I love post-apocalypse movies, but to tell you the truth they scare the crap out of me. My interest in stories of this type used to be just out of fascination with an imaginary world, but as time has progressed and our impact on the earth becomes clearer and more severe I see them as something more. Among the bleakest and most compelling of this genre is a film called The Road, which was adapted from the book of the same name by Cormac McCarthy.
Once you recognize and absorb the idea that the world is not infinite and that the resources within it at our disposal are in fact (feigning shock) finite, there is no other logical conclusion to be had but that we will very soon consume ourselves out of existence and leave an indelible and ignominious mark on our planet’s history. That sad detail makes post-apolocalyptically themed movies more than simply intellectual masturbation. Economic collapse is coming, and as to what form society will take in the wake of that cataclysmic event, we can only speculate. But one thing is certain: It’s going to hurt. It’s going to hurt real bad.
The root problem is that we continue to breed. This sounds tongue in cheek, but it’s the cold truth. Our population has been exploding since the industrial revolution has given us the ability to convert land to agricultural purposes virtually at will in order to increase food production. We currently stand at somewhere around 7 billion human planetary inhabitants. We know — and this is not something that anyone who studies this kind of thing is debating — we KNOW that at our current population level we are outstripping our planet’s ability to sustain us. We are presently at, or have already passed, the tipping point in that regard. Yet by 2030 our population is expected to reach 8 billion people, and 9 billion by 2050. If you think our economic engine is going to keep chugging along and providing us dividends after we cut down the last truffula tree you’re living in a dream world. Our culture’s mantra, the mantra of our entire economic system is “grow or die”. We are soon going to reach a point where growth is no longer an option. Think about that when you go to bed tonight.
So get as many post-apocalypse movies and books under your belt as you can and absorb what some imaginitive and prescient minds have to tell you. Then pick your strategy for dealing with the inevitable. Some will load up on weapons for when the world en masse loses its mind. Some will opt for cyanide or an equivalent. You think the austerity riots in Europe are bad? These are just the canaries. Just wait and see how people react when the entire global system goes down like a sack of potatoes. At that point the world will undoubtedly experience a wave of barbarism the scale of which has never been seen. 99.9% of us either out of denial, stupidity, or laziness will do absolutely nothing to prepare and fate will decide for those folks. Personally, I think the survivalists will have the best chance of it, disappearing into the bush and living directly off of whatever the land has to offer, returning us to a way of life long ago forgotten by our elitist culture of reckless consumption. This will be a way of life that actually works by not strangling itself; one with a lot less people, a freshly obliterated god complex, and a non-existent sense of entitlement.