What is the Resolution to Humanity’s Rising Ills?

By Thomas Neuburger. Initially revealed at God’s Spies

Excessive-speed rail in Japan. Max velocity: 374 mph.

Two components to wrap your head round. They join, as you’ll see.

Life With out Air Journey

The primary is a hypothesis on what it will imply to be with out air journey solely. The supply is right here from the BBC: “What would a flying-free world appear to be?”

Some background:

Aviation has lengthy been a ache within the neck for these working to chop human-caused greenhouse fuel emissions. It’s the pinnacle of a “hard-to-decarbonise” sector: energy-intensive, missing in fast technical choices to make it decrease carbon, and strongly related to the existence of the richest and strongest in society.

It has additionally change into one of many quickest rising sectors emissions-wise. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from planes grew 30% between 2013 and 2019 whereas the CO2 emissions progress within the wider financial system between the identical years was simply 4%.

And a few of their conclusions:

• It will finish the carbon air pollution of a polluting sector. “Grounding all flights on Earth would instantly put a cease to the 2.5% (and rising) of annual CO2 emissions which come from burning gas in aeroplanes, reducing CO2 emissions by round one billion tonnes per 12 months and eliminating a sector beforehand resulting in rising emissions.”
• It will finish contrails which have an outsized warming impact. “In contrast to CO2, which stays within the environment for hundreds of years, these non-CO2 emissions have a short-term, however very robust, warming impression which has been estimated asdoubtlessly tripling the general warming impact of aviation in comparison with CO2 alone.”
• “Many individuals’s day by day lives can be unaffected, not less than straight. Simply 11% of the worldwide inhabitants took a flight in 2018 and at most 4% took a world flight.”
• International locations and other people depending on tourism can be laborious hit, “particularly islands closely depending on tourism and largely solely accessible by airplane. The massive decline in travellers in 2020 [he first pandemic year] put over 100 million tourism jobs in jeopardy: many can be completely misplaced.”
• Whereas most items aren’t shipped by air, many high-value or perishable items are. “Meals air freight would additionally require adjustment. The 47,000 tonnes of contemporary or chilled fish flown from London Heathrow airport annually, for instance, would should be delivered frozen if going by ship. Extremely perishable contemporary vegatables and fruits like grapes, mangoes and avocados would disappear from supermarkets within the winter, with an increase within the consumption of frozen fruits as an alternative. The provision of flowers grown abroad would plummet.”
• Humanitarian help can be in danger. “Air freight is used to ship medical provides and prescribed drugs around the globe. It performed a significant function in delivering vaccines through the pandemic, for instance. Additionally it is used throughout humanitarian disasters to ship meals, water and medicines.”
• Excessive-speed rail would change into a direct precedence.

Excessive-Pace Rail Across the World

Take into account the final level above: Excessive-speed rail would change into a direct precedence.

Right here’s the buildout of high-speed rail worldwide in 2016 (blue) and projected for 2025 (crimson), supply The Guardian. Most of that projected observe has been laid already; China is now far within the lead.

The U.S. claims to have high-speed rail, however barely. Concerning the Acela (decrease proper on the graphic):

Acela trains are the quickest within the Americas, reaching 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) (qualifying as high-speed rail), however solely over 49.9 miles (80.3 km) of the 457-mile (735 km) route.

Fifty miles of low-speed high-speed rail. And holding. Go us.

Not Going to Occur…

The second component in at present’s piece is that this: When you begin to consider high-speed rail changing air journey, you start to see a bigger drawback. In truth, a really massive drawback. Within the U.S., nothing that challenges fashionable industrial life goes to vary until circumstance (which means, collapse) forces it to.

Futurist Marshall Mind (sure, that’s his title) has thought of this problem not less than twice. As soon as in a Doomsday article (right here), and as soon as in a Spacemen-can-save us article (right here).

Within the Doomsday article, he generously ascribes the failure of our leaders to their nice concern for our welfare and lives:

“If planet Earth stopped burning fossil fuels at present, what would occur?”

The reply is simply as easy: The results can be profound, and billions of individuals would die inside a 12 months. Why?

• Trendy agriculture would come to a useless cease. Almost each tractor on the earth, and each mix harvester, is powered by fossil fuels. With out fossil fuels there can be no plowing, no planting, no cultivating, no harvesting. Subsequently, there can be no meals for folks to eat and billions would starve to loss of life.

• Trendy transportation would come to a useless cease. Even when there have been meals, it strikes round a rustic like the US in diesel vans and diesel trains and diesel ships. With out fossil fuels, all these automobiles cease shifting and all of us starve to loss of life.

• Trendy electrical energy grids would come to a whole cease. Greater than half of the electrical energy in the US comes from fossil fuels like pure fuel.

• Trendy factories would come to a whole cease. Factories want electrical energy and fossil fuels to energy their operations, they usually want vans and trains to usher in the uncooked supplies for the factories to digest.

With out these 4 necessities, fashionable society collapses. All of them require fossil fuels.

And:

Can we wean all these sectors off fossil fuels? Sure, in fact. However it should take a long time even when we ignore all the ability wielded by the incumbent fossil gas corporations and their lackeys. What if we noticed a headline tomorrow that mentioned, “World leaders allocate $10 trillion to quickly decarbonize all of worldwide agriculture, transportation and electrical energy technology in 5 years.”? We’ll by no means see this headline. There isn’t any group of world leaders considering on this approach. World leaders are usually not on the verge of allocating this sort of cash. Nor are world leaders even considering such an allocation.

