What we leave behind for generations to come

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: One hundred thousand years from now, what is in store for human beings? The March issue of the ‘New Scientist’ had an extensive report on ‘The Deep Future’, making predictions about what is to come, the language we will speak, what will we like and what our descendants will make of our trash.Unlike the usual ghastly, gruesome reports, this one tells us how humanity, now a global network of civilisations with an unprecedented access to a pool of knowledge, will still be around 100,000 years from now.Asteroid impacts, killer virus pandemic, nuclear weapons and even the more scary supervolacno eruption that happens every 50,000 years are unlikely to wipe out the  population of 7 billion people, says the report.All this hullabaloo over genetic manipulations also maybe over nothing. The article doubts whether human beings would actually tinker with the genes on a scale that would alter the course of human evolution. But the major hitch is regarding global warming, which will leave many parts of the planet unlivable.A 7-degrees Celsius global rise will make tropical regions so hot and humid that life would be almost impossible. If the warming goes up by 11-degrees Celsius, the entire Indian subcontinent will become uninhabitable, and so will China, Australia, south America and much of eastern US. Island nations will be off the map, so will cities like Tokyo, London and New York. Of course, we can move up to the North Pole.Will there be any nature left?"Barring a radical shift in human behaviour, our distant descendants will live in a world severely depleted of nature’s wonders,’’ says the report. Existing only in papers will be the blue macaws, tigers, pandas and rhinos. Animals like pigeons, rats and foxes are predicted to flourish, along with humans.Maybe this is why the world’s least developed countries (LDC) have issued a bold plan to make the UN climate change talks come out with a legally binding agreement ready for governments to adopt by 2015. Many of these countries have already started feeling the effects of climate change, especially sea-level rise.Maybe this is also why the theory of ‘degrowth’ has been catching up in many countries. Degrowth is a political, economic, and social movement based on environmentalist, anti-capitalist and anti-consumerist ideas. ‘Degrowthists’ aim to maximise happiness and well-being through non-consumptive means -sharing work, consuming less, while devoting more time to art, music, family, culture and community.One of the best-known proponents of degrowth, French philosopher and economist Serge Latouche, says that the movement is aimed at a shift away from the pursuit of “growth for growth’s sake”. Degrowth supporters call for a controlled and rational decrease in consumption and production, in a way that respects the climate, ecosystems and human beings themselves.Economic growth and prosperity can soon push the planet to an ecological cliff, warn conservationists. “This idea that a secure growing economy would look after our children and their children forever has been a bit of an illusion,” Tim Jackson, professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey in Britain was reported to have said.The threat of a systemic global crisis with various dimensions - environmental, economic, energy-related - will be on the discussion table at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), taking place during June 20-22 in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. Just before that, from May 13 to 19, an international conference ‘Degrowth in the Americas’, to take place in Canada, seeks to challenge and move beyond the sustainable development agenda.(Keep track of the Sci-bug, every Saturday. And do not forget to give us a feedback on [email protected])