and One Road” mantra which will include land and maritime trading routes to connect Asia, Africa, and Europe.
China calls this a new era of globalization where it will lend 8 trillion dollars in infrastructure to 68 countries. They believe this will add a third to global GDP. Basically, they are looking to find ways for more people to consume more products to speed up the destruction of the living planet which will accelerate ecological collapse.
This investment versus intervention strategy by China includes investing in a South American railway that would cut into the middle of the Amazon rainforest that houses the lungs of our planet.
Indeed, many geopolitical analysts are taking note of China’s investments in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. But are they taking note these investments are in natural gas pipelines, mining, roads, rails, infrastructure, and ports are an investment in accelerated human consumption, which has already led to 52% of the world’s wildlife vanishing from 1970 to 2010?
Are these analysts noting China can’t even clean up their own backyard? This past October, data showed only four of 28 northern Chinese cities met their air quality targets in October and air quality in 338 Chinese cities worsened.
While investors may be very “bullish” about a 460 billion dollarinvestment into Artificial Intelligence, are they “bullish” about China using minerals from the earth that destroys the habitat of actual intelligent beings to create this artificial intelligence?
More people are voicing their concerns at the income inequality exhibited throughout the world. It’s great people are voicing their displeasure that the planet’s richest 1% owning half of the world’s wealth.
It’s also great that it’s being pointed out 1,542 billionaires have accumulated 6 trillion dollars of combined wealth which is up 17% from last year. But as many people rail against billionaire oligarchs do they realize out of the 195 new billionaires in 2017, 76 came from China? How many political pundits tell us this 76 were the most new billionaires from any other country this year?
The Age of Anthropocene will be synonymous with words like “unprecedented”, “extinction”, “migration”, “collapse”, “ignorance”, and “greed” to name a few. It’s an age where global systems implemented by humans will have global impacts on all life on Earth.
One has to wonder will this be the age that humans will finally shift their focus from global to local? Is this the age humans stare down the harsh reality of their future?
The answers to these questions are yes, but it’s a matter of doing this by force or by choice.
This article has been excerpted from: ‘What Does It Mean to Live in the Age of the
Anthropocene?’ Courtesy: Counterpunch.org