It's Cool By the Pool - Right? [COLUMN]

We are due for a great convulsion - this is beyond what we have already experienced. Sure, we will be forced to transition from the current business as usual approach to business, and energy, and banking, and capitalism, to Other Systems. Note the use of the word Forced. For a large obese population used to movies on tap and tv via remote control,and fast food and all the rest, this change alone won't come easy.

There is another change on the cards too, beyond the change from cars to non-cars/something else. In the coming era our kind will either graduate to an inclusive belief system based on intelligence and common sense, or we will revert to a psychobabble doctrine based on our group or tribe's exclusive right to salvation/holiness/to shoot other people to Hell.

It is quite a difficult time - as you can imagine - to have to finally settle our Belief Issues, and then Energy Issues, while the Planet's Climate System throws everything into increasing chaos. A recent study projects that once destabilised, the world's climate will take about 10 centuries (that's around 15 human lifetimes more or less) to come back to normal. This is assuming we don't go nuclear and so on.

I am not a Doomsayer, but an Actualist. Nevertheless, I admit not to having much to be positive about re: our conundrum. I'm happy to be proved wrong, but the evidence to the contrary, as I see it, is quite overwhelming. I use the word 'overwhelming' for a reason. It would be stubborn optimism to believe otherwise.

Incidentally, one of the main reasons, I believe, why we have gotten ourselves into so much shit, is because a huge fraction of people on Earth have believed that we are going to Heaven because we're good and that is all that matters. This Tom-foolery and self-foolery somehow provided a license for profligacy. It also provided an excuse to deny Climate Change - because, of course, if God made the Heaven and the Earth, then who are we to have any say in that...it's God's fault, or God's to fix (if there is a problem in the first place, Hallelujah).

If we do not graduate from this kind of thinking it is going to be very tough for a very long time - I mean, tougher than it needs to be. I don't deny that the community brought about by religion is quite valuable. I suspect though that this community of tribes unravels when tribes take each other on. Then it's the opposite of community. It's conflict. And given the stresses and strains that are in store, we don't need any more than is necessary. The worst will be of our own making. Mark my words.

More thoughts on the topic of our beliefs here.