Friends, I wonder whether, in a few decades, this will be our new reality.

The image shows a group of hunter-gatherers who are living in primitive conditions. As the name suggests, they live off the land by hunting whatever wildlife there is and by gathering food from trees and plants as our ancestors did many thousands of years ago (some folk still do).

Why do I think such a thing? Well, if we look at our current reality with global warming and the economic/financial crisis together with the fact that the world has too many people and that food and clean water could well become scarce in the near future, it’s not hard to draw such a conclusion.

Let me throw in a few facts. In America, the demise of outlying suburbs has already led to whole communities that no longer have many people in them. Home prices have fallen dramatically and crime and looting is common. Many owners have walked away from their suburban homes because the value of their property is far less than the mortgage on it. They have gone to live closer to already crowded cities where they might be able to walk to work or get cheap public transport assuming they can find a job at all.

I also saw a news item about the people of Bangladesh who, because their visas are being canceled, are returning home in large numbers no longer able to work in Europe which is suffering itself from large job losses. The income they were earning helped their families in Bangladesh to survive. Their unexpected return adds to the disaster that Bangladesh already is regarding its extreme poverty and not enough jobs. Of course, there are millions of itinerant workers from many different countries that will experience the same situation.

Then, off the coast of Somalia, pirates are causing huge disruption to the shipping of goods and fuel. From little boats they are using small arms to board large vessels. Capturing the crew, they then take the vessels to hideouts and wait to be paid millions of dollars. They are defying warships from many countries including America, the world’s military superpower. And Somalia is not the only place that pirates operate. And their clear message is: if you want something, take it by force (they are, of course, just copying some nations who don’t just capture ships but invade and occupy whole countries)!

As people lose jobs across the world and hunger and privation bites, the normal conventions no longer apply. A hungry, desperate person is going to get food for themselves and their family one way or another. And, as we know, some countries in the world are awash with guns.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientists to work out where that scenario may lead in the not too distant future. A bitter, bloody battle between the haves and the have-nots might well be just around the corner and the image shown above might well become the new reality for those who survive it.

If ever there was a time when we needed strong, coordinated action by a world body to take control of the current dire situation and ensure that we don’t descend into communities of warring nations and/or tribes it is now.

Unfortunately, each nation is busy looking after its own narrow interests while the world falls apart!