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| olson twins at 20 |
as we age, does the world age with us? when I was younger, the world seemed full of opportunities, exciting and unexplored. emulating my youth, things were exciting. exploring new places and new people, the things found out were mainly positive and shiny. like the sheen of a beautiful youths skin, everything was possible. in my middle ages, things have lost a bit of the lustre it once had. mirroring my age, things are ok. not that bad, also not that good. a bit tired around the edges, untucked and a bit
mama huhu. whether it be a new county, hotel or person I meet, they all seem to fall into a rather average mix, neither exciting or boring, kind of OK. as a middle-aged person, looking at the world, a middle aged world appears. when im older, grey in the hair and weak in the bones, will the world also look so frail? will the people I meet and places I visit be full of excitement or filled with fear?
as the world population spikes, it seems like it is simply a matter of time that nature will come in and correct the balance. a striking statistic that is a bit alarming comes from this bbc article on world population: “The one billion mark was not passed until the early 1800s; the two billion mark not until the 1920s. As it stands now, though, the world’s population is over 7.3 billion. According to United Nations predictions it could reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, and over 11 billion by 2100.” naturally it is headed upwards, which puts a stress on the earth and the resources available. there has been a lot of conversation about species collapsing, ice-caps melting and natural disasters spiking. as we demand more and more space for our lives, more and more resources for our well-being, of course the resources will get stretched a bit and space will be fought after. water wars will come. plagues will follow, or perhaps we will sustain the growth and the upside of the whole thing will society will flourish. you could argue that the rise of human population mirrors the rise of the past industrial and technological revolutions. science has flourished as well as advances in medical and food sustainability. always the good with the bad.
the sun is my friend, the sun is my enemy. i like it from afar. lighting up the ocean, shining light onto plants and buildings. but not underneath it. for a bit it feels nice, but after a short while it feels as though it is burning me. and it is getting stronger. an orchard farmer who I have befriended recently explained to me how each few years he has to apply a layer of shade block over his orchards so that they do not burn up under the sun. he has been farming in the same place since the 1950s and for 30 years he did not need one at all. then he applied the first one. since then he has applied four more, layering them as the sun has been harsher and harsher on his delicate flowers. he believes he will continue to have to layer them. according to NASA, this harsh sun is also causing the
earth to heat up… The last time the world was definitely warmer than today? Some 125,000 years ago based on paleoclimatic data from tree rings, ice cores, sediments and other ways of examining Earth’s history, said NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said.
