What future for our kids?
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 8, 2008
What future for our kids? Hang on buddy! (November 8, 2008)
Regardless of a scenario or a combination of scenarios, there are trends that have definite paths in the foreseeable future. For example:
1. Population on Earth will continue to increase; it might or might not reach a plateau.
2. Potable water will dwindle and its quality will deteriorate fast.
3. Quantity of water for irrigation will diminish.
4. Degradation of the soil for agriculture will resume its fast pace because of intensive methods and increase in fertilizers and pesticides and deforestation and acid rains…
5. Cultivable lands will shrink to make rooms for increased infrastructures and habitable estates.
6. The virgin forests in the Amazon, Canada, and Africa are disappearing much quicker than reforestation policies.
7. The concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing exponentially and there are no effective policies to make do without oil and increased coal mining.
8. Cheaper car productions in China and India will saturate the highways and deplete even faster the oil reserves.
9. The prices of medicines and chemical products will shoot to the roofs because of lack of oil and the necessary ingredients in the equatorial forests.
10. The ozone layer will continue is depletion process.
11. Biological diversity will no longer be that diverse.
12. Maritime sources of protein are already scarce and polluted.
13. Renewable sources of energy will not match the ever increase in demands on energies.
14. Concentration of people in mega cities; since China joined the free market 150 million Chinese peasants flocked to the major cities and the same trend is going on in India and everywhere.
Shall I go on? There are several scenarios to remedy to this bleak future; not necessarily to stop the trends, but just to maintain the survival of human species a while longer. There are at least four scenarios. First, we might very plausible maintain the free market economy, consumerism, multinationals and higher rate of growth. This policy has proven its catastrophic effects but no alternative economic policies are studied seriously.
The second scenario is security first for the rich nations; the poor immigrants would be warded off these “islands” of prosperity and affluence and let the third world go to hell. This scenario is gaining ground in Europe and the USA and tighter measures to exclude the other non-developed populations have been in place for some time.
The third scenario is for the western nations to coordinate political policies through financial incentives and tax cuts and centralized planning with fixed objectives. Obviously, these centralized policies will be heavily biased toward the life-style of the developed and rich nations.
The fourth scenario can be summarized by Gandhi’s statement: ” True civilization is not the multiplication to infinity the wants of man, but their deliberate limitation so that to allow each individual to share what is essential for survival”. It is fundamentally a strategy of long term durability to maintaining the survival process by relying on the basic necessities. This scenario screams for drastic cultural change in our behavior and consumption and the quest for renewable matters and sources of energies.
Well, we cannot expect the western civilization to make a dent in the fourth scenario; not because they lack moral character but because of the daily pressures to fit in a well established consumerism society. This is basically the lesson of history that the vast majority has to sacrifice so that the very few could enjoy life to blotting!
In the meantime, there are these rarest of events or natural cataclysms that re-establish equilibrium to Earth survival and rejuvenation. This time around it is man that would have been the catalyst. Human spices might or might not survive. One thing is certain; if human kind survives the same cycle of development will recur, unless the fourth scenario culture has been inculcated deep in our psychic or animal instincts.
Have I increased your doze of pessimism? Anyway, we are all living a worried life to the benefit of the entertainment industries. No wonder that terrorist activities are increasing; that mass destruction philosophies are common policies; that vast “collateral damages” are acceptable; that extreme, salafist behavior are widespread among all religions and sects; that mysticism is gaining wide disciples, and that patience for rational discussion is dwindling! I would not kill your grain of hope. Hang on buddy.
Adonis Diaries 
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