[entrevista completa aqui]
"(...)
Kelly: You get very specific in the closing pages of your book, where you say that if industrial civilization does not crumble because of the resistance from, say, Neo-Luddites or others, then it will crumble of its own accumulative excesses, specifically "within not more than a few decades." Now, if somebody two decades hence wanted to decide inarguably if you were right or wrong about that forecast, what would be the evidence of that? How would someone know whether you were right?
Sale: I would say that you can measure it in three ways. The first would be an economic collapse. The dollar would be worthless, the yen would be worthless, the mark would be worthless – the dislocation we saw in the Depression of 1930, magnified many times over. A second would be the distention within various societies of the rich and the poor, in which the poor, who comprise, let's say, a fifth of society, are no longer content to be bought off with alcohol and television and drugs, and rises up in rebellion. And at the same time, there would be the same kind of distention within nations, in which the poor nations are no longer content to take the crumbs from our table, and rise up in either a military or some other form against the richer societies. And then the third is accumulating environmental problems, such that Australia, for example, becomes unlivable because of the ozone hole there, and Africa, from the Sahara to South Africa, becomes unlivable because of new diseases that have been uncovered through deforestation. At any rate, environmental catastrophes on a significant scale.
Kelly: So you have multinational global currency collapse, social friction and warfare both between the rich and the poor and within nations, and you have continentwide environmental disasters causing death and great migrations of people. All by the year 2020, yes? How certain are you about all this, what you call your optimism?
Sale: Well, I have spent the last 20 years looking into these problems, and I have suggested to my daughters, who are in their 20s, that it would be a mistake to have children.
Kelly: Would you be willing to bet on your view?
Sale: Sure.
Kelly: OK. [Pulls out a check.] Here's a check for a thousand dollars, made out to Bill Patrick, our mutual book editor. I bet you US$1,000 that in the year 2020, we're not even close to the kind of disaster you describe – a convergence of three disasters: global currency collapse, significant warfare between rich and poor, and environmental disasters of some significant size. We won't even be close. I'll bet on my optimism.
Sale: [Pauses. Then smiles.] OK.
[Sales reaches over to checkbook on his desk and writes out a check. They shake hands.]
Kelly: Oh, boy, this is easy money! But you know, besides the money, I really hope I am right.
Sale: I hope you are right, too."
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