The race between destruction and renewal, and the power still left in our hands
I worry about how slowly we are changing. The world is moving fast, but culture is not keeping up. The climate crisis is no longer something we talk about in the future tense. It is here. Fires, floods, and storms come harder and more often. Emissions still rise. Species vanish. Forests, reefs, glaciers — breaking down before our eyes. After decades of warnings and empty pledges, almost nothing has shifted. Whatever hope there was in politics collapsed with the election of Donald Trump, who tore up agreements, stripped protections, and put fossil fuels back on top.
This is not just hotter summers. It is a chain reaction. Forests drying, coral reefs dying, glaciers shrinking, weather lurching. Scientists call it the sixth extinction. Five times in Earth’s history life has been nearly wiped out by asteroid strikes or volcanic fire. This time it is us.
Collapse does not stay in the natural world. It spills into politics. Scarcity and fear drive people to strongmen who promise control, purity, and exclusion. Fascism thrives in crisis. It offers easy enemies where the truth is complicated, force where cooperation is required. The climate demands solidarity, but what we see are walls and scapegoats. Fascism is not separate from climate collapse. It grows out of it.
These twin crises — collapse and authoritarianism — show us how badly our systems have failed. Politics is short-sighted. Economics is built on endless extraction. Culture is distracted by spectacle. Delay only makes it worse. And yet, crisis also opens space. When old ideas break down, new ones can take root.
You can see the same story in our information systems. Web 1.0 was static, tied to journalism and institutions that still checked their facts. Web 2.0 gave everyone a voice, and for a moment it felt democratic. Then came the flood: memes, gossip, conspiracy. Disinformation spread faster than truth. In 2016, it helped carry Trump to power. In 2024, with climate fear and conspiracy everywhere online, he returned. At that point, any hope that institutions might turn us toward real climate action was gone.
Now comes Web 3.0, the age of artificial intelligence. This is not a small step. It changes how humans use information, how we speak, how we organize. For the first time, ordinary people have tools once reserved for elites: the power to analyze, to strategize, to write at scale.
But I am not naïve. AI was built by corporations for profit and by governments for control. It is already used for surveillance, for extraction, for power. Left in their hands, it will deepen inequality, entrench authoritarianism, and make the climate crisis worse.
And yet there is a crack in that system. By replacing people with machines, corporations hollow out their own base. No jobs means no consumers. The same short-sightedness that wrecked ecosystems now threatens to wreck the economy itself. In chasing efficiency, they destroy the conditions for survival. The weapon cuts both ways.
That gives us a chance. AI can be reclaimed as a tool for people, not power. Used wisely, it can sharpen how we think, how we plan, how we connect. It can link neighbours into networks, and networks into global movements. It can amplify intelligence at the grassroots, not just at the top. AI can be a weapon, or it can be a commons.
The danger is obvious. AI is not ethereal. It runs on vast data centres that devour energy and water. A single large model can emit the carbon of many human lifetimes. The same tool that could help us resist collapse is already feeding it.
The window is narrow, but it is open. We cannot wait for politicians. We cannot expect corporations to change. What remains is us — people willing to learn, to organize, to resist collapse, and to build new forms of resilience. AI is not a saviour. But it can be an amplifier. Used well, it might give us just enough intelligence, just enough speed, just enough connection to evolve faster than our destruction. It is a race.
Last Updated on May 31, 2026 | Published: September 12, 2025