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ABC NEWS "EARTH 2100" INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS HOMER DIXON PRODUCER: LINDA HIRSH MEDIA ID: R09_0012.MP3 LINDA: 07:00:04;05 So if we could break down some of these stresses and start dealing with the future and scenarios in w-- ho-- what is gonna-- what's expected in terms of global population trends (NOISE) in the next 50 years? And how will that increase stresses on the world? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:00:22;29 Population experts, demographers, will say that we'll probably peak with-- with global population at somewhere around nine billion people in the latter part of this century-- 2060-2070, somewhere in there. Now we currently have 6.5-6.6 billion people on the planet. So that means we have another two and a half billion people to add. Almost all of that extra population is going to come in poor countries. About 95 percent of that growth is going to happen in-- in poor countries that are already in many cases straining with large populations and economies that are having difficulty meeting the needs of those large populations. 07:01:05;02 In the rich parts of the world, we're going to see almost static population growth. In other words rich countries have around 1.2 billion people right at the moment. And in 2050-2060 we'll still have around 1.2 billion people. Now that-- that differential between parts of the world that are rich with static or even in some cases declining populations and parts of the world that are poor with rapidly go-- growing populations, will produce a-- a movement of people from the poor parts of the planet to the rich part of the planet that will be much larger than anything that we've seen in the past. 07:01:41;02 So if we're concerned about immigration issues now, and large scale migrations around the world, we should get prepared for much larger movements of people in the future because of the growing imbalance in terms of population numbers between rich and poor. LINDA: 07:01:57;07 And-- and add to that-- climate change (NOISE) (UNINTEL). THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:02:01;21 At the same time in many of those poor countries you've got whole series of stresses developing. In particular in much of the world the landscape is very badly damaged. The land has been deforested. There have been-- there are shortages of water. The crop land is poor and overused in many cases. And because the populations are large there's often just not a lot of crop land and other resources to go around. 07:02:32;27 Water in many places is very scarce now. About-- a third of the world's population by 2025 will lea-- (CLEARS THROAT) sorry-- (CLEARS THROAT)-- water in many places is very scarce now. About a third of the world's population by 2025 will live in areas under water stress. You add on top of that climate change. We don't know exactly how it's going to affect specific areas in the world. Our models aren't good enough yet to-- to be able to show us what's going to happen in a particular place in Africa or a particular place in India or China. 07:03:06;14 But we can expect that in general extreme events of various kinds will become much more frequent. Larger storms. More extreme droughts and heat waves. And floods. This combination of factors in poor countries already stressed landscapes, forests and water resources and climate change that is going to-- that is going to increase the frequency of extreme events will put such stress on these societies that that will probably encourage yet more people to migrate from poor countries to rich countries. 07:03:39;07 And in many cases it-- these material stresses, these environmental and resource stresses in poor countries could actually cause them to start falling apart, to-- to break down, to suffer really serious civil instability, revolutions, ethnic clashes, rebellions and insurgencies, terrorism of various kinds. And as those governments weaken, as those societies and governments weaken-- you're going to find again larger movements of people potentially from poor countries to rich countries. LINDA: 07:04:09;19 And in-- in terms of how that collapse, those failing-- failed states, what's that gonna look like? Can you be specific in where that might happen? The-- if you imagine what that's gonna be like, what do you-- what do you think (UNINTEL). THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:04:24;13 The most extreme form of this kind of disintegration that we could see in poor countries we may be seeing in places like Somalia, and Haiti right now-- especially in Somalia. It's a region of the world where you-- essentially have had no state functioning for a long period of time, well over a decade, now. 07:04:44;18 You could see societies-- carved up into war lording thiefdoms where you have strong men in control of certain p-- patches of territory-- with strong allegiance from their populations locally but constant fighting at the boundaries of those-- of-- of those warlord areas. I think you're going to see increasingly that these very large cities, the mega-cities in developing countries that have been sustained by enormous inputs of energy will be unsustainable in the future. 07:05:15;18 They will probably become smaller. People will move out of those cities eventually into the countryside. But that's not going to be a straightforward and simple process. There could be a large amount of violence involved. And one of the complicating factors, of course, is that those large cities with all of their extended squatter settlements and slums are often surrounding the seat of government; the parliament buildings, the executive offices. 07:05:40;22 And-- and so f-- frequently the governments are quite accessible to increasingly angry people who will try to attack the government, change the government in various ways. Now, all of this means that l-- large swaths of the world, big areas of the world over time, may become not only more unstable but you might actually just see complete government failure in those areas. 07:06:07;10 And-- and we have learned what the results of instability in distant places of the world can be. It's frequently in those places where groups that want to hurt us back in our wealthy societies take root, develop their networks and-- and then extend their power and their threat around the world; Al Qaida being an example. It's where there's no-- there's no writ of government. There's no rule of law that we find in many cases the worst criminality, the development of underground economies, great deals of violence and perhaps the-- the development-- the taking root of terrorist groups. 