Hitchhiking from Switzerland to Papua. Some reports of a traveler. Autostopp von der Schweiz nach Papua ohne Flugzeug zu benutzen. Ein grobes Tagebuch eines Globetrotter.
I was walking in the chaotic streets of Mega- Jakarta. I was on the way the whole day when suddenly I realize something. It was dusty, loud, durty and stinky when some street sellers smiled at me. I learned three big things on this 2 years traveling.And I wanna write this down now.
I've started with us, the humans and our environment.
Now I go on with the future.
The future
Another 60 years to live?
What do we know about our future?
Its much better then we realize. We supposed to be part of this world and hunt some animals in the forest like we've done it during the last 200'000 years. We got rid of this burden during the last years. Today I see a lot of decadence in our life in developed countries. Young people can fly around the world. Students getting drunk with fine French wine and own an Iphone, an Ipad and an Ipod in the same time. This is probably not always going to be granted. There are REAL crisis coming towards us not alike the last 60 years. We might stay quite privileged in Switzerland thanks to efficiency and innovative workers. (We shouldn't consider the stable political situation and the good financial base of the state. Its just too fragile)
The safer we think we are in our expectations, the bigger is going to be our disappointment. It’s the same rule for our dreams of life. OF CORSE: Built up something! BUT! We will be faced with unknown and massive crisis, and we are going to be taken by surprise. Lets see who's gonna be resistant enough of us.
The shortage of oil is a good example. It’s, I think, no more a political opinion but a certitude. This will end in new worldwide crisis. That’s the easy part of the prediction of the future, because some experts (not me) can estimate how and when it’s going to happen. What I'm not sure about, are the reactions of the people and first of all: The political consequences of such huge crisis. Unpredictable!
Are you ready for the future?
Topics:
- The end of resources
- The Neo- Pest
- Aim? World Domination!
- Consequences for our daily life
- Life on the peak level
(Click on the image to get backgroundinformation)
The end of resources
There are more people alive today as ever people died in the history of human kind. Another traveller told me about this and even if this rule of thumb isn't yet 100% correct; the estimation is neither completely wrong. The population was always around a million people during the last 200'000 years. Just to explode in the last centuries up to 7'021'383'343 beings in the moment.
We all want to live! And we want MORE! We want development, streets, watches, laptops and first of all: We want food. But the resources to produce it, are limited. The fertile land is used and even on the most remote islands are companies digging for metals. Short: There is less stuff and space, but more people who live with bigger and more material desires. To overcome this heavy shortage of resources per individual, is the main challenge of my generation.
The main source of our material uprising is this concentration of sun- energy we found in the ground. Coal and oil. The very most of the humans have been hard working and fighting for 200'000 years just to nourish themselves. But only in the last 70 years a big part of the humans have been released of it by this dirt- cheap energy. Today it’s no more a struggle to survive, but a fight for the cheapest flight to Bali or for a car that can park automatically between two others. As an example: Only this energy made it possible for us to unearth, process and distribute worldwide such a huge quantity of metals. The shortage of the oil is the first obstacle for us in my century.
And as a blogger I can say it in a subjective way: I don't think we are going to perform very successful.
More:
The Neo- Pest
A friend was in the hospital for weeks. Because of a small scratch on his leg. He got an infection with a multiple- drug- resistant germ. No antibiotic medicaments could help him, the infection became bigger and the germs spread over the body and into the blood system. Later I discussed with my mother who works in a laboratory of microbiology. I didn't knew before how serious this issue is for mankind...
More: http://www.pharmaceutical-int.com/article/combating-drug-resistance.html
All over the history of humans, there have been heavy illness outbreaks, killing big parts of the population. The modern medicine combined with the discovery of penicillin/ antibiotics allowed us to avoid such big pandemics during the last 70 years. But this medicaments have been used in the last years in large quantities for the rise of the production of meat. The germs are getting used to the medicament and they survive it more and more often. We can't do a lot against multi- drug- resistant germs. This development will end in new pest who will kill a lot of people. One of the last big epidemic was the Black Death between 1347 and 1351 but it took years to spread over whole Europe. And it never reached the whole world. But today we fly around daily and there are no geographic boundaries anymore. More expensive food and the shortage of resources are not going to be a big problem in Switzerland. But this illness will not stop at our boarder. It even will develop here because of our irresponsible wastage of pet- medicaments.
