Posts Tagged ‘A World Adrift’
Global Resolutions: The Bible of Global Problems
Let us consider the confirmed facts related to earth problems affecting new generations:
Fact one: Climate and environment are quickly deteriorating.
Fact two: Birth control is not efficient in the mostly under-developed States
Fact three: Potable water is polluted and water for irrigation is dwindling fast.
Fact four: The middle classes in China and India are expanding alarmingly and are more than 3 times higher than the US and Europe combined.
Fact five: The world economy is experiencing serious deflationary period.
Fact six: The world is going through deep financial crisis and recession.
Fact seven: Effective military spending should have witnessed decrease after the financial crash but it is increasing alarmingly.
Fact eight: The identity crisis around the world is destabilizing order and security.
Fact nine: The supposedly public international institutions of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have failed their missions; decision and management transparency procedures for public on time information is not forthcoming.
Fact One: Climate and environment are quickly deteriorating. The ten signs of alert are proven in the following evidences.
Oceans are turning more acid. At 8 kilometers of the Californian coasts shells and corals are being dissolved. In the Pacific Ocean, 30% of mussel has disappeared. Planktons, the basic food chain for fishes, small and large, are no longer abundant; 30% has depleted since the industrial age.
The Arctic is changing drastically. Ice field has melted by 27% in the last two decades. Temperature increased by 3 degrees in the last 5 years. Thus, the more ice melt the larger the surface is exposed to direct sun rays and consequently the more the rate of ice melting increases. The level of oceans is increasing and covering more dry lands.
The Amazon and tropical forests regions are drying up and liberating higher quantities of carbon dioxide. This equatorial forest is liberating more CO2 than absorbing; absorbing CO2 was their primary function. More trees are dying and thus liberating more CO2 by decomposition. The higher the concentration of CO2 the lesser trees “perspire” and the more reduced are rains in quantity and frequency.
The climate in Antarctica, the main source of future potable water, is milder; temperature has increased by one degree since the fifties. Salinity of sea water in the southern globe is decreasing. The Antarctic must be melting faster than observed.
Seasons are in advance of schedule and migratory birds are suffering. Spring is one week earlier in Europe: 75% of birds studied in Europe have declined in number and migrating further north and seek higher altitudes.
Dry seasons are extending. Monsoons are rarefied; precipitations are decreasing and the desert in North Africa is expanding southward western Africa. Deforestation might still be the main culprit but the warming up of the environment is catching up fast as the main factor.
Methane gas, present as methane hydrate in maritime sediment, is escaping from oceans. The under layer of pergolas (pergelisol) used to act as a lid but more abundant hot water is being ejected in the Arctic seas; the concentration along the Russian coast is 200 times superior to normal. Methane gas is far worse than CO2 (20 times more powerful in retaining heat) for the warming up of the environment.
Glaciers such as the Himalaya and the Quelccaya (Peru) are losing 0.85 meters in their thickness every year. Around 40 frozen lakes in Nepal and Bhutan are breaking up.
Sea levels are climbing 3 mm every year on average; the levels in the Pacific Ocean and Mediterranean Sea are reaching the alarming climb of 20 mm a year.
The warming up of the climate is accelerating dangerously. Temperature increased 0.6 degrees just in the last 30 years while it took a century to increase 0.2 degrees before then. The concentration in CO2 has increased to about 400 molecules per million; it was just 270 before the industrial age.
The liberation of methane gas and the drought of tropical forests are the two major factors that show evidence in the acceleration of environmental degradation. The fast degradation has overtaken current research data that are no longer suitable for predicting the approaching calamity.
Fact Two: Birth control is not efficient in the mostly under-developed States.
China and India are supposed to have gotten birth rate under control but it is not because of higher educational level and better standards of living. There are evidence of massive euthanasia practices on females and minorities camouflaged within laws interpreted very loosely and selectively. In the under-developed States political instability, poor security for law and order, unsustainable social institutions, and lack of financial and technical supports are exacerbating an already dangerous trend. The UN is short on money and manpower in its specialized sections to counter this scourge. Over 50% of the population in Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, and Iran for example are under 15 years of age. (Global viable and alternative resolutions will be developed in a follow up article)
In Japan and many European States the trend is reversed; over 30% of the population is elderly (above 65 years) and draining the health budgets.
Fact Three: Potable water and water for irrigation are dwindling fast.
Climatic changes, heavy river pollution, accelerated urban centers, high rate of birth, and the early melting of mountain tops are depleting potable resources faster than expected. Many States rich in rivers, especially those witnessing drought seven months per year, have not be aided in erecting dams for emergency seasons. More States conflicts are centering on equitable potable water sharing. The criticality of water supply is one of the main problems facing people in the coming decade.