07:06:49;03 And-- and so that's not good for us. We can't assume that these distant problems in places in the world that many of us have never heard of are relevant to the wellbeing of ourselves and our children. They're actually directly relevant. We live on a very, very small planet now. And with the problems in a place like Afghanistan we learned can come and affect us right here in a place like New York. LINDA: 07:07:10;26 So-- so you see the threat of terrorism growing? 07:07:13;17 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:07:30;21 So in terms of, like, what you foresee when you look into the future more terrorism given the stresses that we're gonna be facing? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:07:38;05 One of the trends that's really clear when you look across history is the increasing technological capability of small groups of people to hurt or kill larger numbers of people in shorter periods of time. As weapons have improved over time they've generally become cheaper, more robust, easier to use. 07:08:00;04 If you look at something like the movement from bolt action rifles to assault rifles to machine guns-- now it's possible for an insurgent group to take down a-- an advanced help with a rocket propelled grenade that-- and the advanced helicopter might co-- cost several million dollars and the rocket propelled grenade, launcher and all, might cost-- a couple thousand dollars. This imbalance-- between-- the increasing imbalance between the capability of use of violence cheaply by small groups of people, and the kind of elaborate apparatus the governments and militaries have to have to protect themselves and societies have to have to protect themselves-- here we have somebody with some plastic explosives in a shoe flying across the north Atlantic who was discovered before he blew up the plane. 07:08:50;00 But now in response to that one possible threat we've had to change our security procedures in airports. We've had to introduce all kinds of new rules and machinery and become much more complex. So there's an asymmetry. There's an imbalance in-- in these trends. It's the-- in a sense it's easier to attack than defend as these technologies develop. And this seems to be a trend that is unstoppable. Over time we can expect that small groups of people will get hold of weapons that can do enormous damage. In fact for the first time in history, now, for the first time in history-- 07:09:29;17 (OFF-MIC COMMENT) THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:09:34;06 Over time we can expect that this trend in technological development will continue. In fact for the first time in history we're in a situation where small groups of people can potentially destroy whole cities. That's unprecedented. That one fact alone will make the future different from the past. 07:09:51;20 Now I don't think that that's a high probability outcome. I'm not sure exactly when and where it's going to happen. But, I think that overall if we go out far enough into the future the chances of some group using a weapon of mass destruction-- a biological chemical or nuclear weapon in one of our major cities around the world is-- is very high. And that will change the ballgame for all of humanity. 07:10:18;26 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:10:23;23 In terms of-- that notion that in order just to maintain the status quo we're going to protect what we have-- THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:10:31;09 Right. LINDA: 07:10:31;12 We're going to invest more and more-- you know, create more and more complex systems, and how that-- makes us vulnerable. THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:10:40;25 Okay-- in general as we face difficult problems in our societies, whether they're economic problems, ecological problems, climate change-- terrorism, our standard response is to introduce more complexity. We-- we-- we've introduced new burea-- bureaucracy and new institution. We figure out some new fancy technologies to try to solve the problem. And-- and that's-- that's been true throughout human history. 07:11:09;02 One of the reasons that we approach our challenges in this way is because we don't want to change any of our deeper habits and procedures because we're just used to doing things in a certain way. We don't want to go back to-- some of the sources of our problems or the root causes or-- adapt ourselves in any really fundamental way because that means we'd be challenging powerful groups, interest groups and special interests that want to keep things the way they are right now. 07:11:38;19 So what we tend to do is we respond with what I call a "management approach." We tend to-- we tend to add on a new layer of bureaucracy, or a new layer of technology to a system that already exists without disturbing anything in the core of that system. And over time, as we add these layers on, the whole system becomes more and more complex, ultimately more rigid and more vulnerable in-- in a changing world that's full of unexpected surprises and shocks to some kind of breakdown. LINDA: 07:12:10;13 So in terms of, say-- so what do you imagine in the future? Where-- if we don't-- you know, given planet change-- that if we-- if we don't make these (UNINTEL) major changes in the way we consume things or-- what-- what-- we're gonna be-- what's gonna happen? We're gonna be adding these complexities? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:12:32;17 I think our early responses, and this may go on for quite a while to our climate change problem which really is perhaps one of the most serious threats to human wellbeing ever to come along-- our early responses will be in a sense more of the same kinda management techniques that we've adopted to deal with other problems in the past. 07:12:51;25 We'll-- we'll try to create institutions that-- that govern carbon dioxide emissions, and monitor it and-- and markets that allow us to buy and sell carbon emission credits and that kinda thing, all of which I think may actually be a good idea. But, overall you'll find that the system becomes more complex. And until we have a crisis of some kind, I don't think we're going to be motivated to make the really deep changes in our-- in-- in the way we use energy, the technologies we use, the density of our cities, our travel patterns. 