Remember Canadian academic Dr David Suzuki?
He was one of the loudest voices warning us of impending climate change way back in the 1980s. After more than a decade of writing books and traveling the world lecturing, by the 2000s, David was already despairing that it was all too little too late. That was over 25 years ago.
World governments stubbornly refused to take measures needed to flatten the rise in global temperatures.
The UN first set its limit at 1.5 degrees temperature rise. Then it became two degrees. Now the realists are resigned to an ambient temperature rise of between four and five degrees celsius (and climbing), with ‘continental temperatures’ expected to rise more than ten degrees!
All continents will experience these dramatic temperatures. Bushfires will rage until there is nothing left to burn.
The Australian outback, anywhere west of the Great Divide, will regularly have summer temperatures over 50 degrees celsius.
That makes two-thirds of Australia an uninhabitable dust-bowl, where entire river systems dry out. Dust devils will swirl through this dust-scape like tormented wraiths, haunting entities from times when things lived in this smitten landscape.
Whether it is denial or contempt ‘Drill Baby Drill!’ best encapsulates Trump’s environ-mental policy. He professes to be a ‘climate change sceptic’, but is such a cynical and pathological liar, he is really just using denial for commercial opportunity.
War is the greatest polluter of all, and the greatest waste of Wealth and Human Resources – which should be being re-directed to abating the worst of Climate Change.
Narcissist in Chief, Donald J Trump, is so egocentric, he cannot stand the thought of anyone surviving after he dies, and wants to take us all out with him. His Vice, JD Vance, and Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, are both convinced Christians who truly believe we are in ’The End of Days’ The Book of Revelations, when only true believers are to be raptured ‘up’ into Heaven and the rest of us can all go to Hell!
These are not the sort of people who should be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.
In such troubled times, another academic is ringing the bell and warning us of yet another existential threat to human survival: AI.
Yuval Harari is an Israeli historian who wrote several monumental books. They include: Homo Sapiens, Homo Deus, 21 Lessons For The 21St Century, and Nexus. Like David Suzuki, Yuval can see over the horizon, and his book Nexus extrapolates the lethal consequences of allowing AI to run rampant and un-regulated.
AI algorithms are already speaking directly with other AIs. They determine what we receive in our social networking, the futures market, what shares are bought and sold. They write fake-news designed to outrage with no concern for facts.
They create the horniest porn and flood the internet with implausible photos and videos. They scam people of their wealth. Yuval shows us that AI is already so smart and fast and infinitely better informed than any person or state, that unregulated AI has the potential to take over power. WTF! Most of us are floundering trying to understand how a human-made non-human intelligence can ever assume such power. You must read Nexus. It might well be the most important book ever written. Back in the 1980s, who would ever have imagined something as benign as the weather would prove to be such an existential threat to our survival? Tragically, if our experience with climate change is anything to go by, we might become mesmerised by AI, and just stand by doing nothing while the planet gets taken over by un-regulated non-human entities, who’s only goal is to serve their own ends. I promise you – this is not just another conspiracy theory (And this letter was not generated by AI).
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