Fact Four: The middle classes in China and India are at least three times larger than the combined numbers in the USA and Europe and growing quickly.
China and India are experience much better increases in their GNP than the USA and Europe during this downturn. Consequently, China and India will focus on their internal markets to grow their economies in the same manner as the USA has been benefiting for over three centuries. Middle classes demand to have consumer goods available since they have the money to purchase them. They certainly have this right. The problem is that purchasing cars is the first priority for middle class citizens with investment in infrastructures and facilities to abuse of these vehicles. China has already surpassed the USA in the number of purchased car this year. India is making available inexpensive cars marketed at $2,000 in India. The kinds of energy sources that will drive these cars will have great consequences. Consumerism can drive economies but depletion of natural resources requires a cultural change to accommodate a sustainable earth.
Fact Five: The world economy is experiencing serious deflationary period.
The world economy is struggling and the downturn is expected to last for at least 5 years. This might be the best excellent news for a sustainable world production. There is the need for drastic diminishing of redundant and irrelevant consumer goods that can be substituted easily for human survival. Globalization created economic blocks with objective of exercising political pressures on the established developed nations. The economic or trade blocks such as South-East Asian States, the Southern Latin American States, the Gulf Arab/Iranian States, and soon a few African States are struggling to stay above water and keep up with the fast moving globalization trend.
The International Monetary Fund extended three quarter of its resources on the already industrialized states since its inception in 1944. The G20 decided to triple the IMF fund to $750 billions. The G20 will extended 44% of the funds, the other developed State a third and the over 55 poorer States will cover 17%. It was hoped the restrictions and conditions for funding projects will be reduced from 17 conditions to 5 but nothing has been materializing so far.
Fact Six: The world is going through deep financial crisis.
Millions of workers and employees lost their jobs in a few months and that trend is increasing faster than expected. The infusion of trillions of dollars into banks in order to facilitate the flow of trade transactions did not save banks from declaring bankruptcy. The meeting of the biggest 20 financial markets that produce over 85% of the world economical transactions has not reached any consensus as to the financial basket reference for money fluctuation or the control of paper money issuing rights of individual power States. Consequently, the financial crisis is opened to dangerous more frequent reversals on a downward trend. The USA is heavily relying on China for covering its increasing debt by purchasing US Treasury Bills. China will be facing enormous capital investment inside because of the consequences of rapid economical strategies. The rivers in China are over polluted, drought seasons are more frequent, and over 30 millions working in urban centers have been forced to relocate to rural areas where no job opportunities are available. The moment China decides to cut down on financing US debt the dollars will be devalued (for printing more paper money than the economy can support) and another financial crisis will loom on the horizon.
Fact Seven: Effective military spending at the increase.
People expected a rational decision by States in this economic and financial troubled times; people were hopeful that military budgets should decrease to balance other more needy budgets such as health, the environment, creating productive jobs, and education. The reverse happened: every major State that exported military hardware increased its military budget and it skyrocketed. The USA expenditure is more than double China and Russia combined and the fields of military operations expanding around the world. Societies are far more unstable and experiencing high unemployment rates and lower quality jobs for the qualified graduates.
Fact Eight: The identity crisis around the world is destabilizing order and security.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Europe had to face up to the identity and ethnic crisis in East Europe such as ethnic and religious “cleansing” and the drive for independence of tiny States within the disintegrating Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. The European Union (EU) is the best representative for projects of unification among States with identity crisis. The EU is clearly the most advanced union in matter of forging ahead with ethical issues.
Gorbachev has declared recently that Europe squandered 20 years of potential opportunities for stabilizing the European continent after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the defeat of communist Soviet Union. If we revisit the problems that Europe had to deal with in priority then Europe had plenty of excuses. First, West Germany had to absorb the cost of the re-unification of the crumbling economy of East Germany; then the EU had to battle the consequences of the disaster of 9/11 of 2001 and the frantic pressures of the Bush Jr. Administration to rally Europe to the invasion of Iraq; then the pronouncement of the Christian Conservatives alliance of the US administration of the binary dicta “either you are with us or against us”; then the declaration of an old senile Defense Minister Rumsfeld lambasting “old and senile Europe” and getting hold of the European oil investments in Iraq. The EU has now to come with a plan for the increased illegal immigration as the ideal destination location. It must be that Europe was in a rejuvenation phase to have forged ahead in short time to a successful unification program.