07:13:24;23 And it's-- it's crisis that will ultimately really discredit special interests. We'll show that the way we've done things in the past and those groups that want to maintain things the way they are now are no longer viable, can no longer be sustained and we have to move to something very different. But human beings only really are prepared for that kind of change when the writing's on the wall, when there's a sharp, sudden shock or crisis that makes people wake up and say, "Okay, now we have to change." LINDA: 07:13:51;22 And by then it might be too late. THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:13:53;17 The real problem here, of course, is that with a problem like climate change-- with a challenge like climate change-- the-- the climate has a lot of momentum in it. Once it gets moving in a certain direction and gets well down that road it may not be easy to re-- reverse its path. Once our ice sheets in the Arctic and the Antarctic in places like Greenland and the West Antarctic start to melt it's not gonna be easy to turn that process around. 07:14:21;23 So if the crisis comes too late, if the shock that really motivates to do s-- something comes, say, several decades from now or even maybe 20 years from now and we haven't made by that point really deep changes in our carbon emissions and our energy use, it may not be actually possible at that point to turn things around. We may have already committed the climate to long-term change that will last over centuries; much higher sea levels, larger storms-- perhaps a world in which it's much more difficult to produce all the food we need for a population that's heading towards nine billion people. LINDA: 07:14:57;22 And in terms of-- Rome, did they-- I mean, do you see them as having faced similar threats? I mean, what-- what are the (UNINTEL) that we can find-- in terms of-- (UNINTEL) terrorism, you know, a growing gap between rich and poor or-- 07:15:15;11 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:15:36;12 In many ways the Roman Empire, especially the western Roman Empire between about 100 and 500 A.D. exhibit a lot of the challenges and problems that (HORN)-- that we see around the world today. It was a-- a tightly coupled-- Mediterranean wide economy. It was kind of a precursor of our globalized economy. 07:15:58;24 The Romans had stripped the landscape bare of forest across much of the Mediterranean and they'd actually changed the climate locally because when you take the forest away it changes-- it changes the cycle of water in the atmosphere and the land, and makes things drier. The landscape had eroded. Population had grown very large. Its cities were huge. 07:16:19;15 The-- the management of the empire had become very complex. It-- it had a big army to protect its distant frontiers. And all of these things in some sense we're seeing right now. What happened in Rome during those centuries was an in-- was a process of-- of becoming more and more complex, of using more high-quality energy to maintain that complexity an in-- an increasing rigidification of the system so that it was-- it was brittle over time. It was less able to withstand shocks. There was no buffering capacity. 07:16:53;12 In fact-- in fact when Rome ran out of empires to conquer to pay its bills and to-- to maintain the complexity in its society-- it started to have to live off the energy it generated every year just from growing its own crops. And that was barely enough to survive. It had no buffering capacity for shocks. If something surprising happened, like a plague or a-- or a-- an-- an attack from an enemy, or a drought or something, it had no reserves that it could fall back on to sustain itself. 07:17:26;08 In this-- in many ways we have created similar sorts of situation in the world today. We've created a-- a world of enormous interconnection-- where problems can spread from one kind-- one side of the planet to another in the blink of an eye-- connected in ways that are quite similar to the way Rome was connected together in the Mediterranean basin. 07:17:49;14 We're going through a similar kind of wrenching energy transition. We've degraded many of our resources, our environmental resources, our landscape in many places. We have enormous cities that are sustained by inputs of energy and resources from-- from around the planet, just the way R-- Roman cities were sustained by energy and resources from around the Mediterranean. All of those thing are parallels. In the same time we've created a global system that in many respects is rigid and is brittle and that doesn't have a lot of buffering capacity to deal with shocks. 07:18:25;00 Now what happened in Rome towards the end of the second century-- the third century-- what happened in Rome towards the end of the third century was that a-- all of these pressures had come together to produce kind of a-- a-- an-- an insipient collapse. The-- for a period of about 70 years between 200 and 300 A.D. the-- the-- Rome was really on the ropes. 07:18:51;08 There were a couple of dozen different emperors in power. There was violence across the empire. Some sections of the empire wanted to secede. The economy was in terrible shape. There were droughts and plagues. Towards the end of the third century-- so, 284 A.D., an emperor came to power by the name of Diocletian who recognized the chronic challenge that Rome faced and decided to approach it in a really fundamental way. He realized that the-- the government in Rome did not have sufficient resources to sustain itself, to-- to run its cities, to run its bureaucracy, to maintain the army. 07:19:34;28 And so he sent surveyors out across the landscape of the Mediterranean to identify every patch of agricultural land available, and to make sure that everyone of those patches of agricultural land was assigned to a particular farmer or village so that grain could be produced. And in this way he was able to dramatically increase the extraction of energy from the countryside to maintain the complexity of Roman bureaucracy, its large cities and to maintain its military. 