Al Gore...The Future





Al Gore, after eight years of reading and thinking, has produced a guide for the politically perplexed that will surely endure. This is a needed book. From political policy and economics to science and the most thorny ethical issues, Gore has stated the human condition and the issues we face forthrightly, fearlessly, and in easily understood language—and has said what must be done.

Gore starts with six drivers of change, which together make the world fundamentally different from the way it was even a few decades ago:
• Ever-increasing economic globalization has led to the emergence of what he labels “Earth Inc.”—an integrated holistic entity with a new and different relationship to capital, labor, consumer markets, and national governments than in the past.
• The worldwide digital communications, Internet, and computer revolutions have led to the emergence of “the Global Mind,” which links the thoughts and feelings of billions of people and connects intelligent machines, robots, ubiquitous sensors, and databases.
• The balance of global political, economic, and military power is shifting more profoundly than at any time in the last five hundred years—from a U.S.-centered system to one with multiple emerging centers of power, from nation-states to private actors, and from political systems to markets.
• A deeply flawed economic compass is leading us to unsustainable growth in consumption, pollution flows, and depletion of the planet’s strategic resources of topsoil, freshwater, and living species.
• Genomic, biotechnology, neuroscience, and life sciences revolutions are radically transforming the fields of medicine, agriculture, and molecular science—and are putting control of evolution in human hands.
• There has been a radical disruption of the relationship between human beings and the earth’s ecosystems, along with the beginning of a revolutionary transformation of energy systems, agriculture, transportation, and construction worldwide.

"We find ourselves in a period of rapid, simultaneous and exponential change, unlike anything the world has ever seen before," writes Gore in a piece on HuffPo. "Trying to make sense of our new reality is a daunting challenge. The future holds both great opportunities to be taken advantage of and profound challenges to address. More so than ever before, humanity needs to unite around the principles of sustainability and democracy. We all have an important role to play in reclaiming control of our destiny."

Applying a mix of history, science and common experience, Gore has produced an  intelligent analysis of the global condition. The peaking of global conventional oil production that occurred some 30 or more years ago, the risks to fresh water supplies posed by fracking, the rapid ongoing evolution of cyber-warfare, the dangers and potential benefits of biotechnology and the possibility of genetic engineering of human brains are only a few of the facts, likely developments and possibilities that the former vice-president explores.

Some themes stand out as being especially salient. Unlike those pious nay sayers, Gore recognizes the increase of human numbers as one of the world's largest challenges. "During the last century alone, we quadrupled the human population. By way of perspective, it took 200,000 years for our species to reach the one billion mark, yet we have added that many people in just the first thirteen years of this century." With unchecked population growth and worldwide industrialization, humankind has embarked on "an unplanned experiment with the planet".

Despite the incessant machinations of climate deniers, there is no scientific basis for doubt as to the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Some who accept the evidence suggest that rather than attempting to halt the activities that result in global warming we should adapt to the process as it goes along; but in Gore's view, muddling through is not an option. "Our world is at stake. Not the planet itself; it would survive quite nicely without human civilization, albeit in an altered state."

Gore believes this nemesis can be avoided as long as America can find the inner resources to renew its standing in the world. "The best chance for success in shaping a positive future and avoiding catastrophe," he writes, "is the re-establishment of a transcendent capacity for global leadership by the United States." He seems confident that the paralyzing divisions of recent years can be overcome, and events do seem to be moving in that direction. Having faced down the right and avoided the fiscal cliff, Obama might prevail again over the raising of the debt ceiling. In that case, American government will be reinvigorated, although politics would still be more deeply polarized than in any other major state. The emergence of China as a heavyweight world leader might work against the US encouraging global unification.

This isn't just a question of economics. Gore believes a planetary civilization is emerging, but the idea that the spread of global markets and worldwide communications works to dissolve cultural barriers is merely an ideological assumption. One of the more striking developments of the past years has been the re-assertion by Chinese and Russian leaders of the distinct separateness of their cultures. Of course this is partly an attempt to salvage the authoritarian systems over which these leaders currently preside. But the re-assertion of differences is more than a dubious political stratagem. Far from economic liberalization promoting universalism, the result may be a revival of old divisions.

Despite all that he writes of the forces that are altering the world, Gore seems to believe that history will continue on much the same trajectory that it has followed since the storming of the Bastille and the American founding. Here the contrast with China's leaders is striking. Seeing history in terms of dynasties and epochs, China's rulers attach no special significance to the revolutions of the past few centuries. It is an attitude that time may well vindicate. But even these devotees of the long view may learn from Gore's book.  His view of our journey is a lot to take in and process; it's food for thought and discussion.