Global problems to whom? These problems affect us all but the G20 “something” think that they are the only one concerned. Solution to the G20 is lending money to more mega polluting mega projects. So far, the UN did not propose a program to deal with global problems. Not a single President of the G5 went public to remind us that there is such a program. Life is going on leisurely as if dirt is swept under the carpet and that is worrisome; citizens of earth are not asked to contribute and share in the responsibilities. A follow up article will attempt to offer viable global resolution and will tackle the troubles with religious extremism and state ideologies.
Note: This essay was inspired by the manuscript “A World Adrift” by Amine Maalouf. I added and developed on more global problems. The style is Levantine; Bible style because the problems are established and need urgent global resolutions. I will mentions the facts separately and then undertake the analyses of the interactions of the global problems before considering viable global resolutions. This post will focus on the problem. The follow up post will consider viable global resolutions.
The Bible of Global Problems
Posted by: adonis49 on: June 24, 2009
The Bible of Global Problems: Global Resolutions; (June 23, 2009)
Note: This essay was inspired by the manuscript “A World Adrift” by Amine Maalouf. I added and developed on more global problems. The style is Levantine; Bible style because the problems are established and need urgent global resolutions. I will mentions the facts separately and then undertake the analyses of the interactions of the global problems before considering viable global resolutions. This post wil focus on the problem. The follow up post will consider viable global resolutions.
Fact one: Climate and environment quickly deteriorating.
Fact two: Birth control is not efficient in the mostly under-developed States
Fact three: Potable water and water for irrigation are dwindling fast.
Fact four: The middle classes in China and India are expanding alarmingly.
Fact five: The world economy is experiencing serious deflationary period.
Fact six: The world is going through deep financial crisis and recession.
Fact seven: Effective military spending should decrease but it didn’t.
Fact eight: The identity crisis around the world is destabilizing order and security.
Fact One: Climate and environment are quickly deteriorating. The ten signs of alert are proven in the following evidences.
Oceans are turning more acid. At 8 kilometers of the Californian coasts shells and corals are being dissolved. In the Pacific Ocean, 30% of mussel has disappeared. Planktons, the basic food chain for fishes, small and large, are no longer abundant; 30% has depleted since the industrial age.
The Arctic is changing drastically. Ice field has melted by 27% in the last two decades. Temperature increased by 3 degrees in the last 5 years. Thus, the more ice melt the larger the surface is exposed to direct sun rays and consequently the more the rate of ice melting increases. The level of oceans is increasing and covering more dry lands.
The Amazone and tropical forests regions are drying up and liberating higher quantites of carbon dioxide. This equatorial forest is liberating more CO2 than absorbing; absorbing CO2 was their primary function. More trees are dying and thus liberating more CO2 by decomposition. The higher the concentration of CO2 the lesser trees “perspire” and the more reduced are rains in quantity and frequency.
The climate in Antarctica, the main source of future potable water, is milder; temperature has increased by one degree since the fifties. Salinity of sea water in the southern globe is decreasing. The Antarctic must be melting faster than observed.
Seasons are in advance of schedule and migratory birds are suffering. Spring is one week earlier in Europe: 75% of birds studied in Europe have declined in number and migrating further north and seek higher altitudes.
Dry seasons are extending. Monsoons are rarefied; precipitations are decreasing and the desert in North Africa is expanding southward western Africa. Deforestration might still be the main culprit but the warming up of the environment is catching up fast as the main factor.
Methane gas, present as methane hydrate in maritime sediment, is escaping from oceans. The under layer of pergelisol used to act as a lid but more abundant hot water is being ejected in the Arctic seas; the concentration along the Russian coast is 200 times superior to normal. Methane gas is far worse than CO2 (20 times more powerful in retaining heat) for the warming up of the environment.
Glaciers such as the Himalaya and the Quelccaya (Perou) are losing 0.85 meters in their thickness every year. Around 40 frozen lakes in Nepal and Bhoutan are breaking up.
Sea levels are climing 3 mm every year on average; the levels in the Pacific Ocean and Mediterranean Sea are reaching the alarming climb of 20 mm a year.
The warming up of the climate is accelerating dangerously. Temperature increased 0.6 degrees just in the last 30 years while it took a century to increase 0.2 degrees before then. The concentration in CO2 has increased to about 400 molecules per million; it was just 270 before the industrial age.
The liberation of methane gas and the drought of tropical forests are the two major factors that show evidence in the acceleration of environmental degradation. The fast degradation has overtaken current research data that are no longer suitable for predicting the approaching calamity.
Fact Two: Birth control is not efficient in the mostly under-developed States.