07:20:06;08 The result was a stabilization of Rome well into the fourth century A.D., so, until 370 or so. But the tax rates were so high on the peasantry, the farmers across the Mediterranean, that populations started to collapse in the countryside. Farmers abandoned their land, and ultimately Rome was not able to extract energy to maintain itself. And that was when-- really when you saw the final decline of Rome that led to its ultimate collapse in the west in 476 A.D. 07:20:42;10 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:20:47;12 In terms of-- we were talking-- I'm gonna go-- switch gears a little bit-- THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:20:51;29 Yep. LINDA: 07:20:52;04 We were talking about migrations, and I wanted you-- how-- both the population (UNINTEL) resource depletion and climate change you're gonna see these movements. How-- imagine we're in 2015 or 2050, say, and we've got millions of people. What-- what are we gonna see in-- in the U.S.? What are we gonna see in Europe? Is-- 07:21:12;17 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:21:45;12 So-- so what do you see in-- in 2050? Let-- let's just go there in terms of the whole-- what do you see as happening? What's the world gonna be like to be living in it in 2050? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:21:57;15 If we make the wrong choices over the next few years, as we get out I think towards the middle of this century we're going to see a lot of these converging stresses combine in ways that will produce real havoc around the world. We're going to see-- major social breakdown and violence in poor countries, many parts of the world, literally written off and largely ignored. Maybe we won't even be able to know what's going on there because communication lines will have broken down in parts of Africa and parts of Asia. 07:22:31;03 We'll have retreated, perhaps, into our-- into our societies, tried to build walls around them literally-- barriers to keep people from flooding across the borders. We're already starting to see some of that kind of stuff now. And then the communities within our own societies who are poorer and have been left out of the opportunity and prosperity that we've seen in those societies will-- will-- be sources of real instability, potentially. 07:23:02;15 In places like Europe those splits are likely to be-- largely racial and religious in character. The-- the African and Islamic populations within Europe are going to already-- we're already seeing that they are-- largely located in slum settlements around the major cities in France. They're already sources of instability. We see a lot of violence-- in those areas because of chronic unemployment. 07:23:32;10 And as we get out towards the middle of the-- the century I think we-- we would find that that kind of internal split between racial groups, between religious groups within our societies could become much worse. And the result ultimately could be a loss of freedom in our democratic societies-- that we could see-- authoritarian responses, both to protect our societies from external threats from large numbers of people coming across our borders-- from the possibility of disease coming across our borders from places where healthcare systems have broken down. 07:24:05;18 But we could also see a loss of freedoms internally as a result of-- of-- in-- rivalry between groups and violence and criminality within our societies as it becomes more and more difficult for certain groups to take care of themselves and prosper, and as anger builds up within our societies. So one of the things I fear the most is that the freedoms we cherish and the demo-- democratic liberty and opportunities that we cherish in our societies may be one of the-- the major casualties of these long-term trends. 07:24:41;19 Because when people are scared and when they're frustrated and when they feel threatened by other groups they will turn to government and say, "Protect us. Do whatever it takes to make sure that we're going to be okay." And whatever it takes may involve-- crackdowns of various kinds, police interventions-- and the suspension of various freedoms and liberties that we take for granted right now. LINDA: 07:25:17;29 In terms of-- 07:25:19;09 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:25:30;16 What do you see as-- the first signs that-- that maybe-- that people will wake up and realize-- the first things that might happen in the developed world, you know? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:25:41;14 Right. If somebody had said 10 years ago that climate change would be a-- a central issue in popular discussion and the political discussion in many developed countries and many rich countries by 2008 I-- I think many of us would have said, "That's impossible." Because, environmental issues have chronically been on the boundaries of-- of our political radar screens. But now we have two presidential candidates-- 07:26:12;19 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:26:20;20 But now we have political leaders-- including-- the new President of the United States who are explicitly committed to doing something about climate change and who are saying at least publicly that this is one of the major problems that humankind faces. That's a remarkable charge. It's happened for a whole bunch of reasons. Because of Katrina. Because of new science. Because of the work of people like Al Gore. 07:26:53;25 But I think as much as anything else one of the remarkable things about our world wired together the way it is with the web and the Internet is that people can actually learn really fast about what's going on, and popular movements can take flight very quickly because of the good kind of connectivity we have in terms of information flows and electrics-- electronic connectivity among us. 07:27:17;07 And that-- and that's something that has allowed us to compress the speed of social change so that potentially we-- our societies are much more able to pivot to respond quickly to allow for the mobilization of populations to-- to demand from political leaders that things be changed, that problems be addressed. 07:27:39;18 Now let's face it, our political leaders would not be talking about climate change unless they recognize that there was a big constituency out there of people who are concerned about this problem. So ultimately whether we're going to see the social responses we want to the challenges we face is going to be a problem with democratic mobilization. 07:28:01;02 And one of the things that perhaps makes that mobilization a lot faster and easier now and that we're seeing with something like climate change is the fact that we have the Internet and we're able to talk to each other, connect with each other, learn about problems and mobilize much more quickly than we were able to in the past. 07:28:18;03 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) * * *END OF AUDIO* * * * * *END OF TRANSCRIPT* * *
Footage Information
Source | ABCNEWS VideoSource |
---|---|
