It will kill us all. More accurately, it is killing us all. The dearth of wisdom at the top is leading us toward the abyss. From peak oil to climate change to criminal economic practices to pollution to simply favouring ideology and cronies over reality and evidence in critical cases, we are led by fools.
Don’t get me wrong; these people are intelligent enough in their way, meaning primarily attaining power and money for themselves and their cronies. But when it comes to leadership, they are damn fools.
Take an example: The International Energy Association (IEA). This highly-respected organization is relied upon by everyone from major news outlets (which shape public opinion) to government planning departments for energy matters, clearly of critical importance to our energy-hungry civilization. Among our energy sources, oil is by far the most important – our entire civilization rests upon it, and price increases or shortages have caused economic disasters in the not-so-distant past.
(Remember the oil shock of 1973 and the ensuing recession? Or even last year’s price spike? For those who don’t realize how dependent we are upon oil, imagine trying to get anywhere or eat anything if oil is in short supply.)
Yet the IEA based its estimates of oil reserves entirely upon unsupported and uninvestigated assumptions, also known in polite circles as “guesses.”
Only a fool would do such a thing. What if your assumptions turned out to be wrong? Any sensible person would have done some investigation to ensure the assumptions were based in reality, if not try and eliminate the need for assumptions entirely. When the IEA finally did do this – only last year did they get around to an oilfield-by-oilfield analysis of production and reserves – they were in for a shock. It turns out the Peak Oil people were right all along; we really are running out of oil.
When I first began investigating the concept of peak oil, one thing was immediately obvious: If the Earth is not magically making new oil, then sooner or later we will run out; it’s only a question of when. Given that, wise leadership would want to have some clue when that might be, and if soon, if and how it could be substituted. Only a fool would pretend that the oil would last forever.
But that is what the fools have done, and have been paid princely salaries for so doing. Only now, when reality is beginning to slap them in the face – with a two-by-four – are they starting to wake up. But you can safely conclude that their response will be inadequate, if not dangerous. As Einstein said, “We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
The same thing applies to climate change. We have known for over 100 years that pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere would increase its ability to trap heat. It’s basic physics. We have done nothing about it except to either ignore it or deny that it is happening, but now, again, reality is smacking us in the face. Even as the science becomes more and more solid, as leading scientists pronounce it’s too late, or are willing to get arrested to wake us up, we continue in blissful ignorance or frustrated apathy.
A large part of the reason for our ignorance, denial, or frustration is a deliberate misinformation campaign by those who stand to benefit financially and in prestige from the status quo. Given that climate change is literally destroying our children’s future (and possibly our own), this action could easily be construed as a crime against humanity – the largest and most thorough holocaust ever. (ABC recently had a decent, science-based special showing the consequences of ignoring things like peak oil and climate change; realistic expectations include a large-scale “die-back” and the collapse of civilization.)
What kind of fool would do such a thing? Who is so damn foolish – and criminal – as to deliberately hide lifesaving knowledge? There have been such fools throughout history; Jared Diamond describes the collapse of numerous societies throughout history, some quite advanced. In most cases, he notes, the leaders were simply the last to starve.
The difference between us and them is that we know what happened to these prior mismanaged societies; they did not have this advantage. We also have vastly more advanced science when it comes to things like climate change and peak oil. One thing that has not changed, unfortunately, is the cunning of some at reaching the pinnacle of society combined with their stupidity in other areas.
The system is clearly broken when such people not only get to the top, but are often some of the most highly respected people in society. Unless we can find a way to ensure that wise people become leaders, not simply those smart at being greedy and arrogant, we are finished – and it is beginning to look like the bad things will happen sooner rather than later.
Related features on Celsias:
How the Rich Are Destroying the Earth
To Save the Planet, We'll Have to Bury the Party Political Hatchet
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