China and India are supposed to have gotten birth rate under control but it is not because of higher educational level and better standards of living. There are evidence of massive euthanasia practices on females and minorities camouflaged within laws interpreted very loosely and selectively. In the under-developed States political instability, poor security for law and order, unsustainable social institutions, and lack of financial and technical supports are exacerbating an already dangerous trend. The UN is short on money and manpower in its specialized sections to counter this scourge. Over 50% of the population in Indonesia, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, and Iran for example are under 15 years of age. (Global viable and alternative resolutions wil be developed in a follow up article)
In Japan and many European States the trend is reversed; over 30% of the population are elderly (above 65 years) and draing the health budgets.
Fact Three: Potable water and water for irrigation are dwindling fast.
Climatic changes, heavy river pollution, accelerated urban centers, high rate of birth, and the early melting of mountain tops are depleting potable resources faster than expected. Many States rich in rivers, especially those witnessing drough seven months per year, have not be aided in erecting dams for emergency seasons. More States conflicts are centering on equitable potable water sharing. The criticality of water supply is one of the main problems facing people in the coming decade.
Fact Four: The middle classes in China and India are at least three times larger than the combined numbers in the USA and Europe and growing quickly.
China and India are experience much better increases in their GNP than the USA and Europe during this downturn. Consequently, China and India will focus on their internal markets to grow their economies in the same manner as the USA has been benefiting for over three centuries. Middle classes demand to have consumer goods available since they have the money to purchase them. They certainly have this right. The problem is that purchasing cars is the first priority for middle class citizens with investment in infrastructures and facilities to abuse of these vehicles. China has already surpassed the USA in the number of purchased car this year. India is making available unexpensive cars marketed at $2,000 in India. The kinds of energy sources that will drive these cars will have great consequences. Consumerism can drive economies but depletion of natural resources requires a cultural change to accommodate a sustainable earth.
Fact Five: The world economy is experiencing serious deflationary period.
The world economy is struggling and the downturn is expected to last for at least 5 years. This might be the best excellent news for a sustainable world production. There is the need for drastic diminishing of redundant and irrelevant consumer goods that can be substituted easily for human survival. Globalization created economic blocks with objective of exercising political pressures on the established developed nations. The economic or trade blocks such as South-East Asian States, the Southern Latin American States, the Gulf Arab/Iranian States, and soon a few African States are struggling to stay above water and keep up with the fast moving globalization trend.
The International Monetary Fund extended three quarter of its resources on the already industrialized states since its inception in 1944. The G20 decided to triple the IMF fund to $750 billions. The G20 will extended 44% of the funds, the other developed State a third and the over 55 poorer States will cover 17%. It was hoped the restrictions and conditions for funding projects will be reduced from 17 conditions to 5 but nothing has been materializing so far.
Fact Six: The world is going through deep financial crisis.
Millions of workers and employees lost their jobs in a few months and that trend is increasing faster than expected. The infusion of trillions of dollars into banks in order to facilitate the flow of trade transactions did not save banks from declaring bankruptcy. The meeting of the biggest 20 financial markets that produce over 85% of the world economical transactions has not reached any consensus as to the financial basket reference for money fluctuation or the control of paper money issuing rights of individual power States. Consequently, the financial crisis is opened to dangerous more frequent reversals on a downward trend. The USA is heavily relying on China for covering its increasing debt by purchasing US Treasury Bills. China will be facing enormous capital investment inside because of the consequences of rapid economical strategies. The rivers in China are over polluted, drough seasons are more frequent, and over 30 millions working in urban centers have been forced to relocate to rural areas where no job opportunities are available. The moment China decides to cut down on financing US debt the the dollars will be devalued (for printing more paper money than the economy can support) and another financial crisis will loom on the horizon.
Fact Seven: Effective military spending at the increase.
People expected a rational decision by States in this economic and financial troubled times; people were hopeful that military budgets should decrease to balance other more needy budgets such as health, the environment, creating productive jobs, and education. The reverse happened: every major State that exported military hardware increased its military budget and it skyrocketed. The USA expenditure is more than double China and Russia combined and the fields of military operations expanding around the world. Societies are far more unstable and experiencing high unemployment rates and lower quality jobs for the qualified graduates.
Fact Eight: The identity crisis around the world is destabilizing order and security.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Europe had to face up to the identity and ethnic crisis in East Europe such as ethnic and religious “cleansing” and the drive for independence of tiny States within the disintegrating Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. The European Union (EU) is the best representative for projects of unification among States with identity crisis. The EU is clearly the most advanced union in matter of forging ahead with ethical issues.