Title: | Earth 2100 Interview Thomas Homer Dixon HD |
Date: | 07/02/2008 |
Library: | ABC |
Tape Number: | NYBM19395N |
Content: | ABC NEWS "EARTH 2100" INTERVIEW WITH THOMAS HOMER DIXON PRODUCER: LINDA HIRSH MEDIA ID: R09_0012.MP3 LINDA: 07:00:04;05 So if we could break down some of these stresses and start dealing with the future and scenarios in w-- ho-- what is gonna-- what's expected in terms of global population trends (NOISE) in the next 50 years? And how will that increase stresses on the world? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:00:22;29 Population experts, demographers, will say that we'll probably peak with-- with global population at somewhere around nine billion people in the latter part of this century-- 2060-2070, somewhere in there. Now we currently have 6.5-6.6 billion people on the planet. So that means we have another two and a half billion people to add. Almost all of that extra population is going to come in poor countries. About 95 percent of that growth is going to happen in-- in poor countries that are already in many cases straining with large populations and economies that are having difficulty meeting the needs of those large populations. 07:01:05;02 In the rich parts of the world, we're going to see almost static population growth. In other words rich countries have around 1.2 billion people right at the moment. And in 2050-2060 we'll still have around 1.2 billion people. Now that-- that differential between parts of the world that are rich with static or even in some cases declining populations and parts of the world that are poor with rapidly go-- growing populations, will produce a-- a movement of people from the poor parts of the planet to the rich part of the planet that will be much larger than anything that we've seen in the past. 07:01:41;02 So if we're concerned about immigration issues now, and large scale migrations around the world, we should get prepared for much larger movements of people in the future because of the growing imbalance in terms of population numbers between rich and poor. LINDA: 07:01:57;07 And-- and add to that-- climate change (NOISE) (UNINTEL). THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:02:01;21 At the same time in many of those poor countries you've got whole series of stresses developing. In particular in much of the world the landscape is very badly damaged. The land has been deforested. There have been-- there are shortages of water. The crop land is poor and overused in many cases. And because the populations are large there's often just not a lot of crop land and other resources to go around. 07:02:32;27 Water in many places is very scarce now. About-- a third of the world's population by 2025 will lea-- (CLEARS THROAT) sorry-- (CLEARS THROAT)-- water in many places is very scarce now. About a third of the world's population by 2025 will live in areas under water stress. You add on top of that climate change. We don't know exactly how it's going to affect specific areas in the world. Our models aren't good enough yet to-- to be able to show us what's going to happen in a particular place in Africa or a particular place in India or China. 07:03:06;14 But we can expect that in general extreme events of various kinds will become much more frequent. Larger storms. More extreme droughts and heat waves. And floods. This combination of factors in poor countries already stressed landscapes, forests and water resources and climate change that is going to-- that is going to increase the frequency of extreme events will put such stress on these societies that that will probably encourage yet more people to migrate from poor countries to rich countries. 07:03:39;07 And in many cases it-- these material stresses, these environmental and resource stresses in poor countries could actually cause them to start falling apart, to-- to break down, to suffer really serious civil instability, revolutions, ethnic clashes, rebellions and insurgencies, terrorism of various kinds. And as those governments weaken, as those societies and governments weaken-- you're going to find again larger movements of people potentially from poor countries to rich countries. LINDA: 07:04:09;19 And in-- in terms of how that collapse, those failing-- failed states, what's that gonna look like? Can you be specific in where that might happen? The-- if you imagine what that's gonna be like, what do you-- what do you think (UNINTEL). THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:04:24;13 The most extreme form of this kind of disintegration that we could see in poor countries we may be seeing in places like Somalia, and Haiti right now-- especially in Somalia. It's a region of the world where you-- essentially have had no state functioning for a long period of time, well over a decade, now. 07:04:44;18 You could see societies-- carved up into war lording thiefdoms where you have strong men in control of certain p-- patches of territory-- with strong allegiance from their populations locally but constant fighting at the boundaries of those-- of-- of those warlord areas. I think you're going to see increasingly that these very large cities, the mega-cities in developing countries that have been sustained by enormous inputs of energy will be unsustainable in the future. 07:05:15;18 They will probably become smaller. People will move out of those cities eventually into the countryside. But that's not going to be a straightforward and simple process. There could be a large amount of violence involved. And one of the complicating factors, of course, is that those large cities with all of their extended squatter settlements and slums are often surrounding the seat of government; the parliament buildings, the executive offices. 07:05:40;22 And-- and so f-- frequently the governments are quite accessible to increasingly angry people who will try to attack the government, change the government in various ways. Now, all of this means that l-- large swaths of the world, big areas of the world over time, may become not only more unstable but you might actually just see complete government failure in those areas. 07:06:07;10 And-- and we have learned what the results of instability in distant places of the world can be. It's frequently in those places where groups that want to hurt us back in our wealthy societies take root, develop their networks and-- and then extend their power and their threat around the world; Al Qaida being an example. It's where there's no-- there's no writ of government. There's no rule of law that we find in many cases the worst criminality, the development of underground economies, great deals of violence and perhaps the-- the development-- the taking root of terrorist groups. 