The End is Near

And Our Window of Opportunity to Determine What Kind of Ending it Will Be is Closing Fast

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

I’m reminded of local Minnesota band Semisonic’s most well known song, Closing Time:

While the song is about people leaving a bar at closing time (also called last call), and widely interpreted as such, drummer Jacob Slichter has also indicated that the song was written by (Dan) Wilson "in anticipation of fatherhood" and that it is about "being sent forth from the womb as if by a bouncer clearing out a bar". (Source)

Arguably the most memorable line from the song, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end” has been attributed to Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca. It’s a line that has stuck with me since I first grew to love the song some 25 years ago. It’s a line that is especially salient now. We face multiple, overlapping catastrophes, all of which have the potential to be world ending in one way or another.

The climate catastrophe is accelerating many times faster than previously thought and retaining hope that humanity will act in time to mitigate its worst effects is elusive in the face of our reaction to efforts at even the most basic COVID mitigation. The phrase “late capitalism” has entered the zeitgeist at least since 2017, and evidence like that cited in the Atlantic piece I just linked to has only increased since then. The inequality we seem to tolerate is ever more absurd with the richest among us able to purchase would-be public spaces at great financial loss seemingly simply to control the conversations that are allowed to take place and satisfy his whims (see Musk/Twitter). What are the new beginnings that come after climate collapse and the end of capitalism?

It has been argued that democracy in America really only took hold after the passage of the landmark civil rights legislation in the 1960’s. However, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions to effectively gut the Voting Rights Act, not to mention the continued corporatization of American politics courtesy of Citizens United have made the U.S.’ fledgling democracy dead on arrival. And of course all of that is to say nothing of the Trump instigated coup attempt, the impact of which is still unfolding. The only real questions are how long the powers-that-be will cling to the appearance and trappings of democracy, and what will come next. Will we devolve into outright fascist Christian nationalism? Will a new civil war be marked not by clearly demarcated geographic boundaries but by factions vying for dominance in every area?

As noted above, the climate catastrophe remains a dire threat to life as we know it on earth, which if it does not extinguish human life altogether may result in far fewer of us fighting for survival on a planet that no longer suits us. That said, though again the climate is collapsing far faster than any of us hoped, climate change is still measured in years or longer. The consequence of our refusal to undertake commonsense COVID mitigation, however, has the potential to prove far more deadly to human life on earth, and to do so far more quickly. We continue to gamble not just with our own lives, but everyone else’s.

If as the bees go, so goes humanity, then as China goes, so goes the rest of us. Widely ridiculed by Western nations as incompatible with the all-important economy, China’s zero-COVID approach was successful at protecting human life and limiting the reservoir within which a fast-mutating, deadly disease could evolve to become even faster and more deadly. With China now having abandoned its zero-COVID policies in the face of nationwide protests and ever more infectious variants beginning to spread (not to mention Western pressure), it is possible that a million deaths could be the result. Arguably even more concerning is this report:

If true, not only will millions of lives be cut short, but we’ll lose what limited surveillance of emerging variants we already have. A highly infectious, rapidly mutating virus unleashed in a massive population with little previous exposure and no monitoring of new variants will create a perfect storm of bad outcomes not just for China, but for the entire world. Similarly, apparently China is not only no longer sequencing new variants, but is dealing with so many new daily cases that it’s no longer reporting them at all.

The tragic and likely unprecedented loss of life aside, we depend on China not only for many of our consumer goods but for drugs and medical supplies like masks. Will we care? As Jessica Wildfire puts it:

A large portion of the public seems blissfully unaware of the fallout we’re about to experience. It probably won’t hit them until they need something and it’s not there. That seems to be the American way.

It seems clear when we take all this into account that, as hard as it may be to say and despite the refusal of so many to hear it, the world (as we’ve known it) is ending. We already see the effects of climate change on a daily basis. It’s already killing people and creating climate refugees. The pressures of capitalism to extract as much as possible from people and the planet have already sown the seeds for its downfall too, and it’s ever more likely that will come sooner rather than later. COVID continues to kill and disable thousands around the world every day, and we’ve now relinquished some of our last levers of control and containment of this deadly virus in China. The mass infection of China’s populace will not only lead to more disease and more “fit” variants, it will also exacerbate the world’s supply chain problems and economic woes, with will in turn serve to further destabilize already all too fragile democracies confronting resurgent fascism (like the U.S.).

Facing the “end of the world” as we are, it seems to me then that what power we have left to effect change must focus on determining just what kind of ending it will be, and what will come next. Will we adopt commonsense COVID reforms like mask mandates and investment in clean indoor air and medical infrastructure? Will we share resources with nations that lack capacity to do the same? Will we finally join the rest of the world’s wealthy countries and offer some form of universal healthcare so that the millions that will be debilitated by long COVID have access to ongoing care? Obviously, other reforms to better the economic conditions of not just the middle class but the poor will be necessary too. Raising the minimum wage or even adopting a universal basic income are just a couple of reforms that come to mind. Taken together, these policies may not only reduce the devastating effects of COVID and whatever potentially worse virus comes next, but will soften our landing from the fall of unmitigated consumer capitalism as well.

Because all of our problems are so intricately connected, it’s likely that steps taken to address them will be too. Reinvesting in living wages, universal healthcare, and medical infrastructure will lessen the power of corporations and may give democracy a fighting chance again. I believe it will help us confront the climate catastrophe too. If you’re refitting buildings to improve ventilation and filtration, why not apply green energy strategies at the same time? If governments are somehow finally able and willing to confront corporate power to remake our healthcare system, why not do the same to finally enforce corporate responsibility for the climate? We can change, if we really, really want to. Will we?