Bob Rich

In 1972, Bob Rich had young children, and a Ph.D. thesis to write up. He was bored with the project, and kept himself awake during his library research by reading about unrelated topics. He wanted to be able to predict the future for his kids, and so drifted to futurology. No, not Nostradamus or astrology, but the use of existing trends to predict the future. The evidence was unmistakable. The coming world was horrendous. Resources then still plentiful such as cheap petroleum would become...See more

In 1972, Bob Rich had young children, and a Ph.D. thesis to write up. He was bored with the project, and kept himself awake during his library research by reading about unrelated topics. He wanted to be able to predict the future for his kids, and so drifted to futurology. No, not Nostradamus or astrology, but the use of existing trends to predict the future. The evidence was unmistakable. The coming world was horrendous. Resources then still plentiful such as cheap petroleum would become depleted, leading to hardships and even wars. This would lead to far more expensive, and environmentally more damaging methods of supply. Air and water would be polluted, so that cancers, asthma, allergies and other severe health problems would become epidemics. Increasing global mobility was bound to increase the rate at which new strains of diseases, and entirely new diseases would emerge, and even then, genetic engineering was a possibility, leading to the risk of releasing entirely new monster organisms. He was aware of research on the effects of crowding on mammals, and predicted the breakdown of the family, increasing stress-related diseases like strokes, heart attacks and digestive ulcers, wars of genocide based on unreasoning hatred, addiction to alcohol, drugs, gambling and anything else with the slightest promise of easing distress. Horrendous weather events were guaranteed to become more frequent, and more severe. In other words, he predicted today's society. Some details were still to come. For example, this was over forty years before scientific evidence confirmed that we are in the sixth extinction event of earth. Species are dying out at more than 1000 times the "background rate," and the numbers of many so-far not endangered species are plummeting. Of particular concern is the drop in insect and bird numbers, in part due to the climate catastrophe, in part to our insanity in bathing the entire planet in pesticides and other toxins. Destroy species at the base of a food chain, and the entire ecosystem disintegrates. And we are a part of nature, not apart from nature. Since that time, Bob has never stopped fighting for a saner world, on the grounds that, when the Cataclysm comes, he can at least say, "It wasn't my fault." You can read about his proposed solution to humanity's problems in his essay, How to Change the World (http: //wp.me/P3Xihq-5). Bob is the author of 18 books to date. You can inspect them all, and find lots of writing that is informative, challenging, inspiring - but never boring - at his blog, Bobbing Around (https: //bobrich18.wordpress.com/). See less