As part of Weird Future‘s 5 Viridian Years series, Jay speculates about the coming “asperity,” defined as “A policy of cutting resource use and consumption via a reduction in carbon dioxide (or equivalent emissions) and resources that are available/provided to a population.”
I would like to speculate on what kind of societal leverage could politicians of the future use as fuel to rally popular support for asperity?—?as opposed to say, geoengineering?—?as a way to prevent global catastrophe? Asperity politics (in action) could take many forms and be called many things?—?deep green, green authoritarianism, perhaps even openly by detractors as eco-fascism (can one imagine a deep green sweeping in power on votes from climate refugee’s in the ravaged post united states of america?) It would be enacted by many groups concurrently: as a social trend, by governments, and even perhaps terrorists.
Asperity could be enacted on a society’s ageing population, marketed as generational punishment; for the years of dithering over climate action, for the forced debt and precarity the people now in power went through growing up. Yes, the old will die, but that’s ok. They were responsible for deaths of many over truly inconsequential things like debt. Hell, in the early decades of the 21st century 1 child died every 4 seconds from preventable poverty?—?with that kind of track record to compare against the old shouldn’t worry huh?
Full Story: Medium: The Coming Asperity