Captain's Phlog                                    2020.02.19
_____________________________________________________________

	This is the first of two entries. How long it will 
take me to write the second... I do not know. This first 
will be a black comedy of what I feel we can expect on earth 
through 2050. It's grim. But I'm writing it to set a tone 
for my second installment. I believe we're doomed by our 
momentum. I've felt like this for a while now and I'm only 
recently forming my response to a done deal. Take my 
despair. It is a gift I offer you with the kindest of 
intentions. It is perhaps a tired and worn thing but I will 
return soon with another post - to polish it, and make it 
something you may very well come to cherish. Until then.

	There is a flood coming. Not an actual flood aside 
from the kind we get normally during the Spring Thaw around 
these parts. And not the Biblical (ne Sumerian) kind 
involved with the retribution of some unhappy Omnipotent in 
the sky - though this is closer to the truth. The coming 
deluge and it's aftermath will be the direct result of 
capitalism. A hard rain is gonna fall.

	I'm not the first, or the smartest, or the most 
eloquent to speak these things but they are still fringe 
opinions and it's entirely likely I'm the first person 
you've seen talking this way. Such uniqueness makes me a 
prophet and I knowingly assume the mantle of incredulity, 
ridicule, and hostility that entails.

	First and foremost, the earth as we know it is 
already dead. The Water Wars and Famines have begun. They are 
relegated to the least stable and prosperous parts of the 
globe thus far so we'll not really notice them in the 'first 
world' just yet. You'll have to dig a bit to find the short 
piece (maybe just an op-ed) toward the bottom of your 
mainstream news site of choice. You might also be able to 
measure the slight bump to inflation in your rock-solid 
currency or the barest slowing of the markets. But these are 
still below the background noise levels in the Winter of 
2020 and won't be pinned with certainty on the Apocalypse 
just yet. Wait for it.

	Welcome to 2030. At the centers of our empires we 
continue to consume unabated. Our cars are electric, The 
iPhone XXIV generates its power from body heat and our 
shopping sacks are cloth. Technology, one might think, has 
saved us. The captains of industry have leveraged the smarts 
of the lab coats and we can proceed business as usual. A 
neo-liberal utopia. Brave future.

	Welcome to 2030. Only somehow we never sprung back 
from the small recession of 2024. Inflation, while not 
running away, isn't really stable. Food production in China 
and Argentina has fallen by double digits for four years in 
a row. And an already stretched W.H.O has just begun a major 
operation in Finland where melting permafrost has awakened a 
virus common among deer in the Pleistocene. It began 
infecting herds of reindeer in 2028 and has now made the 
jump to humans. It has so-far proven uncontainable.

	Welcome to 2040. The permanent Mars colony just 
celebrated it's fifth anniversary and the first birth of a 
Martian. Jenna Glick weighed in at twelve kilos. Small by 
earth standards, but to be expected there. This comes as 
good news to the ESA who has begun hearings to scale back 
funding for the project under pressure from cash-strapped 
governments. A terrorist group in California calling itself 
"Water for Drinking" has begun disrupting service to area 
almond farms. Globally, large swaths of densely populated 
coastline are being abandoned adding to the numbers of 
persons already dispossessed by the side-effects of local 
temperature and precipitation fluctuations. UN estimates are 
that the total number of persons displaced environmental 
refugees now totals one billion persons.

	Welcome to 2050. On April 18th of this year the 
Associated Press printed the obituary of Greta Thunburg who 
died from an attack of asthma exacerbated by particulate 
pollutants. By the end of this decade, global population 
will plateau as still births, deaths from untreatable 
infection and decreasing life expectancies catch up to a 
declining birthrate. Every government still in existence has 
instituted some form of rationing of essential goods and 
services. In the eastern US there is ample electricity and 
ample petroleum products, but little to cook. What call 
there is for clothing and housewares is now answered 
regionally. Organized religion is booming and the Mars 
Colony has been abandoned.

	 
Thus Ends Post the First...