Gorbachev has declared recently that Europe squandered 20 years of potential opportunities for stabilizing the European continent after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the defeat of communist Soviet Union. If we revisit the problems that Europe had to deal with in priority then Europe had plenty of excuses. First, West Germany had to absorb the cost of the re-unification of the crumbling economy of East Germany; then the EU had to battle the consequences of the disaster of 9/11 of 2001 and the frantic pressures of the Bush Jr. Administration to rally Europe to the invasion of Iraq; then the pronouncement of the Christian Conservatives alliance of the US administration of the binary dicta “either you are with us or against us”; then the declaration of an old senile Defense Minister Rumsfield lambasting “old and senile Europe” and getting hold of the European oil investments in Iraq. The EU has now to come with a plan for the increased illegal immigration as the ideal destination location. It must be that Europe was in a rejuvenation phase to have forged ahead in short time to a successful unification program.
A follow up article will attempt to ofer viable global resolution and will tackle the troubles with religious extremism and state ideologies.
Critique of Amine Maalouf’s “A World Adrift”
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 10, 2009
Critique of Amine Maalouf’s “A World Adrift” (May 10, 2009)
I read all of Maalouf’s 11 books in their original language French. I have already published eight posts with themes inspired from “Le Dereglement du Monde” (A World Adrift) with expansion and re-arrangement for logical flow and in a different style; for example “China and India Empires”, “Instantaneous Expediencies”, “Minorities in the Process of Disappearing: Iraq Case”, “Misleading Legitimacies”, “Imaginary Certitudes”, “A Way out of History”, “Move Inland, Son”, and “Three Global Temptations”
. I have already reviewed at least three of Amine Maalouf’s books; in addition to “A World Adrift”, I reviewed “Origins” and extensively reviewed “The Garden of Light”.
Amine Maalouf is from Lebanon by origin and settled in France during the civil war and has been a French citizen for 30 years; he received many book awards and acclaims of the highest honors from the French Academy of Literature.
My critiques are mainly focused on the style of his latest book. I had the visceral impression that Maalouf is an “imprisoned westernized academics” that has to prove at every turn that he is a western mind and thus, he has to insist on introspective paragraphs to settle his credibility as an impartial author who obeys the cretirion and restrictions of western demands on acceptability. I admit, if I were not a Levantine and fluent in French, I would have been lost and given up on finishing the book.
I was frustrated that Maalouf had to persist in almost every page that he is no scientist or has no scientif credentials to confirm that the climate is changing because of the over concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. He had to fall back on Pascal’s logic that the remedies for reducing CO2 are beneficial to earth climate even if this gas turns out not to be the culprit. All the western nations have been substituting CO2 emiting generators and vehicles with “clean” energy technologies for decades and they were not waiting for Maalouf’s Pascal logic to confirm the obvious in action. Maalouf has the intelligence and references and he did his research and he didn’t need to ruin a good chapter with convoluted excuses on his scientific shotcomings.or credentials. The reading becomes pretty boring unless Maalouf is trying implicitely to give literature a higher standard than sciences in human progress.
My example of clear style is that section on “Three Global Temptations”: it stated the dilemma and the resolution with a supportive practical story in a Levantine style. The fundamental global problems are established and they need to be read as a Bible for human future survival. That is what most people read and how they assimilate critical urgencies in ideas, the Levantine Bible style.
I stated in a previous post that “The Levantine style (basically the style of the Bibles) is characterized by direct pronouncements expressing feeling and describing what is seen, heard, and assimilated. The sentences are not encumbered by prefixes such as “I think”, “I believe”, “I am not sure”, “It is possible”, “There might be other versions”, “I might be wrong”, or “It is my opinion”, or what the western writers have adopted from the Greek “rational” style. The style in the Levant sounds confident, categorical, and conveying the total truth though it does not mean that the people cannot discriminate or feel the variations, possibilities, and uncertainties. The writers in the Levant simply feel that all these attachments are redundant since it is a fact of life that nothing is categorical or certain; thus, superfluous additions that disturb the flow of thoughts and ideas that need to be conveyed are not appreciated. Consequently, the author feels that the western readers of the Bible should tone down their uneasiness with “outrageous” direct and assured pronouncements in the Bibles.”
I claim that if you still need to add superfluous corrective, introspective, or “diplomatic” paragraphs then you might as well warn your readers that the piece is still in the draft stage, that you are still ruminating and reflecting, that you are still in the stage of talking to yourself, and that you need your readers to help you out finish the article. It is my position that when you are ready to publish then you should adopt the Levantine affirmative style, the style that confirm to your readers that you have thoroughly thought out your topic, that you have written several drafts, that you have regurgitated your positions in many scarp papers, and that all you need from your readers is their alternative opinions, positions, and their own personal experiences to round up the topic.
