The Principals had gone straight to a private meeting room that had been allocated to them for the duration of the summit. It allowed them to have their lunch independent of the dignitaries and quickly run through the content for the afternoon session.
12:00 p.m. Earth: Summit – Day 1 (Environmental Summary)
It was midday and chaos prevailed in the streets around the Burj al Persia Hotel. Fortunately the hotel was located 10 kilometres away from Dubai’s busy central business district. Had it been closer, the CBD would have been incapacitated. Drivers caught in the grid-locked traffic were left with little option but to abandon their vehicles and those who chose not to, could only watch in vain as their fuel tanks were idled dry. Opportunistic street vendors weaved their way through the stationary traffic jams selling five-litre containers of fuel and soft drinks at exorbitant prices. Drivers were incensed by the flagrant profiting from the malfeasance, but they paid anyway.
To add insult to injury, it was also a sweltering day – with wet-bulb temperatures around the city measuring as high as 34 °C*. Dubai’s weather had subliminally saved one of its hottest and most uncomfortably humid days in recorded history, for this – the first day of the summit. Fate had its own way of making itself known: it was as though the Earth itself had planned all along to support the stand for the environment that was being taken in the auditorium. The crowds wilted in the stifling heat and many were forced to find shelter or climb back into their air-conditioned vehicles to seek respite. Some people had to be airlifted to hospitals as a result of falling unconscious from heat-stroke.
[* Sustained human exposure to wet-bulb temperatures exceeding 35°C would be fatal.]
In the hotel, lunch was over by 12:45 p.m. and the dignitaries began streaming back into the auditorium. As the time neared 1:00 p.m. they all took their seats, anxiously awaiting the next instalment of the summit. Almost all the dignitaries were still trying to come to terms with the account they had heard that morning. It had stretched their perceptions of reality beyond all expectation and was as riveting as it was unbelievable.
As the Principles entered they noticed that the mood amongst the dignitaries was much more solemn than it had been before lunch. President Jameson walked over to the lectern and once the other Principals were seated, she began.
“Thank you all for cooperating with our time request. During this afternoon’s session, we shall be discussing the environmental information that was divulged to us by the Supreme Beings. I want to reinforce that this information has not been altered by us in any way – it will be presented to you exactly as it was to us. I also urge everyone to pay close attention, in the interest of fully comprehending the tremendous scale and speed of the approaching environmental catastrophe.”
The dignitaries remained quiet, ready to listen.
Jameson handed the floor over to Edward Payton. The environmental scientist had spent a total of 24 hours preparing his presentation and it was now his chance to explain the environmental information, and then convince the dignitaries of its veracity.
Payton stood beside the lectern. “I would like to begin by reiterating President Jameson’s earlier point that we were given a data storage device by the Supreme Beings.” He held the device up in the air for everyone to see. The dignitaries looked on in absolute silence.
Payton continued, “I must make known, however, that it is indistinguishable from a popular brand here on Earth. The device, however, is of little significance when compared to the plethora of invaluable information that is on it!”
He called up his presentation on the large screen and went on.
He ran through the various ‘time sequence visuals’ and associated graphs which showed how the Earth’s environment had evolved over the last 50 000 years. He specifically highlighted the considerable human-induced changes evident during the last 250 years.
This visual representation put humanity’s prolific expansion and footprint across the world into stark perspective for the dignitaries. They were especially shocked to learn that the world’s population actually stood at 10 billion, and not 9 billion as estimated by the United Nations.
Payton followed by showing the time sequence visual for the projected future of the planet’s environment, if human activity were to continue on its current course. The dignitaries were dismayed by what they saw. Highly disturbing to them was the projected environmental tipping point date, shown to be just 22 years away. It was also startling to see how quickly the post-tipping point collapse would unfold, with humans becoming extinct in the natural environment before the end of the 21st century, and all other life being rendered extinct by the end of the 22nd century.
Seeing what the Earth was predicted to look like in 2200 CE was horrifying to every dignitary that sat in the auditorium.
Payton then revealed the graph which he believed to be the most important of them all: the atmospheric composition graph. It showed the rampant extent of composition alteration and he took time to explain what the disastrous runaway effects of continued alteration would be. He went on to describe a range of graphs which compared the ‘actual data’ received from the Supreme Beings, with the most recent ‘theoretical data’ published by prominent environmental experts on Earth. All the graphs demonstrated close correlations, although in almost every case, the theoretical data lagged behind the actual data.
The only area where the two sources of data deviated markedly was with respect to the future environmental projections. The data from the Supreme Beings showed a far steeper tipping point prediction curve than Earth based models. Payton stressed that this projection was not necessarily unreasonable, and could be justified when taking certain unpredictable environmental factors into account – the major one of which was the rate of methane release from the arctic permafrost.
