The character of the period in which we now live determine our future. The approaching summer will be a summer, which will look nothing like all the summers we have ever experienced.
The character in the current period will also be determined by the behaviour and attitude of people in our society. That behaviour and attitude will be influenced by an ever-increasing flow of (mis)information. Sensitivity to social media influence will continue to grow.
The Pandemic we live in now will never go away. This Pandemic will be tracked by another Pandemic. The indifference with which we deal with nature will be permanently rewarded with other types of Pandemics. This summer will never again be the summer we have known from our youth.
The future ahead will have to be prepared within the character of this period, both from politics, economics and technology.
Thinking of an upcoming summer time, my thoughts are optimistic and full of melancholy. However, when I think of the future summer times, they will be extremely dry and warm. The romantic summers to which my thoughts go back will probably be a thing of the past.
Summers that will be disrupted by corruption and manupilation from politics. Stark contradictions in the social debate. Fear and extreme views will prevail in the political debate. In addition to the energy transition- in addition to reducing CO2 emissions- in addition to the growing injustices between races and religions — will come to us.
The summer times will be marked by ever greater continuity of social unrest.
The idea that after the Pandemic everything will return to the “old” situation will turn out to be based on an indeterminate nostalgia. From now on, we will have to change ourselves and change our economic principles and adapt the structure of the ‘old’ systems in such a way that the ecology that we overburden can start to recover.
We must regain respect for plants and animals. Using the technology at our disposal to support that. Closing the widening gap between the poor and rich. Reduce the dominant role of the energy giants and mega-corporations and dismantle that power in such a way that the energy transition will take on a different face.
If we are one or two generations on and the overburdened nature and the role of man in it have changed, then the summer times will be an understanding as it used to be in my childhood. Warmth, safety and dreams in balmy quiet nights with soft music in the background with my parents talking through it. Not that the events at that time were better or that we as human beings did not make the same mistakes as we make now, yet the social atmosphere was different, that period had a different character with a different mentality.
Social media and polarization by other media have only heeded social unrest. Are we losing our control of ourselves and our immediate surroundings? Does our democracy rely on mud feet that will be softened by the rising tide of social unrest?
This Pandemic has pushed us with our noses to the reality of our vulnerability. Has ripped us out of our dream of our unbridled economic growth models. The stability of the systems we devised are exposed.
Now we have to make other choices together with courageous politicians with a Vision they will develop, in which we leave behind the situation we are in and create a world in which people, animals and plants can continue to live in a form of harmony.
Ecology has limited carrying capacity. If it is exceeded, we will go down as ‘civilisation’. There is no second chance on this planet if all the limits of ecological capacity have been exceeded. There won’t be a turning back. And if there were, it would not be without enormous losses and enormous suffering of today’s human being.
Summer times will then no longer exist.
Amsterdam, May 15 th, 2021.