I recommend for the next edition that Amine Malouf add an introductory introspective chapter and then let the ideas and arguments flow un-interrupted. He may as well add a brief introspection to the beginning of a chapter that reflects his shortcoming that are relevant to the chapter (for example scientific credentials) and permit the reader to focus on the topic.
If Maalouf fails to re-edit his manuscript then I would be forced to re-write it under the title “The Bible of Global Problems: Global Resolutions”
Malouf add an introductory introspective chapter and then let the ideas and arguments flow un-interrupted. He may as well add a brief introspection to the beginning of a chapter that reflects his shortcoming that are relevant to the chapter (for example scientific credentials) and permit the reader to focus on the topic. If Maalouf fails to re-edit his manuscript then I would be forced to re-write it under the title “The Bible of Global Problems: Global Resolutions” heir own personal experiences to round up the topic. I recommend for the next edition that Amine Malouf add an introductory introspective chapter and then let the ideas and arguments flow un-interrupted. He may as well add a brief introspection to the beginning of a chapter that reflects his shortcoming that are relevant to the chapter (for example scientific credentials) and permit the reader to focus on the topic. If Maalouf fails to re-edit his manuscript then I would be forced to re-write it under the title “The Bible of Global Problems: Global Resolutions”
“A World Adrift” by Amine Maalouf (Book Review)
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 7, 2009
“A World Adrift” by Amine Maluf (May 6, 2009)
I have already published four posts with themes inspired from this book. I have already reviewed at least three of Amine Maaluf’s books. This French manuscript “Le Dereglement du Monde” is of 314 pages and divided into four chapters: Deceptive Victories, Misleading Legitimacies, Imaginary Certitudes, and A very long Prehistory. The main quote of the book is from William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) who wrote “Man has survived because he was too ignorant to know how to realize his wishes (desires). Now that he can realize his wishes, then he must either change them or perish”.
Amine Maluf is from Lebanon by origin and settled in France during the civil war. He writes in French and has published more ten books, most of them have been translated in Arabic and a few in English; he received the highest honors from the French Academy of Literature.
Two fundamental premises guide this essay:
First, the moral ascendance of values is inadequate to catching up with the exponential progress in sciences and technologies.
Second, most crisis are global and on world level but they are tackled on individual State’s interest, perception, regulation, management, and control.
The mains problems to analyze and resolve for the next generations are:
First, how the US and Europe reacted to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Second, how to brake and then break off the cycle for the disappearing minorities, their particular languages, and literature. (Visit my post on minorities in Iraq).
Third, how to resolve the recurring financial and economical crisis. (Visit my post on Third World War is tolling)
Fourth, how to resolve the climatic changes and environmental degradation.
Fifth, how to satisfy the legitimate desires for consumer goods for the expanding middle classes in China and India. (Visit my posts on China and India Empires)
Sixth, how to resolve extremist attitude in religion and nationalism (terrorism, genocides, racism, apartheid, weapons of mass destruction). Please visit my post on “Misleading Legitimacies” and “Imaginary Certitudes”
Seventh, resolving the problem of instantaneous demands, acquisition, communication, information around the world. Visit my post on “instantaneous exigencies”
Eight, the urgency to creating reference values for a sustainable earth because history did not offer us any reference moral values for our modern days global problems..
Inventing new References for Values
Posted by: adonis49 on: May 4, 2009
“Instantaneous Expediencies” (April 30, 2009)
We are experiencing a form of policies in the developed nations that is emulating the urges of its citizens for Instantaneous Expediencies related to desires, wishes, demands, acquisition, communication, gathering of intelligence, information, orders, and delivery around the world. Our current development is characterized by accelerated paces in sciences, technologies, and communication, and delivery of our wishes either through the net, the phone, or airplanes within days if not seconds. If we understand that human history progressed in major three phases of change and dissemination of intelligence of the changes in science, technologies, social and political organization, traditions, and cultures then we might grasp our current problems and how to find common denominators for resolutions.
