Imagine the future

Consider, by some power of medical science, that humans are given the ability to live 100 years longer. The time is 2090. What would life be like?

Walking along Lake Washington in Seattle, I ponder this question and try to envision life along this lake 80 years from now. Continuing along the path humanity is currently on, the proposition isn't pretty. The Mallard Ducks and Canadian Geese that feed off the fish and insects gone. The road above the lake jammed with cars. A warming world with dying trees, and the jogger along the trail plugged into her i-phone avoids all eye contact.

Is this the future we want for Earth and humanity?

To ask the question is to answer it. Society today, with its present values and priorities, is on a crash course. It can be seen along this Lake, or in the images of students protesting to save education at the Tory offices in London, or of French workers flooding the streets in Paris to save their right to retire. The dominant economic model of today's world, capitalism, is putting the pursuit of profits and material wealth above the survival of the human race.

It is hard to imagine right now a world where all people have shelter and enough to eat, and live alongside other species in a spirit of live and let live. Yet this is the future we must fight for.

I don't want to imagine living in a world 80 years from now where the Lake is dead and Mallards do not exist. Or where wolves no longer roam the Rockies. Where the unfolding beauty of Autumn is a distant memory, and talk with fellow humans about ideas is passe. It is a good question to ask what kind of world we want to live in 100 years from now, because that is what we will pass on to future generations. And the fight to create that future is taking place now.