Another very big danger is made in modern laboratories, where illnesses are created, who are stronger then they could ever develop in nature. If an illness kills the host (patient) too fast he can't spread over distance, because the animals would die before it meets other possible host. But in the society of 2012 the speed of meeting people in different places of the world gets faster and faster. In consequence this rules doesn't work anymore. Super- germs would spread over the world in an amazing speed and would be more disastrous then natural germs ever could be. Another thought: If a big ruthless firm develops a super- illness and owns the medicaments against the illness, wouldn't it be very seductive to let a outbreak happen to earn a loooot of money?
More: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2011/11/expert_unease_over_deadly_flu.php
What happens if in just a few years a third of the population disappears? We have to figure it out. But meanwhile we know, we made the life on earth depending on us. Chemical industry and nuclear power plants need years to be shut down. If too many experts would be sick or die in a short term, life on this overpopulated planet would be longer and heavier influenced by these contaminations then by a single illness outbreak.
Aim?: World domination!
Global dominance is everyday life. I expected people to be more different. But during the last 22 month of hitchhiking and living mostly with the local people in their villages, I was again and again surprised about how similar we are. Why?
Some of the first huge empires have been built by the Egyptians 4'000 years ago. 700 years ago, some Mongols on horses conquered 16% of the world. And in the last century only two big political blocs ruled practically the whole planet. Wouldn’t it be easy to control the world today? With all this planes and the Internet?
Is it happening already?
But I don’t think about a territory taken by war. And surely it’s not about a normal sovereign country. It’s more like an normal, unobvious development.
No single brain, club or organisation is going to have the full control. Not in the first century of the united humans. The globalisation is everywhere and its dimension and effect is huge. Because of this, new solutions have to be found globally too. Another thing is the common cultural base of the young generation of the world. Internet and Pop- culture reduce differences between the humans. Justin Biber and Adele arrived in every single village of Tibet or Alaska. The boys in remote islands in Indonesia play World of Warcraft and Coutnerstrike while they drink Nescafe or Coca Cola. The global village is reality! Every big company has one and the same goal: Growth till every market on earth is conquered.
Then thousands of years we’ve been often perfectly isolated. Now we grow more together with every second passing away.
A world of brothers and sisters.
For good or for evil.
It’s supported by three things:
1. The technical revolution of infrastructure and Internet. The world is no more measured in distance, but in time of transmission or time of travelling. Leaving Switzerland, New Zealand is on the other side of the world. But practically it’s as fare as a remote valley in the Swiss mountains. Companies operating around the clock and around the world are standard today.
2. The American/ Western main culture is the dominant one, who conquered the world after the break down of the Soviet Union. The USA might loose their position as most important country of the world, pretty sure they have to give away power and ego to other uprising countries. (What they are trying to avoid with help of their guns) But their pop, food and language is copied, adapted and used in the whole world. Is English the new biblical language, reuniting the humans?
3. The climate change, environment destruction, world crisis and the motivation of big parts of the educated people to do something against it, even if this means to make powerful and effective networks of rules for the whole planet. The acceptance for these rules will grow the more visible the effect of intoxication of the human body caused by chemicals and plastic is going to be. The life span and birth rate is going to decline and this will be a big concern of the people.
It isn’t worth to be independent. We are too networked and depending on each other, isolated systems doesn’t work out anymore. Countries like Burma are going to open the borders piece by piece. Indigenes people and uncontacted tribes don’t fit into such a world. There’s no space for such a thing. The united globalised world will contact, assimilate or vanish them in the next 20 years. This development is unstoppable and almost finished. Is it only bad? Isn’t it just another page in the historybook of the humans? We might have the opportunity to experience the answer!
For example if a new illness break out, big parts of the world will be affected. But if we find a new cheap energy, a lot of people are going to have a better life.
Mehr: http://www.artensterben.de/
http://www.survivalinternational.de/indigene/unkontaktiertebrasilien
A lot of question follow this thoughts! Are the free markets going to be a victim of their success? Because the fast economical growth are leeching out the resources of this planet? Do we arrive a dangerous limit like on the Easter Islands? Is it possible that after monarchism and communism, now modern capitalism comes to an end? Would there be an alternative?
Is the energy change powerful enough to result in the second worldwide crisis? The most governments are stable enough to resist more expensive oil, but do they survive the manifestations of the simple people, when they can’t afford food anymore? Would it help to introduce a worldwide birth control and to slow down economics? Was the bible right about the Armageddon who’s coming? Or Buddha was right about release if we would master our own desire?