He then said that since the Supreme Beings had witnessed and studied catastrophic environmental collapses on other planets, they were in possession of first-hand knowledge that humankind was not – thus their data and prediction curve should be regarded as the more reliable source.
The most dramatic section dealt with the extent of human impact on the Earth’s biodiversity of life. The data showing the historical scale of eradication and extinction of other species at the hand of human beings was given a new, previously unknown, perspective. The extent to which the human and domesticated species had displaced wild species was truly extraordinary. The dignitaries were taken aback by the evidence. It was a horror story of staggering proportion.
“I want to highlight the known plight of the North American Bison. Throughout the entire 50 000-year period, their population remained constant at a shade over 60 million individual animals, then suddenly, in the space of just 50 years as European colonists swept across the continent, their population was annihilated to just 912 individuals.
“Consider the sheer magnitude of this event. It’s the mass extermination of 60 million individuals of a single species. To put this into perspective, that’s equivalent to the estimated total number of human lives lost throughout the entire duration of the Second World War.
“For interest sake, if a similarly proportioned atrocity were to be committed against the human race right now, our population would be reduced from 10 billion, to just over 152 000 individuals, the population of a small town. In fact, that wouldn’t be enough people to fill the world’s biggest Olympic sports stadium, Maximus-Olympia*, which seats 160 000 people.
[* The Maximus-Olympia stadium was built by Greece in 2028 after it had successfully won a decade-long legal dispute with the International Olympic Committee, which handed Greece the sole rights to host the Olympic Games in their ‘nation of origin’ for the rest of time. The hope was that it would revive the nation’s struggling economy and help it to re-emerge from almost two decades of recession that had cost the European Union hundreds of billions of Euros.]
“Just take a second to reflect on this incriminating statistical comparison. This is what we humans did to this
defenceless species that had the unfortunate fate of coexisting with us on this planet. One has to ask whether we are worthy of reigning over this planet.”
He continued after a brief pause, “According to the Supreme Beings, this atrocity constitutes the single most barbaric act ever committed by an intelligent species in the known history of our galaxy. It is us humans who hold this dishonourable title.
“And worst of all, humanity shows surprisingly little remorse for this grave atrocity. If anything, we classify it as an important lesson in our history. But did we actually really learn anything from it … especially when considering the scale of continued eradication, and the escalating number of species experiencing near or actual extinction every day? It would appear not.”
Payton then spoke frankly, “We cannot continue to believe that this human-induced sixth extinction event is over exaggerated. It is very real and we have to deal with it immediately. We must start by acknowledging that what we have done and continue to do to other species inhabiting this planet is completely unacceptable. We’re supposed to be their protector, but in reality we’re their nemesis. The debilitating scourges of unrestricted population growth, industrialisation, land appropriation from nature, and atmospheric alteration must also be brought to an end. We have proliferated, expanded, destroyed, looted, slaughtered and polluted enough … and now it has to stop. Our planet’s precious environment cannot afford to be exploited any further.”
Payton mooted that because humankind’s environmentally detrimental behaviour had persisted and been condoned for so long, people had become desensitised to its incredible scale. Previously predicted global collapses due to food, water and other industrial resource shortages had not materialised, which had lulled people into a false sense of security that they would never materialise. The notion of a global collapse of any kind was viewed as nothing more than a baseless and overhyped fallacy.
He went on to say that the prosperity of human civilisation was being accomplished under the proud, yet misleading, nomenclatures such as ‘sustainable development’, ‘economic growth’ and ‘improving the lives of all human beings’ … but at what cost to the environment? Under these headings, environmental exploitation was easily justifiable and served as convenient shields against environmental accountability.
He spoke, “But seeing the situation from the environment’s historical perspective, has shed new light on humanity’s so-called prosperity. The true environmental cost of this prosperity has been totally underestimated and, as a result, has been allowed to continue unopposed for far too long. Society needs to acknowledge that as much as we promote the importance of human development, it is directly responsible for environmental degradation.”
2:30 p.m. Earth: Summit – Day 1 (Environmental Summary)
Edward Payton then asked the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Lynne Zhuang, to present her view.
She stated that governments and economic systems were deeply flawed by being fixated on ‘growth’ rather than ‘sustainability’ – which was dangerous for the futures of both humankind and the planet. Oxymoronic phrases like ‘sustainable growth’ had to be avoided because of their misleading connotations. She emphasised that these were two opposing ideologies, that had been conveniently yet irresponsibly merged together to make the impossible seem reasonable. The simple fact was that growth could not be sustained indefinitely in any physical or metaphysical context. The focus needed to shift from growth to sustainability in every facet of modern society … since it was humanity’s obsession with growth that had led to the environmental disaster in the first place.
