The world ended on December 31, 2049. The world didn’t implode. The Sun didn’t envelope our precious Blue Dot. Instead, our old ways of thinking and obsessive inaction shattered us for good. We didn’t clean up our act when even the smallest steps could have changed the world. We had decades to fix inequalities, to bridge the religious divides tearing us apart, to stop poisoning our planet. We gave it the good ol’ college try, but we failed.
So what happened on January 1, 2050?
We woke up to a world on fire.
People will write grandiose solutions in their essays. I applaud their optimism. Maybe governments could ask their citizens to volunteer an hour per month in their communities. Maybe we can fly to far away lands to empathize with others. If we could pragmatically do these things we should! And, even if these things happened, then what? We’ll come back to the same mess. In reality, these grand ideas won’t happen. You know that. I know that.
If cooperation has even the faintest chance to survive until, and after, January 1, 2050, we need a plan that’s rooted in cold reality. So, here it is. Think small. Think local. Start with what’s right in front of you. Starting in 2024, dedicate yourself to your own community. Donate to food banks. Look after your neighbors. Join committees to advocate for change. If it works there, try pushing a little higher. That’s a concrete win. The world won’t magically heal, but your town, your city, will be a bit better thanks to you. Too often, we get lost in the enormity of it all. Forget all that and put one foot in front of the other in your own backyard.
What about the whole world? Global cooperation?! How do we bridge those gaps? The answer’s ugly, but it’s the truth. Humans are spectacular at putting out fires. We don’t prevent them, but when all hell breaks loose, we come together. A common enemy, a shared disaster, or a collective hopelessness is when we forget our differences and come together. When our backs are up against the wall, we come together in a kumbaya moment to find God.
That’s my solution. That’s my path. We won’t prevent new crises, we all know we’ve failed spectacularly at that. Climate disasters that force mass migrations, resource wars that crumble our global economy, these horrors may knock some sense into us. Will it be brutal? Yes. Will it be a path paved in suffering? Yes. But through that pain, there’s a sliver of hope, a chance that we might just find a common purpose after all.
It’s a damn bleak plan, but it’s one I’d wager money on. We’ve shown the world repeatedly that doing the right thing just because it’s right isn’t enough for us. We need to focus on building stronger communities, then we should prepare as best we can for the storms ahead, and pray that in the shared crucible of future disaster we might finally learn to work together.
The world as we knew it did end on December 31, 2049. What comes next, well, that’s on all of us.