07:06:49;03 And-- and so that's not good for us. We can't assume that these distant problems in places in the world that many of us have never heard of are relevant to the wellbeing of ourselves and our children. They're actually directly relevant. We live on a very, very small planet now. And with the problems in a place like Afghanistan we learned can come and affect us right here in a place like New York. LINDA: 07:07:10;26 So-- so you see the threat of terrorism growing? 07:07:13;17 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:07:30;21 So in terms of, like, what you foresee when you look into the future more terrorism given the stresses that we're gonna be facing? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:07:38;05 One of the trends that's really clear when you look across history is the increasing technological capability of small groups of people to hurt or kill larger numbers of people in shorter periods of time. As weapons have improved over time they've generally become cheaper, more robust, easier to use. 07:08:00;04 If you look at something like the movement from bolt action rifles to assault rifles to machine guns-- now it's possible for an insurgent group to take down a-- an advanced help with a rocket propelled grenade that-- and the advanced helicopter might co-- cost several million dollars and the rocket propelled grenade, launcher and all, might cost-- a couple thousand dollars. This imbalance-- between-- the increasing imbalance between the capability of use of violence cheaply by small groups of people, and the kind of elaborate apparatus the governments and militaries have to have to protect themselves and societies have to have to protect themselves-- here we have somebody with some plastic explosives in a shoe flying across the north Atlantic who was discovered before he blew up the plane. 07:08:50;00 But now in response to that one possible threat we've had to change our security procedures in airports. We've had to introduce all kinds of new rules and machinery and become much more complex. So there's an asymmetry. There's an imbalance in-- in these trends. It's the-- in a sense it's easier to attack than defend as these technologies develop. And this seems to be a trend that is unstoppable. Over time we can expect that small groups of people will get hold of weapons that can do enormous damage. In fact for the first time in history, now, for the first time in history-- 07:09:29;17 (OFF-MIC COMMENT) THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:09:34;06 Over time we can expect that this trend in technological development will continue. In fact for the first time in history we're in a situation where small groups of people can potentially destroy whole cities. That's unprecedented. That one fact alone will make the future different from the past. 07:09:51;20 Now I don't think that that's a high probability outcome. I'm not sure exactly when and where it's going to happen. But, I think that overall if we go out far enough into the future the chances of some group using a weapon of mass destruction-- a biological chemical or nuclear weapon in one of our major cities around the world is-- is very high. And that will change the ballgame for all of humanity. 07:10:18;26 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:10:23;23 In terms of-- that notion that in order just to maintain the status quo we're going to protect what we have-- THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:10:31;09 Right. LINDA: 07:10:31;12 We're going to invest more and more-- you know, create more and more complex systems, and how that-- makes us vulnerable. THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:10:40;25 Okay-- in general as we face difficult problems in our societies, whether they're economic problems, ecological problems, climate change-- terrorism, our standard response is to introduce more complexity. We-- we-- we've introduced new burea-- bureaucracy and new institution. We figure out some new fancy technologies to try to solve the problem. And-- and that's-- that's been true throughout human history. 07:11:09;02 One of the reasons that we approach our challenges in this way is because we don't want to change any of our deeper habits and procedures because we're just used to doing things in a certain way. We don't want to go back to-- some of the sources of our problems or the root causes or-- adapt ourselves in any really fundamental way because that means we'd be challenging powerful groups, interest groups and special interests that want to keep things the way they are right now. 07:11:38;19 So what we tend to do is we respond with what I call a "management approach." We tend to-- we tend to add on a new layer of bureaucracy, or a new layer of technology to a system that already exists without disturbing anything in the core of that system. And over time, as we add these layers on, the whole system becomes more and more complex, ultimately more rigid and more vulnerable in-- in a changing world that's full of unexpected surprises and shocks to some kind of breakdown. LINDA: 07:12:10;13 So in terms of, say-- so what do you imagine in the future? Where-- if we don't-- you know, given planet change-- that if we-- if we don't make these (UNINTEL) major changes in the way we consume things or-- what-- what-- we're gonna be-- what's gonna happen? We're gonna be adding these complexities? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:12:32;17 I think our early responses, and this may go on for quite a while to our climate change problem which really is perhaps one of the most serious threats to human wellbeing ever to come along-- our early responses will be in a sense more of the same kinda management techniques that we've adopted to deal with other problems in the past. 07:12:51;25 We'll-- we'll try to create institutions that-- that govern carbon dioxide emissions, and monitor it and-- and markets that allow us to buy and sell carbon emission credits and that kinda thing, all of which I think may actually be a good idea. But, overall you'll find that the system becomes more complex. And until we have a crisis of some kind, I don't think we're going to be motivated to make the really deep changes in our-- in-- in the way we use energy, the technologies we use, the density of our cities, our travel patterns. 