She openly condemned the stubborn economic mind-set that a declining human population was bad for economies and accentuated the need for the world to shift from using ‘Gross Domestic Product’ (GDP) as the global measure of economic success, to using ‘GDP per Capita’ instead. She stated that GDP per Capita gave a much better indication of a nation’s real success, since it took population size into account.
She highlighted the extensively publicised and lamented 45 year-long economic stagnation of Japan as an example. During this time, its GDP had remained steady while its population had declined by 20% from its peak in 2010. The economy’s manpower shortfall had been offset by increasing employee productivity and integrating smart-machines and systems into every possible facet of the workplace.
As a direct result of this, Japan had in fact achieved the highest GDP per Capita growth in the world over that 45-year period, more than double that of any other ‘successful nation’. Its unemployment rate had also been below 1% for a record 15 years. The citizens of Japan’s steady-state economy had, much to the surprise of the rest of the world, all become much more prosperous and wealthy as a direct result of their declining population.
She then mentioned that most of the world’s developing nations which had boasted high GDP growth, had experienced even higher population growth, meaning that their GDP per Capita had in fact declined. The citizens of these ‘growing’ economies were, in reality, all becoming steadily poorer. It was simple – the world’s myopic focus on growth had blurred the fundamentals of economic common sense.
She also put forward that all those nations which had embarked on increased birth rate campaigns (in many instances, financially incentivised) to avoid pension payment shortfalls for their aging populations, were now far worse off for having done so, especially in terms of soaring unemployment rates. One of the predominant causes had been the steady ‘technological displacement of human workforce’. The short-sightedness of these nations’ increased birth rate campaigns had resulted in challenges on two fronts: not only were they having to pay pensions to the retired older generation, they were now also having to pay welfare to the vast unemployed younger generation … and their numerous children.
She quoted one well-regarded economic observer who noted that ‘a young unemployed person is actually much more costly, and certainly more troublesome, than an old retired person’. She expressed that economic complications aside, the environmental consequences had been tragic as the rising population in these nations had resulted in their accelerated environmental degradation.
Zhuang took her seat and Payton resumed, “We are still not prepared to admit that we human beings are the greatest threat facing Earth’s future. It is humanity alone that is putting everything that lives on this planet at risk for our selfish and unquenchable desire to expand, to prosper, and now more and more often, just to survive. We cannot allow ourselves to be responsible for the thoughtless destruction of a living planet.”
The presentation continued with further graphs and statistics, all showing the extent of humankind’s impact on the planet’s environmental health. The material was a denunciation of human behaviour in almost every respect. There was no other way to describe the environmental circumstances, other than appalling. Payton explained that the Supreme Beings regarded the human race as the most dangerous and destructive species in known existence, which seemed to surprise the dignitaries. It definitely wasn’t the reputation that anyone would believe humans deserving of, but the facts indicated otherwise.
Payton commented, “We see ourselves as the ‘masters of the Universe’, but we are in fact the ‘monsters of the Universe’!”
It was unpleasant for the dignitaries to have the environmental situation presented to them in such forthright detail. But there was now no denying that human development had come at a much higher cost to the environment than previously thought. Much of the information they were already aware of, but everyone had grossly underestimated the raw scale of the calamity that confronted the world.
There was no doubt in any of the Principals’ minds that the environmental status presentation had had a marked effect on the dignitaries. Even the Principals themselves, who had already seen the information, were again stunned by the numbers. It was quite incomprehensible that humans could have been responsible for such inhuman behaviour, and on such an enormous scale.
It could be classified as nothing less than the expungement of seemingly ‘inferior’ life.
Payton concluded his presentation with 10 minutes to go before the close of Day One’s proceedings. Most of the dignitaries applauded in appreciative response to his high calibre presentation. It had lasted close to four hours but had not felt that long. Everyone had found the material not only enlightening, but also extremely interesting and compelling. It had been astutely packaged and the visual aids had complemented the environmental data so effectively that nothing had been difficult to conceptualise or comprehend.
The other Principals were also very impressed with Payton’s presentation. It was inspiring to watch him captivate his audience and they realised that his motivational talent was exactly what they needed to drive the Ultimatum Campaign and bring the world’s population on board. The Principals took turns to congratulate him as he walked past them to his seat.
Payton had not been expecting such a response, although the circumstances of this presentation were very different from before. There was now a real reason for leaders to listen to what he had to say. The environment was no longer a casual nuisance, it was now a top priority. He was thankful that a lifetime of lecturing and public speaking had stood him in such good stead for this momentous occasion.
Once the applause had subsided President Jameson stood to speak, “Thank you, Dr Payton, for that informative presentation. It is a tragic sadness that your research, and that of environmental scientists worldwide, has not been given the attention and recognition that it has long deserved.”
Wake-up Call: 2035 Page 27