Three crises threaten human survival, Chomsky warns

The world is facing a confluence of three major crises that threaten the survival of humanity, and internationalism, solidarity and education are the only way to solve them, according to the linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky.

He was talking to the STAR (Society of Transnational Academic Researchers) Scholars Network conference, “Shaping a Humane World: Higher education perspectives”, held online on 8 December, at which he presented the inaugural A Noam Chomsky Global Connections Awards, which recognise individuals with a “deep impact on advancing global, social mobility” via transnational research and human connections.

“We cannot overlook the fact that we are in a unique moment of human history. Humans have been on earth for a few hundred thousand years. They are an astonishing miracle, the results of many pure accidents… for the first time in four billion years on earth, creatures who can ponder the types of questions we are discussing,” Chomsky said.

“Yet here we are in this instance where this could be the final moment for the existence of thought on earth. We are facing the serious prospect of virtual extinction of the species.”

Chomsky, who is laureate professor of linguistics and Agnese Nelms Haury Chair at the University of Arizona in the United States, said there is a confluence of several major crises, “something which has never happened before in history, and will never happen again unless we provide the right answers for them”.

He said the current pandemic – which is global, knows no boundaries and has to be solved internationally – may soon be solved through international cooperation and the development of vaccines, the first of which was created by two Turkish immigrants to Germany and is being marketed by an international corporation, a symbol of the international collaboration happening across the world.

“There is an international organisation, COVAX, which is working on expediting international cooperation and development of the vaccine, and also on the critical problem of distribution, making sure the vaccine will not be monopolised by those wealthy enough to appropriate it for themselves, but will be available to those who need it everywhere in world.”

However, the US and some other wealthy countries are taking steps to gain control of vaccines for themselves, not for those who need it, he said. “That must be overcome. That is a political problem, a problem of international solidarity that must be foremost in our mind.”

But while the pandemic will come to an end, we will not be able to restore the melting icepacks that warn of radical, highly destructive changes ahead to the environment.

“Very recent scientific studies suggest we may be approaching a tipping point where these processes are irreversible and we will be facing the termination of organised human life on earth, facing catastrophes so enormous that we can barely contemplate the effects,” Chomsky said.

But he said we have also been living under the dark shadow of nuclear weapons and the grim records show that it is a “virtual miracle that we have survived, not only from numerous accidents but also from occasional very reckless acts of leaders”.

Leading experts such as former US defence secretary William Perry have warned that we are now facing a greater threat of nuclear war than even during the Cold War and it is growing, while most of the regime of arms limitation treaties, which offered some protection, has been dismantled.

Chomsky has previously told the network that he sees the threat of nuclear war as “extremely serious” and growing, especially in South and Southeast Asia, where there are nuclear armed states already involved in tension and conflict, which could be exacerbated by the growing impact of global warming on limited water supplies for the whole region.

At the awards ceremony, he related that the Doomsday Clock published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to gauge the risk of global catastrophe has shifted from seven minutes to midnight in 1947 to 100 seconds to midnight in January 2020 based on three impending crises.

Threat of deteriorating democracy

They are the threats of global warming and nuclear war, but also a third threat of “deteriorating democracy”.

“This makes sense,” Chomsky said. “The only hope for dealing with the major crises is an engaged, informed population dedicated to using the opportunities that do exist to deal with and end these existential crises.”

He explained that “informed” means “educated”.

“It means educated in not only the means that have to be applied [to solve the crises] but the international solidarity that is necessary in order to implement these means.

“It means a society that is not only educated but able to deliberate, to interact, globally in fact, to move towards solutions, again a problem of democracy on an international scale.

“And it is quite right to rank these three major issues as the crucial existential crisis we face,” he said.

“It is important to recognise that this generation has an awesome responsibility: It is the first generation in human history to face the question: ‘Will human civilisation survive in any recognisable form?’ It is also the last generation that will face this crisis because, if we do not solve it, we are basically finished.”

Chomsky said all three crises have solutions. “We know the answers to them. They are within reach. They are feasible. But it is not enough to have the knowledge, it is necessary to grasp and implement the opportunities.

“It is a tremendous responsibility but an amazing, exciting challenge and we can only all hope with our firmest conviction that we will be up to mastering this confluence of problems which has created this unique, incredible moment of human history.”

Responding to Chomsky, Dr Rajika Bhandari, president and CEO of the IC3 Institute and an expert in international higher education, said Chomsky’s observations about the three existential threats were critical, and the advice that the solution to all of these crises and the pandemic lies “through international collaboration”, which is a “really very strong argument for what we do, as international collaboration and international education are essential to solving the problems we see today and in the future”.

Global Connections Awards

Dr Uttam Gaulee, current president of STAR, said the A Noam Chomsky Global Connections Awards 2020 reflect the organisation’s commitment to promoting transnational research, or collaborative research between scholars of two or more countries, whether by joint publications or research partnerships.

The North Star Medal of Lifetime Achievement, the Star Scholars Network’s premier acknowledgment of outstanding achievement and success in transnational research, was awarded to Elspeth Jones, emerita professor of the internationalisation of higher education, Leeds Beckett University, United Kingdom, and an internationally recognised thought leader, author and researcher in the internationalisation of higher education.

As founding editor of the influential Routledge book series, Internationalization in Higher Education, she has worked with scholars across six continents on more than 20 books, published or forthcoming.

She has been involved in funded research and development projects in 25 countries, and with a range of cross-national institutions, including the International Association of Universities, the European Parliament, European Commission and Columbus Association (UNESCO). Jones’ YouTube series includes conversations with a diverse range of international educators around the globe.

Receiving the award, Jones said engaging with alternative world views, tolerating ambiguity and embracing cultural otherness had been at the heart of her work since she began in foreign languages.

“These are all basic principles in the internationalisation of higher education, which seeks to inspire all our students to think in global rather than insular or national terms. Through internationalisation and decolonisation of the curriculum we seek to encourage students to act in ways that advance social justice and help them to shape a more humane and inclusive and equitable world.”

She said just Chomsky had famously disrupted the field of linguistics back in the 1970s, and “those of us interested in education and research need to be just as disruptive and challenge the parochialism and nationalism which have been so prevalent around the world. We need to make education and international education central to politics.”

Two Shining Star Achievement in Research Awards of influential scholarly work were awarded to:

• Dr Bach Tran, pioneer in promoting research and evidence-based medicine in Vietnam and head of the department of health economics at Hanoi Medical University, Vietnam, and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, United States.

• Dr Ly Tran (no relation), a professor in the school of education, Deakin University, Australia, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. She has published extensively on internationalisation of education. Through her research and publication, she has theorised key aspects of student mobility.

“The works of these scholars are intellectually breathtaking,” said Gaulee in an interview after the awards were announced. “I applaud them for their audacity and boldness in advancing global social mobility. What a powerful addition to the positive force that is shaping a more humane and just world.”

STAR Scholars Network: https://starscholars.org/