07:13:24;23 And it's-- it's crisis that will ultimately really discredit special interests. We'll show that the way we've done things in the past and those groups that want to maintain things the way they are now are no longer viable, can no longer be sustained and we have to move to something very different. But human beings only really are prepared for that kind of change when the writing's on the wall, when there's a sharp, sudden shock or crisis that makes people wake up and say, "Okay, now we have to change." LINDA: 07:13:51;22 And by then it might be too late. THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:13:53;17 The real problem here, of course, is that with a problem like climate change-- with a challenge like climate change-- the-- the climate has a lot of momentum in it. Once it gets moving in a certain direction and gets well down that road it may not be easy to re-- reverse its path. Once our ice sheets in the Arctic and the Antarctic in places like Greenland and the West Antarctic start to melt it's not gonna be easy to turn that process around. 07:14:21;23 So if the crisis comes too late, if the shock that really motivates to do s-- something comes, say, several decades from now or even maybe 20 years from now and we haven't made by that point really deep changes in our carbon emissions and our energy use, it may not be actually possible at that point to turn things around. We may have already committed the climate to long-term change that will last over centuries; much higher sea levels, larger storms-- perhaps a world in which it's much more difficult to produce all the food we need for a population that's heading towards nine billion people. LINDA: 07:14:57;22 And in terms of-- Rome, did they-- I mean, do you see them as having faced similar threats? I mean, what-- what are the (UNINTEL) that we can find-- in terms of-- (UNINTEL) terrorism, you know, a growing gap between rich and poor or-- 07:15:15;11 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:15:36;12 In many ways the Roman Empire, especially the western Roman Empire between about 100 and 500 A.D. exhibit a lot of the challenges and problems that (HORN)-- that we see around the world today. It was a-- a tightly coupled-- Mediterranean wide economy. It was kind of a precursor of our globalized economy. 07:15:58;24 The Romans had stripped the landscape bare of forest across much of the Mediterranean and they'd actually changed the climate locally because when you take the forest away it changes-- it changes the cycle of water in the atmosphere and the land, and makes things drier. The landscape had eroded. Population had grown very large. Its cities were huge. 07:16:19;15 The-- the management of the empire had become very complex. It-- it had a big army to protect its distant frontiers. And all of these things in some sense we're seeing right now. What happened in Rome during those centuries was an in-- was a process of-- of becoming more and more complex, of using more high-quality energy to maintain that complexity an in-- an increasing rigidification of the system so that it was-- it was brittle over time. It was less able to withstand shocks. There was no buffering capacity. 07:16:53;12 In fact-- in fact when Rome ran out of empires to conquer to pay its bills and to-- to maintain the complexity in its society-- it started to have to live off the energy it generated every year just from growing its own crops. And that was barely enough to survive. It had no buffering capacity for shocks. If something surprising happened, like a plague or a-- or a-- an-- an attack from an enemy, or a drought or something, it had no reserves that it could fall back on to sustain itself. 07:17:26;08 In this-- in many ways we have created similar sorts of situation in the world today. We've created a-- a world of enormous interconnection-- where problems can spread from one kind-- one side of the planet to another in the blink of an eye-- connected in ways that are quite similar to the way Rome was connected together in the Mediterranean basin. 07:17:49;14 We're going through a similar kind of wrenching energy transition. We've degraded many of our resources, our environmental resources, our landscape in many places. We have enormous cities that are sustained by inputs of energy and resources from-- from around the planet, just the way R-- Roman cities were sustained by energy and resources from around the Mediterranean. All of those thing are parallels. In the same time we've created a global system that in many respects is rigid and is brittle and that doesn't have a lot of buffering capacity to deal with shocks. 07:18:25;00 Now what happened in Rome towards the end of the second century-- the third century-- what happened in Rome towards the end of the third century was that a-- all of these pressures had come together to produce kind of a-- a-- an-- an insipient collapse. The-- for a period of about 70 years between 200 and 300 A.D. the-- the-- Rome was really on the ropes. 07:18:51;08 There were a couple of dozen different emperors in power. There was violence across the empire. Some sections of the empire wanted to secede. The economy was in terrible shape. There were droughts and plagues. Towards the end of the third century-- so, 284 A.D., an emperor came to power by the name of Diocletian who recognized the chronic challenge that Rome faced and decided to approach it in a really fundamental way. He realized that the-- the government in Rome did not have sufficient resources to sustain itself, to-- to run its cities, to run its bureaucracy, to maintain the army. 07:19:34;28 And so he sent surveyors out across the landscape of the Mediterranean to identify every patch of agricultural land available, and to make sure that everyone of those patches of agricultural land was assigned to a particular farmer or village so that grain could be produced. And in this way he was able to dramatically increase the extraction of energy from the countryside to maintain the complexity of Roman bureaucracy, its large cities and to maintain its military. 