidemics. Technology and clever
social engineering may delay the effects (just as wearing a plastic
glove might temporarily protect your hand from fire). But in the
long run, both the technological quick fix and the plastic glove
might actually compound the ensuing distress.

And yes, it's healthy to have positive thoughts. Apocalyptic thinking
is a likely contributing cause of apocalypse. But in some situations
positive thinking can verge on denial. Surely we should try to
make the best of any situation. Yet we also need to be honest
with ourselves about our circumstances. No matter how bad things
get, some people maintain a blind faith in the ability of technological
or scientific progress to solve all human problems, despite considerable
evidence that scientific and technological developments have played
major roles in creating or exacerbating those problems. Sometimes
it takes a forcible reality check to get us to reexamine our basic
assumptions. Realism is not necessarily the same as pessimism.

What might have been the attitude of a realistic optimist in Germany
in the early '30s? Surely it would not have been merely to trust
that God, science, and Hitler would save the day. A practical
but positive person might have expected an eventual resolution,
but only after much sacrifice and struggle. Such a person might
also have taken prudent steps-such as opposing the existing regime
in strategic ways, leaving the country, or helping others to do
so.

Are we in an analogous situation now? Perhaps.


A Possible Scenario 


Here is my own prediction of what the future holds. To put it
in writing may be foolhardy, but I find this an irresistible temptation,
given the context. I offer it not as a psychic, but as a student
of history and culture. And I do so in the most general of terms,
since any number of events could intervene to drastically alter
present trends and their outcomes. In the absence of some truly
overwhelming and sudden geological or ecological catastrophe,
or a mass UFO landing, I believe that we can expect something
like the following:

From a broad perspective, our civilization appears to be in what
comparative civilizationalist Carroll Quigley (in <I>The Evolution
of Civilizations</I>) called the &quot;decay phase&quot; of its
developmental trajectory. This being the case, over the next century
or so we are likely to see an increase in political corruption
and a gradual breakdown of the economy and systems of control,
punctuated by violent spasms of war and repression.

In somewhat more specific terms, I would expect a global economic
crisis to begin some time during the next decade, for reasons
outlined earlier in this essay.

We may also see the installation of fundamentalist Muslim governments
in Egypt and Saudi Arabia-a development that could have ominous
international implications, given U.S., Japanese, and European
dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and the general demonization
of Muslims taking place in the U.S.

The rightward drift of U.S. politics is likely to continue in
the near term. Legislation currently being enacted by the Republican
Congress will probably have devastating social, environmental,
and economic consequences, so legislators will need scapegoats-both
within and beyond the nation's borders. The CIA has recently declared
its intention to expand covert operations, and weapons stockpiles
continue to grow worldwide. All of these trends are consistent
with Michael Andregg's warning that a general war is likely during
the next decade.

We will unquestionably see an increase in environmental catastrophes,
along with plagues, famines, and mass migrations. Some fairly
spectacular instances of this kind may occur within the decade;
however, the real brunt of social and biological collapse is likely
to come toward the middle of the next century.

What will emerge from this period of global chaos? I see three
likely possibilities: a repaired and perfected technocracy, isolated
survivalist camps, or a sustainable eco-village culture (for a
discussion of these possible outcomes, see MuseLetter
What Are Our Options?


Beyond Depression and Hysteria 

There is a real danger, when considering such stark eventualities,
that one will adopt an attitude of fatalism, give up all hope,
and simply do nothing. That's why it is helpful to pay attention
to positive developments-experiments in community, appropriate
small-scale technology, natural homebuilding, and grassroots democracy
(developments we will explore further in upcoming issues of <I>MuseLetter</I>).
Rather than abandoning efforts toward the protection of nature
and culture, and the pioneering of sane economic and social alternatives,
we must redouble them.

At the same time, while visualizing and working toward a future
of justice and sustainability, it is wise to pay attention to
current social trends and their likely consequences, no matter
how unpleasant it may be to do so.

We are not living in ordinary times. Normally, it is natural and
fulfilling for people to participate fully in their culture, spending
their days at the same economic, social, sacred, and artistic
activities as their peers. It is deeply disturbing to find that
the society into which one was born is locked in a pattern of
action that could ultimately lead to a tragedy of almost unimaginable
proportions. One must either blind oneself to this likely outcome,
or choose to be out of step with the rest of society. Most people
do the former; only the strong-willed or those whom society has
already somehow rejected find it easy to do the latter.

For those identified with the system, its demise is unthinkable.
To those who are out of step, it might appear that an economic
catastrophe could actually be a blessing: perhaps it would put
brakes on our headlong destruction of the environment. But whether
one looks toward a coming crash with dread or resigned acceptance,
it is wise to be prepared.

The nature of that preparation depends somewhat on whether one
is motivated merely to survive, or to help create a cultural alternative.
A purely survivalist response would entail a mostly solitary existence
far from population centers, with effort spent in stockpiling
food and weapons. The cultural pioneer, on the other hand, will
likely choose to work closely with others of like mind to meet
basic human needs in ways that can be replicated sustainably.

The survivalist will peer over his shoulder and try to elude government
harassment. The cultural pioneer, on the other hand, will be ever
alert for opportunities to reduce dependence on the human techno-economic
system and to learn more about nature. Communities of such pioneers
will work to develop local, small-scale economies that are resistant
to the pressures of the global market.

What if all predictions of imminent disaster are wrong? What if
our society repairs itself and trudges on, or bursts through into
some new stage of cultural evolution? In that case, the lone survivalist
would have pessimistically frittered away a life that might have
been spent far more pleasurably in the garrulous company of friends
and family. In contrast, I suspect that cultural pioneers-after
a lifetime of working in peaceful cooperation with one another
and with nature-would have little to regret. Indeed, if our civilization
does survive, it will likely do so only because of the contributions
of those on the cultural frontiers.

If our present civilization were to collapse-either all at once
or over the course of a few decades-survivalists would likely
contribute little to the spiritual welfare of future generations,
while those working toward cultural renewal could play a pivotal
role. Without the latter, it is hard to see how the traumatized
remnants of humanity could do better than respond the way victims
of lesser disasters tend to do-that is, with denial, blunted affect,
anxiety, dissociation, and a compulsion to assign blame (see MuseLetters
#35 and #36). In addition to helping plant the seeds of a new,
sustainable culture, those with a larger view of the events could
also be in a somewhat better psychological position than others
to recognize post-traumatic stress reactions in themselves and
in humankind as a whole, and to initiate a collective healing
process.

MuseLetter is a monthly exploration of cultural renewal.
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