Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen, “The Apocalypse”, 1498, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.

Marking my calendar

I no longer have the luxury of certainty that I’ll be dead before the end-times. The actuaries give me 14 more years, maybe one extra for being a vegan. That means I anticipate expiring in 2040, preferably in summer. Winter in Norfolk is depressing enough without a funeral.

But President Trump and British Prime Minister Starmer are doing everything they can to bring about the end of human civilization before my appointment in Samarra. The former, Behemoth-like, by waging war on nature and hastening economic Armageddon. The latter, determinedly but less consequentially, by backtracking on environmental protection, slow-walking improvements to the NHS, and dismissing proposals that would improve tax fairness and reduce inequality. Reform UK, Nigel Farage’s barely updated version of Oswald Mosley’s 1932 British Union of Fascists, is poised to pick up the pieces of another failed British government and join forces with its big, strong American cousin, the Republican Party.

In a nod to Farage, Starmer’s has pledged to cut recruitment of health care and other low-skill workers (mostly non-white) from abroad. If he has his way, there will be no kindly South Asian and African nurses and carers for me. (The PM must think British-born workers will queue-up for demanding jobs paying £12 per hour). In 15 years, my poor wife Harriet will be stuck doling out my meds, tying my shoelaces, and combing my wisps of hair as we vainly await the Rapture – unless it all blows up first!

The four-horsemen are galloping toward us at speed: 1) pestilence. 2) war by autonomous AI; 3) economic collapse; 4) global warming. Don’t be depressed! Contemplating the end encourages us to enjoy the now. Carpe diem!.

Pestilence

Alfred Rethel, Dance of Death: Death the Strangler, 1850. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain.

Under Trump, the U.S. suffered more Covid deaths than any other nation including China where the outbreak began. Before the pandemic, the U.S. president disastrously cut CDC staff in China, as well as cabinet level contacts with the country, making it nearly impossible to follow the early course of the disease. He also rejected mask use, after initially supporting it, and promoted quack cures like chloroquine, Ivermectin, and bleach. The re-elected president’s recent withdrawal of the U.S. from the World Health Organization, and gutting of staff at the CDC, NIH and FDA mean that the nation – and the world – are ill-prepared for the next pandemic.

The Trump administration’s deregulation of animal agriculture — reduction of safety inspection and approval of industry efforts to speed up production lines — means there will be many more chances for viruses to jump from wild to domesticated animal populations. Republican abandonment of efforts to halt biodiversity decline, deforestation, and habitat loss – the consequence of climate change — mean that diseases formerly restricted to tropical zones will spread........

© CounterPunch