07:20:06;08 The result was a stabilization of Rome well into the fourth century A.D., so, until 370 or so. But the tax rates were so high on the peasantry, the farmers across the Mediterranean, that populations started to collapse in the countryside. Farmers abandoned their land, and ultimately Rome was not able to extract energy to maintain itself. And that was when-- really when you saw the final decline of Rome that led to its ultimate collapse in the west in 476 A.D. 07:20:42;10 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:20:47;12 In terms of-- we were talking-- I'm gonna go-- switch gears a little bit-- THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:20:51;29 Yep. LINDA: 07:20:52;04 We were talking about migrations, and I wanted you-- how-- both the population (UNINTEL) resource depletion and climate change you're gonna see these movements. How-- imagine we're in 2015 or 2050, say, and we've got millions of people. What-- what are we gonna see in-- in the U.S.? What are we gonna see in Europe? Is-- 07:21:12;17 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:21:45;12 So-- so what do you see in-- in 2050? Let-- let's just go there in terms of the whole-- what do you see as happening? What's the world gonna be like to be living in it in 2050? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:21:57;15 If we make the wrong choices over the next few years, as we get out I think towards the middle of this century we're going to see a lot of these converging stresses combine in ways that will produce real havoc around the world. We're going to see-- major social breakdown and violence in poor countries, many parts of the world, literally written off and largely ignored. Maybe we won't even be able to know what's going on there because communication lines will have broken down in parts of Africa and parts of Asia. 07:22:31;03 We'll have retreated, perhaps, into our-- into our societies, tried to build walls around them literally-- barriers to keep people from flooding across the borders. We're already starting to see some of that kind of stuff now. And then the communities within our own societies who are poorer and have been left out of the opportunity and prosperity that we've seen in those societies will-- will-- be sources of real instability, potentially. 07:23:02;15 In places like Europe those splits are likely to be-- largely racial and religious in character. The-- the African and Islamic populations within Europe are going to already-- we're already seeing that they are-- largely located in slum settlements around the major cities in France. They're already sources of instability. We see a lot of violence-- in those areas because of chronic unemployment. 07:23:32;10 And as we get out towards the middle of the-- the century I think we-- we would find that that kind of internal split between racial groups, between religious groups within our societies could become much worse. And the result ultimately could be a loss of freedom in our democratic societies-- that we could see-- authoritarian responses, both to protect our societies from external threats from large numbers of people coming across our borders-- from the possibility of disease coming across our borders from places where healthcare systems have broken down. 07:24:05;18 But we could also see a loss of freedoms internally as a result of-- of-- in-- rivalry between groups and violence and criminality within our societies as it becomes more and more difficult for certain groups to take care of themselves and prosper, and as anger builds up within our societies. So one of the things I fear the most is that the freedoms we cherish and the demo-- democratic liberty and opportunities that we cherish in our societies may be one of the-- the major casualties of these long-term trends. 07:24:41;19 Because when people are scared and when they're frustrated and when they feel threatened by other groups they will turn to government and say, "Protect us. Do whatever it takes to make sure that we're going to be okay." And whatever it takes may involve-- crackdowns of various kinds, police interventions-- and the suspension of various freedoms and liberties that we take for granted right now. LINDA: 07:25:17;29 In terms of-- 07:25:19;09 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) LINDA: 07:25:30;16 What do you see as-- the first signs that-- that maybe-- that people will wake up and realize-- the first things that might happen in the developed world, you know? THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:25:41;14 Right. If somebody had said 10 years ago that climate change would be a-- a central issue in popular discussion and the political discussion in many developed countries and many rich countries by 2008 I-- I think many of us would have said, "That's impossible." Because, environmental issues have chronically been on the boundaries of-- of our political radar screens. But now we have two presidential candidates-- 07:26:12;19 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) THOMAS HOMER DIXON: 07:26:20;20 But now we have political leaders-- including-- the new President of the United States who are explicitly committed to doing something about climate change and who are saying at least publicly that this is one of the major problems that humankind faces. That's a remarkable charge. It's happened for a whole bunch of reasons. Because of Katrina. Because of new science. Because of the work of people like Al Gore. 07:26:53;25 But I think as much as anything else one of the remarkable things about our world wired together the way it is with the web and the Internet is that people can actually learn really fast about what's going on, and popular movements can take flight very quickly because of the good kind of connectivity we have in terms of information flows and electrics-- electronic connectivity among us. 07:27:17;07 And that-- and that's something that has allowed us to compress the speed of social change so that potentially we-- our societies are much more able to pivot to respond quickly to allow for the mobilization of populations to-- to demand from political leaders that things be changed, that problems be addressed. 07:27:39;18 Now let's face it, our political leaders would not be talking about climate change unless they recognize that there was a big constituency out there of people who are concerned about this problem. So ultimately whether we're going to see the social responses we want to the challenges we face is going to be a problem with democratic mobilization. 07:28:01;02 And one of the things that perhaps makes that mobilization a lot faster and easier now and that we're seeing with something like climate change is the fact that we have the Internet and we're able to talk to each other, connect with each other, learn about problems and mobilize much more quickly than we were able to in the past. 07:28:18;03 (OFF-MIC CONVERSATION) * * *END OF AUDIO* * * * * *END OF TRANSCRIPT* * * |
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