By Jay Beckwith, Sonoma County Gazette, May 24, 2021
The isolation required by COVID-19 has been a mixed bag. It has allowed me to come to terms with trends that have emerged over the last few years. Having spent my life as an avid environmentalist and a play systems creator, the trends that concern me are those that consider how the environmental crisis impacts children.
I found the National Intelligence Council's recent release: Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World, particularly interesting. The study examined the impact of COVID-19, such as increasing nationalism, climate change, and rising political tensions. The report provided four possible futures ranging from rosy, if all things go well, to dire. My takeaway is that their worst-case was off by orders of magnitude. Here's why.
- While they dealt with climate change, they failed to account for microplastic pollution, which is a far worst threat since it is so ubiquitous, deadly, and intractable.
- No accounting was made of the utter failure of education systems, which has resulted in half of the population unable to form rational conclusions based on facts and free of bias.
- The report failed to address the systemic inequities that ensure the status quo.
Comments (0)