There was a time when dissemination of information among the tribes was very slow and the changes taking place among tribes were even slower so that the world was at peace of rivalries and greed. The next phase of settled communities in urban and agricultural regions experienced accelerated changes in many ways of progress but the dissemination of this intelligence was very slow and the identities of each region developed through traditions, customs, and myths. By the 16th century and as the Portuguese and Spanish circumnavigated the oceans and discovered many maritime routes for trade and exploitation and met with various ethic groups then the third phase of human development occurred. This third phase was characterized by the dissemination of ideas, sciences, and know-how progressed at a higher pace than the actual social and political changes in the European nations and thus, the world communities exhibited some kind of generalized uniformity in dwelling designs and forms of political and social organizations and structure.
The world is faced with a bunch of catastrophic problems from financial and economical difficulties, to environmental disasters that will not spare the next generation, to the emergence of potential superpowers with larger middle classes that can afford and demand all the consumer goods that the west has enjoyed for over a century, and to extremism in religions and nationalism to name just a few. All these cataclysmic problems require global resolutions but solutions and decisions are done on national basis as Amine Maluf stated in “A World Adrift”
After the disintegration of the communist Soviet Union in 1989 Europe and particularly the US realized that they could dominate the World economically and militarily. By 2001, the US Bush Junior administration of neo-conservatives could no longer resist to test the notion of Instantaneous Expediencies. The US administration had the urge to put in practice its power of perceived world police force. In no times, the administration delivered its summons to the European Union and the UN to adhere to the US plans of invading Iraq. The material potentials were there but the moral value and culture of the US administration were fidgeted in another era of staunch nationalism and religious zealotry.
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) wrote “Man has survived because he was too ignorant to know how to realize his wishes (desires). Now that he can realize his wishes, then he must either change them or perish”.
“Instantaneous Expediencies”
Posted by: adonis49 on: April 29, 2009
“Instantaneous Expediencies” (April 29, 2009)
We are experiencing a form of policies in the developed nations that is emulating the urges of its citizens for Instantaneous Expediencies related to desires, wishes, demands, acquisition, communication, gathering of intelligence, information, orders, and delivery around the world.
Our current development is characterized by accelerated paces in sciences, technologies, and communication, and delivery of our wishes either through the net, the phone, or airplanes within days if not seconds.
If we understand that human history progressed in major three phases of change and dissemination of intelligence of the changes in science, technologies, social and political organization, traditions, and cultures then we might grasp our current problems and how to find common denominators for resolutions.
There was a time when dissemination of information among the tribes was very slow and the changes taking place among tribes were even slower so that the world was at peace of rivalries and greed.
The next phase of settled communities in urban and agricultural regions experienced accelerated changes in many ways of progress but the dissemination of this intelligence was very slow and the identities of each region developed through traditions, customs, and myths.
By the 16th century and as the Portuguese and Spanish circumnavigated the oceans and discovered many maritime routes for trade and exploitation and met with various ethic groups then the third phase of human development occurred.
This third phase was characterized by the dissemination of ideas, sciences, and know-how progressed at a higher pace than the actual social and political changes in the European nations and thus, the world communities exhibited some kind of generalized uniformity in dwelling designs and forms of political and social organizations and structure.
The world is faced with a bunch of catastrophic problems from financial and economical difficulties, to environmental disasters that will not spare the next generation, to the emergence of potential superpowers with larger middle classes that can afford and demand all the consumer goods that the west has enjoyed for over a century, and to extremism in religions and nationalism to name just a few.
All these cataclysmic problems require global resolutions but solutions and decisions are done on national basis as Amine Maluf stated in “A World Adrift“
After the disintegration of the communist Soviet Union in 1989, Europe and particularly the US realized that they could dominate the World economically and militarily.
By 2001, the US Bush Junior administration of neo-conservatives could no longer resist to test the notion of Instantaneous Expediencies.
The US administration had the urge to put in practice its power of perceived world police force. In no times, the administration delivered its summons to the European Union and the UN to adhere to the US plans of invading Iraq. The material potentials were there but the moral value and culture of the US administration were fidgeted in another era of staunch nationalism and religious zealotry.
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) wrote “Man has survived because he was too ignorant to know how to realize his wishes (desires). Now that he can realize his wishes, then he must either change them or perish“.
China and India Empires: Same and Different
Posted by: adonis49 on: April 28, 2009
China and India Empires: Same and Different (April 28, 2009)
Since antiquity, China and India formed vast empires. They were the wealthiest, the most populous, and the most creative in almost all fields of industries such porcelain, gun powder, paper, vaccines, compass, rudder, the zero, philosophy, art of war and you name it.
Europe relied on the silk, spices, perfume, and luxury items imported from China and India through Persia, Turkey and Egypt. The Great Wall of China is the only human made construction that can be seen from space. Three centuries before Portugal put to sea its galleons to circumnavigate oceans, China had fleet of ships 3 times bigger than the biggest that Spain constructed.
