My speech at the 2004 democratic national convention, if I was asked to speak.
I spent the last few days listening to speeches at the democratic convention. Some were pedestrian, but many were rousing, inspirational, really touching on true, serious issues facing us.
But what struck me listening to the speeches was that no one talked about the truly important issues. Instead, the talks were on the economy, on Iraq, on the environment, on health insurance, on education. Vital issues, all. But not the truly important ones.
What can be more important than the US economy, our war on terrorism, the health of US citizens? Just this. The most important issue of today is not one of personal fulfillment, or the stature of the United States in the world. The most important issue of the day is the survival of the human species.
I just got your attention. I will lose your attention if I cannot quickly convince you that there is any truth to the statement.
To start, let me begin by noting that the human species has faced many critical transitions in the past, such as the birth of agriculture, the fall of the roman empire, the start of the industrial age, and so on. In these critical transitions, the future becomes highly uncertain, until a new path is chosen. The analogy to the concept of 'phase transitions' in physics, or 'punctuated evolution' in biology is not accidental. Virtually every complex system follows similar histories: long periods of stasis, punctuated by short periods of rapid change, chaos, and uncertainty.
Most people will accept the statement that we are currently in one of these short periods of chaos. What may not be fully appreciated is that this transitional period is potentially the most serious of any so far faced by our species. It is the most serious because of the unprecedented collision of several issues, each of which potentially threatens global civilization. These issues are:
1) The human species is running out of energy. Our civilization is based on cheap and plentiful energy. That basis will disappear in one or two generations. We face and unknown and unprecedented transition to a new relationship with energy.
2) The human species is performing a global environmental experiment that has the potential to catastrophically change the world's climate in less than a generation, primarily through the injection of CO2 into the atmosphere.
3) Our highly technological civilization is fragile to asymmetric warfare to an extent that even today is not fully appreciated. For most of human history, countries in conflict could have only local effects. Then during the cold war, countries could potentially create global effects. Today, small groups or even individuals can create global effects.
4) The world population explosion is stressing the earth to an unprecedented degree. Today, the planet is close to the ultimate agricultural carrying capacity. The environmental and biological change to the globe is without precedent, not just in human history, but in the entire history of our Earth.
5) The world society is becoming both fractionated and globalized to an unprecedented degree. By fractionated, I mean that the world no longer consists of countries interacting. Today, religious and political fractions, and especially multinational corporations, are often more important than countries. By globalized, I mean that groups and individuals are no longer primarily defined by their geographic location, but by affiliations that often transcend place. When age old social networks are stressed or broken, the outcome of the social realignment is highly uncertain.
For people who read more than newspapers and watch more than the major US news outlets, none of these issues are new. In fact, some of these issues, such as the population one, have been bandied about for 200 years. So what is different about today? The sky has not yet fallen, who's to say the sky will never fall?
The first answer to that question is one of a mismatch of timescale. People think about today, next month, next year. The issues above are all on the timescale of generations, which is difficult to think about. We will not run out of energy this year or next. But it will happen, and soon, when we think not of days but of generations.
The second answer to the question is to understand how predictions are made. Predictions are made based on some certain things (physical laws, conservation laws), and other uncertain things (human behavior, complex system response, etc). The uncertain things mean that prediction of timeframe is almost always very difficult. The certain things mean that even if we do not know when, we can often be very certain that things will eventually happen. We will run out of energy. CO2 will dramatically change the climate. Our civilization will be disrupted. Population will increase. Society will change...
So for the first time in human history, we have multiple global challenges that are hitting us at approximately the same time. What do we do about it? The first thing we do is recognize the situation we are in. The historian Barbara Tuchman has a wonderful book called "The March of Folly", where she talks about how the refusal to think clearly about the true situation causes catastrophe after catastrophe.
It is comforting to ignore problems, to think that things will always work out. But sometimes, things don't work out, at least not without help. If the engine on my airplane starts making strange sounds, do I hope it will get better by itself, or do I immediately look for a field to set down in? Which path is better for my survival? We must, absolutely must, have a clear vision of the current situation, even in the face of uncertainty. The engine may or may not quit. But I had better be prepared for it to.
The second thing to do, of course, is to do something. This requires that we stop acting as individuals, as groups, as countries, but as a species, that is interested in self-preservation. We require leaders that will inform, and will lead, and will help us work together to solve these problems that threaten our existence.
What happens if we do nothing? Well, given the uncertainties of timescale, it is very possible that I personally will have a decent life. It is somewhat less likely that my children will have a decent life in a decent civilization. It is much less likely that my grandchildren and their children will not suffer catastrophic change.
I for one am less interested in the health and wellbeing of my generation and my country than I am in the ultimate survival of the species. I believe that we have a sacred duty as a species to not only survive, but to prevail, to explore the universe, to discover the secrets of the universe. We need leaders with that vision. Leaders that will lead.
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