Chapter 107 Chapter 19 Towards a New Millennium 3

3 Of course, the author of this book also doesn't know what to do.However, some long-term developments are very clear, and here are some of the problems that can be briefly stated, and at least the conditions for possible solutions can also be identified. In the long run, the two central issues of the future will be population and ecology.The world population has grown explosively since the middle of the 20th century. It is generally believed that it will stabilize at the edge of 10 billion around 2030, which is five times the total population in 1950.The main slowing factor will come from lower birth rates in the third world.If these predictions turn out to be unpopular, all bets the world has made on the future will be wrong.But even if this calculation is roughly correct, then mankind will face a major global problem that has never been faced before, that is, how to maintain the stability of the world population.Or more likely, how to keep the world's population at a certain level, or slightly increase or decrease with a certain trend (as for the situation of a sharp decline in the global population, although it is unlikely, it is not completely unimaginable, "but" will make the problem more complicated).However, regardless of population stabilization, the world's population will inevitably continue to migrate outwards, exacerbating existing inequalities between different regions.Generally speaking, the future will be like the short period of the twentieth century. The rich and developed countries will be the first to stabilize their population, and even tend to decrease, just as in the 1990s, several countries have experienced this phenomenon. phenomenon.

By the standards of El Salvador or Morocco, every man and woman in a rich country can be called rich.Citizens of poor countries with large numbers of young labor force must compete for menial jobs in the rich world.In the latter case, the number of elderly people is increasing and the number of children is decreasing. It is bound to choose between the following three options: ① open doors to welcome immigrants in large numbers; ② build high fences to prevent immigrants when necessary (this may not be practical in the long run) ; ③ Find another way.The most likely route, perhaps granting temporary work permits and conditional immigration, would deny outsiders the social and political rights of citizenship and create a fundamentally unequal society.This arrangement ranges from the categorical South African-Israeli "segregation policy" (an extreme condition, though dwindling in some areas, that has not yet completely disappeared from the face of the earth), to the informal tolerance of immigration ( As long as they do not make demands on the country of emigration), the situation varies.Because these labor-oriented immigrants purely regard this place as a place where they come to work and earn money from time to time, and basically still use their home country as their hometown. Advances in transportation in the late 20th century, coupled with the income disparity between rich and poor countries, made this separation of housing and employment more feasible.In the long run (even in the medium term), whether the friction between local residents and foreigners will become greater due to this is still unknown in the future. It will become a topic of endless debate between eternal optimists and disillusioned skeptics.

Such differences are bound to play an important role in national and international politics in the next few decades, and there is no doubt about it. As for ecological issues, while decisive in the long run, there is no immediate explosive effect.This statement does not mean to underestimate the importance of ecological issues—however, since the issue of ecology entered the field of public awareness and public discussion in the 1970s, the world has a wrong tendency to discuss it in a tone of imminent doom.However, although the "greenhouse effect" may not raise the sea level in the year 2000 AD to a level high enough to submerge the entire territory of Bengal and the Netherlands; and the situation of countless species dying every day on the earth is not without precedent It can be followed, but this does not mean that we can sit back and relax.An economic growth as short as the twentieth century, if continued indefinitely (assuming it is possible), would be irreparably catastrophic to the natural environment of this planet, including the human beings who are a part of it.It will not destroy the planet, nor will it make it completely uninhabitable, but it will definitely change the life forms in this biosphere, and it may even be unsuitable for humans as we know them today, in any condition close to today's population.What's more, modern technology has increasingly accelerated our species' ability to change the environment, so that even if we assumed that the rate of change was no longer accelerating, the time left for us to find countermeasures would be measured in decades rather than decades. Hundreds of years count.

The pace of ecological crisis is approaching, what countermeasures are feasible?There are only three things that are certain about this answer.First, it must be a global effort, not a localized programme.Individually, of course, if the biggest polluters in the world—that is, Americans, who make up only 4% of the world's population—could raise the price of oil they consume to a reasonable level, it might win more jobs for the planet. a little time.Second, the purpose of ecological policy must be "thorough" and "reasonable".It is neither thorough nor reasonable to rely solely on market-based solutions, such as adding the environmental cost of suitcases to the prices of consumer goods and services.The example of the United States proves that even a slight increase in energy taxes is enough to set off an uproar and cause insurmountable political resistance. The oil price record since 1973 can also prove that in a free market economy society, energy costs have skyrocketed by 12 to 16 times in 6 years, which is not enough to reduce energy use, but can only make its use more Efficiency only.At the same time, it encourages investment in other new energy sources that have dubious effects on environmental protection, such as fossil fuels (fossil fuel).These developments are set to bring down oil prices again and encourage more waste.On the other hand, all kinds of proposals such as a zero-growth world—not to mention all kinds of fantasies of returning to the basics and symbiosis between humans and nature—are also unrealistic at all.In the current state of affairs, so-called zero growth is bound to freeze existing inequalities across countries.The average Swiss resident can certainly tolerate it, but the average Indian cannot.No wonder that the main sources of support for the ecological argument are rich countries, and the well-to-do rich and middle classes in all countries (except for those businessmen who make money from pollution).But in poor countries, the population is increasing rapidly and unemployment is widespread, so it is natural to "develop" more and more.

But rich or not, it is absolutely right to support ecological policies.In the medium term, the rate of developmental growth should be limited to the level of "enough to survive"-but this term has been used too much to make sense-and in the long run, when humans and the (renewable) resources they consume, It is necessary to find a balanced foothold between the three factors and the effect of its activities on the environment.But no one knows, and no one dares to speculate, how to achieve this goal?And at what level of population, technology and consumption can this balance be achieved?Scientific expertise can naturally provide us with the key to avoiding the irreversible crisis, but the establishment of a balance here is not in the category of science and technology, but a political and social issue.It is absolutely undeniable, however, that a world economy based on economic enterprises based on unlimited profit and means of competing with each other in a global free market is bound to be incompatible with the ideals of economic growth and ecological balance.From the perspective of environmental protection, if human beings still want to have a future, capitalism, which has been in crisis for two decades, will have no future.