Every society has gone through the same historical development and experienced with feudal systems, caste systems, monarchies, and oligarchies. The difference between China and India are:
First, China had gone through the harrowing communist period but it managed to crush the priesthood or sacerdotal castes. In India the priesthood castes are as powerful as ever. There are millions of this “untouchables” caste, the lowest caste of the five structured by the Brahma and Hinduism religions. The “untouchables” are consecrated by religion to remain untouchables.
Gandhi confronted that humiliating condition head on, but no other modern Indian government or political parties dared to revisit this abomination. In fact, the caste system prevalent in the Middle East was imported from India by the Ottoman Empire.
For over two centuries, Europe was closed to the Ottoman Empire as Turkey was militarily expanding in Europe. The Ottoman Empire had to rely almost exclusively on India for administrative organization, culture, and trades.
Among the good things, we also received the worst that India could export; it is so enduring that the Middle East societies cannot shake off the plight of caste system that is exacerbated by close nit community structure.
Second, China has the mentality of becoming a superpower at par with the USA. Everything that China is doing is at a gigantic measure such as the biggest dam with all the subsequent mass transfer of people, traditions, and customs. The focus on urban centers and industrialization is diverting water from agriculture, the source of its initial prosperity and social stability. A 7-month dry season in the northern part, the wheat basket region, is sending shivers of forthcoming famine.
The rivers in China are heavily polluted and the western diseases from water and land pollution are harvesting thousands of young lives. Over 25, millions were forced to vacate the urban centers to their remote villages after this financial crisis.
India is progressing at a steadier and less drastic strategy and linking the country with new route infrastructures. The cheaper car produced by India are supposedly to be sold in India for only $2,000.
Third, China is investing heavily on energy resources and lands oversea, particularly in Africa. India prefers to cajole the USA and signed a less favorable deal for importing light nuclear rods from the USA and satellites from Israel, though it could produce these advanced technological items.
Fact is that the British Empire held on to India, for 3 centuries, because it realized that the vast Indian population is the hardest working and was adding all the values to the wealth of the British Empire.
During the Soviet Union period of 1917 to 1989, China and India followed the precepts of communism and tight control over private ownership and enterprises. These two nations experienced famine on large scales, and suffered all kinds of miseries and humiliation.
As soon as the Berlin Wall fell and the capitalist system dominated world economy and finance. And China and India transformed their development accordingly.
In China, tiny Deng Xiaoping ordered restitution of collectivity lands to private cultivators and authorized selling part of the production. Then the private agriculturists were permitted to select what they wanted to plant and production tripled. Small enterprises and private shops were granted to be formed and in no time 22 millions small industries were hiring 135 millions employees. In China, small modifications in freedom of choice, and small increases in production mean gigantic increases in internal production.
In India of 1991, the finance minister Manmohan Singh relaxed certain restrictions on doing business. There were no needs for previous permit for each transaction, for importation, for investment, and for increase in production. The Indian economy took off at great strides.
Currently, the GDP of China has surpassed France and Germany and closing up with Japan. Shanghai alone has more high rises than New York and Los Angeles combined or 5,000 high-rises. It is no secret that ten years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, China and India were viewed as the main enemies to the USA and Europe.
China and India are two powers that had the technologies, the know-how, and the resources in raw materials and human potential to rival the economies of western nations. It is no secret that the hurried frenzy of Bush Junior to invading Iraq unilaterally had the main purpose of dominating oil reserves and blackmailing China and India.
Amine Maaluf wrote in “A World Adrift” that Colin Powel told ex-President Bush Junior “You break it; you own it. You invade Iraq then you will end up with the responsibility of caring for 25 million Iraqis” Bush Junior didn’t own it alone; the whole world is sharing the price of a financial and economic meltdown.
In the mean times, China expanded its oil exploration in Africa and built a major pipeline to Russia and Central Asia States.
India built many nuclear reactors and pipelines and are not as affected by energy shortages as Europe that relies on Russia, Algeria, and Libya for gas.
One of the major problems that the world is facing is that in addition to the 50 millions middle class families in the USA and Europe, over 150 millions middle class families in China and India can now afford and demand the same consumer items that the USA and European middle classes enjoyed for a century.
They want their cars, their washing machines, their refrigerators and all the commodities that any human desire to own when he can afford it; it is their right and no one can obstruct or make these new middle class desist from their hard earned rights.
If just 50 million families in the USA and Europe almost exhausted earth minerals and energies. then how humanity is going to satisfy the demands of 200 millions families?
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