Trendy economies shall be burning fossil fuels, and subsequently including gigatons of carbon dioxide to the environment, for a lot of a long time to come back. Historical past exhibits us that that is what’s going to occur. Trendy economies will do that as a result of there may be no near-term various to fossil fuels that doesn’t contain spending trillions of {dollars} to hurry issues up. As a result of world leaders don’t need their folks to starve and die, fossil gas consumption will proceed largely unabated.

I like his generosity, his unwarranted assumption of billionaire concern, however nonetheless, he makes an excellent level. The plain resolution is Plato’s benevolent dictator, what Plato calls the “thinker king.” However who would that be?

…Until the Aliens Step In

Clearly, we gained’t get a thinker king anytime quickly, not from amongst ourselves. We’ll have dictators aplenty, although none benevolent, and none with ample energy.

Which ends up in his good, incredible resolution — aliens from area who actually need solely our good. What would they do to resolve our issues for us?

First, how did these benevolent aliens acquire management? The author offers them nice energy.

The primary act of the Sleeborans [the aliens] was apparently to neuter the planet’s navy forces in each nation. Each nuclear missile silo and transporter was mysteriously disabled. Each navy submarine and warship misplaced the flexibility to maneuver or fireplace its weapons. Each navy jet, helicopter, tank or transport was disabled and grounded.

The second act for the Sleeborans was to fulfill with each excessive authorities official and company chief on the planet. Apparently the Sleeborans had transporter rooms like those in Star Trek, as a result of a Sleeboran robotic, in response to information experiences, appeared within the workplace or residence of 1000’s of vital and rich folks throughout the planet. …

The third act was for the Sleeborans to deploy hundreds of thousands of robots throughout the planet in each inhabitants heart, from small cities to main cities. There gave the impression to be roughly one robotic per 100 folks. These robots appeared to do nothing except they detected anger or violence or what is perhaps regarded as prison or impolite habits – issues like theft, vandalism, racism, misogyny. The robotic would seem on the scene and the indignant or violent or prison particular person would vanish in a short flash of sunshine. Nobody knew the place they went. [They are later revealed to be safe.] Phrase rapidly unfold on the Web, and other people rapidly acknowledged, that anger and violence and crime have been unacceptable to the Sleeborans. Subsequently, these actions rapidly subsided, both by way of attrition of the perpetrators or classes discovered.

What’s the Sleeboran resolution to humanity’s ills?

The Sleeborans famous 4 vital tendencies that had triggered their arrival on Earth:

1. The rising menace of worldwide battle and nuclear battle, and particularly the battle in Ukraine.
2. The unmanaged menace of local weather change, the place Earth was about to achieve irreversible tipping factors.
3. The acute financial inequalities that have been rising with out restraint.
4. The proliferation of crime and corruption and basic asshole habits, particularly inside governments, which was making the planet’s first rate folks depressing with no corresponding profit.

Their Resolution to Unequal Wealth

For example of Sleeboran options, contemplate wealth inequality. After noting that “a small proportion of people have the means to buy a $1,000 sensible cellphone, whereas these assembling the telephones usually acquired solely pennies in return for an hour of their labor,” a state of affairs they referred to as “irrational, merciless and immoral,” the Sleeborans did this:

Subsequently, the rich can be stripped of their belongings and wealth, all the way down to the extent of a traditional lifestyle. And the poor would all be raised as much as the identical lifestyle. This lifestyle can be outlined by the wholesome carrying capability of the planet.

Beneath the principles of capitalism, it was completely regular for an individual to start out a profitable firm, rent one million workers, and for the one particular person to amass $100 billion utilizing the work of these workers to do it. To the Sleeborans, the notion of utmost wealth like this was abhorrent. Why not as an alternative give $100,000 to every worker? Or decrease costs in order that the $100 billion by no means gathered? The entire notion was ridiculous to the Sleeborans and can be dismantled rapidly. The period of 300-foot-long yachts and personal jets and 12 mansions on 5 totally different continents was gone eternally underneath the Sleeborans.

The remainder of their options observe comparable traces.

The Fantasy Tells the Fact

The issue with this fantasy is that it’s true — in a really particular approach:

[T]he Sleeborans did the issues that each considerate particular person knew needed to be executed. They destroyed the specter of nuclear annihilation. They eradicated all of the assholes who have been ruining society for everybody else. They made the laborious selections on local weather change after which acted impressively. They introduced everybody within the human species as much as the identical lifestyle, reasonably than tolerating the wonderful inequalities that had been the norm for therefore lengthy. They eradicated the hyper wealthy and their absurdities. The world was changing into a a lot better place.

What the reality does this incorporates? Each considerate particular person is aware of these items need to be executed.

Why the approaching collapse? No considerate particular person thinks these items might occur. Not within the amount wanted. Not in time.

Again to the Future

We began with air journey and high-speed rail. We’ll finish there as properly.

Within the U.S., what number of miles of high-speed rail shall be constructed, past the less-than-a-hundred it already has, by … let’s say, the tip of your life? How a lot lower than what’s wanted will that quantity be?

Within the meantime, world warming is rushing up. It’s simple to do the maths. I’m with the Sleeborans.