More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8255695.stm
http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
http://www.wisegeek.com/how-is-the-world-connected-into-a-global-economy.htm
Consequences for our life
I don’t expect a easy time my whole life long…. But the exciting thing about it: My generation is going to experience a lot of answers for this questions! The world seems to turn faster and nothing is for sure, but there are certain things we can do today:
Some example for our daily life:
1. Hold on for a minute. Look around you and realise at what level our life is today.
2. We should eat less meat. Animals are produced in a horrible way and to make their food we destroy huge parts of our continents and rainforests. Don’t stop eating meat, but eat less! If I catch a fish, I kill him, and eat him. For me this is the natural way it should be. The piece of cadaver packed into plastic is just weird.
3. We should enjoy the world as long as we can: Our grandchildren might not have the possibility to travel around the world in such a cheap way! Economical development and the new world order with a strong China, India and Brazil might destabilise the travel AND the VISA situation. GO NOW!
4. Keep your expectations down! Our pension and pension funds and the protected life are illusions. A lot of things are going to happen in the next 40- 60 years. We expect endless growth on this high level of Western Europe. It’s not always going to be that easy. But happiness is anyway not part of material success. We have to learn to be more humble, unassuming and equanimous.
http://www.zeit.de/2007/43/Lebensformen
http://www.pro-regenwald.org/hg_fleisch
Some political ideas for Switzerland:
1. We should be as oil- independent as possible. Every house has to produce more energy then it needs. We know since 10 years how to build such technologies. We have to use what we know. We could for example change the mandatory bunker into investments for better isolation and solar cells. The centralised production of energy is big business of corse, but its expensive, lossy, resource wasting and error- prone.
2. Diversification of our economics. International firms with a letterbox in Switzerland do pay tax, but they are (I say it like a blogger:) bitches of the greedy one’s. They don’t produce anything in our country with jobs for simple people and if there’s another possibility in the world they will leave Switzerland. We shouldn’t forget the parts of industry, forestry and agriculture witch are really producing something. The official lobby system in Switzerland supports only the strong ones.
3. We should stay water- independent. My parents are shocked about the glaciers. Compared to their childhood they are almost gone. They all will disappear in Switzerland in the next 20- 50 years. Serious dry are the consequences. We have to build stronger or more water dams. It’s a guarantee for water and energy.
4. It’s a problem how crazy we waste our land. In the past, we build the villages of the Wallis on the hillsides. Today we destroy huge areas of agricultural land for unnecessary buildings. Regions like Zurich, Emmen or Basel need areas where they are allowed to build skyscrapers.
http://www.beobachter.ch/natur/umweltpolitik/artikel/verschandelte-schweiz_ein-land-wird-zugebaut/
Some examples for the world:
1. Worldwide birth control NOW
2. Bigger and smarter emergency aid and prevention. There are much more people on much more dangerous ground. A Tsunami in Jakarta gonna kill millions, a dangerous illness could spread easily around the world and a strong earthquake in France would make the very most of the European population into nuclear contaminated refugees.
3. Protection of the oceans. Europe knows, if the fish- population is controlled and protected, the income of fisher would grow and the nature would be protected. In 10- 20 years there are almost no more wild catch anymore. The ocean is practically dead and misused as waste bin.
More:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffizienz_(%C3%96kologie)
http://www.ecopop.ch/joomla15/index.php
In the end I’m a simple brick- layer. I just write down some obvious things I observed during my travelling. The smart academic people should know details about these points.
Life on the peak level
We could take these problems as a reason to feel bad or to loos lust of life. But this would be wrong! Imagine we are the first generation, who is liberated, who can travel wherever we want! We live on the peak level of our story and there’s no big regimes stopping us of experience the world with its culture and tradition, religion and landscapes. There are even some animals left to see. Orange- Utans or lions. We can roll convenient on streets all over the world, or we fly fast through the air. Nobody before in the history of humankind had such the possibilities like we have!
We can only dream of all the technologie of the future! A lot will be done to make life more convenient or safe then before. And often you see young people engaging to work together for a better world!
Unlimited possibilities!
As young people we can observe the humans on their maybe temporary peak point
of development.
We live a dream.
We know it.
We just don’t realize it.
The pictures of this Blog has never been changed or photoshopped.
/idata%2F4228106%2FAnderes%2FFuture%2FP1100409.JPG)
/idata%2F4228106%2FWeg-zuruck%2Fkl-bis-Langkawi%2FP1100614.JPG)
/idata%2F4228106%2FWeg-zuruck%2FKL-Spate-dazu-gekommen%2FP1100333.JPG)
/http%3A%2F%2Fimg.youtube.com%2Fvi%2FtAbCgr6jJ_0%2F0.jpg)