Self-sufficiency, pandemics, globalization & energy crisis

How’s that for a post title? All these grand schemes weave into one relatively big mess what I’ve been thinking of quite a bit lately. Let’s see if I can articulate some of it in an understandable way..

Globalization can be argued to have both good and bad sides, but one unquestionable effect is that countries are becoming more and more dependant on other countries producing what they need – in effect, even large countries are losing their self-sufficiency which not many decadeds ago was required to be at quite a high level. Look at the things around you: clothes, machines, tools, computers, even food. How many of those say “Made in “? I’d be willing to bet countries like China and Korea top the list. And even if by some miracle it’s made in your country, does the entire production chain stay in your country? Most likely some part of the supply chain has taken an international detour; parts and raw materials are still shipped in from elsewhere.

Instead of the relatively resistant in-country production, most of the goods (and even a lot of the food) production in the world is now based on the principles of globalization, shipping materials and stuff in their various stages of development back and forth across the globe. What is often missed is that in the days of minimal inventory, the system is fragile. Very fragile.

Say all imports seized one day; it would not take long for any country in the world to start suffering in pretty serious ways. Emergency reserves of fossil fuels would be one of the first ones to start dwindling and have a clear impact on everyday life.

The upcoming energy crisis (i.e. peak oil, end of cheap energy and all that stuff) will probably inevitably have some kind of a dampening effect on the enormous shipping frenzy – as whizzing stuff across the globe gets more expensive, it’s likely to slow down the trend, steering it slightly back towards localized production. That way we might get back to becoming more self-sufficient as nations but it won’t be easy. With a lot of the national production of everyday goods ramped down long ago, it will take a long while to ramp that production back up. (Increasing transport costs, hmm.. interestingly, a familiar development in the mobile world also.)

What’s more, the coming pandemic will test our abilities of this at a much quicker pace. If noticed early enough, stopping all movement of people and things until we have a vaccine or a cure would be the best way to deal with a pandemic. However, given how dependant we are on other countries, only some relatively isolated countries like New Zealand can realistically consider such isolation plans. For the rest of the world, there’s no chance of that happening. The continued movement of goods and people will first enable the pandemic to spread more quickly and efficiently – and only second, some months later, will it enable the shipment of the possible vaccines from the few factories in the world capable of producing them. By the time the globalized system starts working for us, it may be too late for millions. And I really expect that when a pandemic hits, the rich nations will first cover their own asses, next help out their rich buddies and only if there are any resources left (there won’t be), help out the poorer nations.

All of this boils down to some basic things: we know there will be a pandemic sooner or later. We know that there will be an energy crisis soon. We know how badly we’re hurting the planet and how global warming will have catastrophic effects. Finally, we know what to do to alleviate all of those problems. And what do we do?

Sometimes I can’t help but think that “political will” is an oxymoron when it comes to important stuff.