While it is difficult to know the exact nature and timing of the challenges that lie ahead, it is clear that the longer the issues of energy use and environmental destruction are not dealt with the worse those challenges will be. Humanity is not dealing with the issues, and remains wedded to its destructive, ecocidal behaviour. An extremely dangerous government, dominated by a wealthy, white, male elite, controls the United States, and, in the face of all the evidence, is aggressively pushing back environmental regulation and seeking ever more global wealth and power. This pattern is in evidence elsewhere, suggesting the rise of authoritarian, dictator states that are likely to pursue their own interests in the event of ecosystem and economic collapse. Even if humanity were to change its behaviour, come together, declare a climate emergency and implement an International Green New Deal, the lag time built into natural systems means that serious global temperature rise and environmental collapse remain inevitable. The crucial question is, how soft or hard the landing will be on the other side. A soft landing requires not only an entirely transformed human being but also radically new systems of government, society and economics. Adversarial leaders, aggressive cultures, materialistic ontologies and partisan governments have taken humanity into inequality, war, exploitation and now catastrophic environmental breakdown. If there is to be a positive next chapter in human history, and it is a big if, then a completely different social order is needed, especially of leadership, springing from a completely different ontological paradigm, if humanity is not to repeat the same mistakes. A leadership is required that is at once bipartisan, cooperative, communicative, consultative and able to address the needs of each individual, that is, function from the “bottom-up” while simultaneously being capable of directing the necessary solutions to humanity’s common problems. These problems are on an enormous scale and humanity is unprepared to meet them. I have already mentioned the need to relocate tens of millions of climate refugees, to decommission radioactive facilities, to switch to carbon-neutral, zero-emission economies and sustainable agricultural practices, to revision and build green global industries, to end global inequality, to prepare for pandemics and psychological trauma. If these and other measures are not carried out swiftly with present and remaining capabilities, they will be beyond the ability of post-collapse peoples. It is likely that only coalition or unity governments operating on an emergency basis will be able to perform these tasks and provide all other essential services. The distribution of food, water and medical supplies, provision of shelter, fuel and power, the maintenance of order and so on, will need to be carried out by coalition governments employing soundly negotiated bilateral and international principles to avoid panic, chaos and people taking law into their own hands. Failing the advent and rapid development of effective citizen assemblies and coalition governments, it is likely that only military forces will be able to take command of essential activities from the coastguard, to emergency services, policing, engineering, travel and the systems of supply, law and order. In the event of sudden catastrophes such as monsoon failure or coastal city inundation, military organisation will be essential to enable the movement to and provision for the tens of millions of people in evacuee camps. Wartime organisation will also be needed for the construction of new roads, bridges, levees, railways tracks and homes in the aftermath of any such breakdown as well as in any major agricultural works that will be required. There will obviously be immense hardships and trauma, but well thought out preparation for and execution of emergency plans in the event of a soft landing will help ameliorate some of the minor catastrophes, avoid despotism, and even stimulate and begin to put into place the basis for a sustainable future society. In the event of a major collapse most likely caused by the obtaining of one of a number of tipping points in the climate system such as forest dieback, the irreversible melting of ice sheets, or accelerating methane gas release leading to a global heating increase of over 4°C, then a hard landing will become inevitable. Thousands of millions of people will be displaced and the mobilisation of emergency forces, whether under the command of a totalitarian or democratic state, would ameliorate only the worst-case scenarios. Less concerned with individual survival but that of Life on Earth, military forces would have to deal with engineering projects such as the securing of all radioactive materials (deep ocean sediment disposal?) if there was to be any chance of avoiding permanent toxic contamination of the environment. Geo-engineering projects would also be considered. Should this be beyond the ability of even the most well organised national or international corps, and currently there is every sign this will be the case, then humanity will be faced by the end of its world with radioactive pollution compounding agricultural failure, with poisoned ground and ocean waters and temperatures too high to support life. If humanity immediately began to prepare for the obviously more desirable soft landing then it might be able to avoid the hard landing. But it is not doing this and would have to transform itself completely if it were to achieve this goal. Humanity knows what it must do, the knowledge is there, the sustainable technology does exist, but it lacks the vision, consciousness and will to implement it. Humanity needs a wholly new human being, particularly in leadership roles, with a universal vision, unattached to any investment or position, seeking no power, wealth or status for itself, committed to the common cause, and guided by a strong connection to higher consciousness, compassion and morality, free even of attachment to the body, if there is to be any human presence on earth after the collapse of its current civilisation.
