Given enough time, the human race can and will surmount large problems. What is very interesting is the common held belief that we are at our apex. Throughout history, most people had and have thought that this is as good as it gets, we’re at the top and the only direction from here is down. Yet, history has shown us that it’s been a steady climb from the beginning. There may have been dips here and there, but it’s always been in one direction. When the Western Roman Empire finally sputtered out, the Eastern Roman Empire continued rising. When one part of the world sputters, another roars on. It’s the collective human experience that matters.
Just as someone from 1900 would have thought the idea of a mobile phone would have been pure fantasy, so it is for us. Our children, or grandchildren, will see things we can’t even imagine.
The world is aware now that we need to exercise more care for the planet and the political will is rising to meet the challenge. As noted in the above post, we’re not dying off in 12 years as the morons like to tell us. We have the time, the resources and hopefully the political will to address our problems. The way I see it, either one has the belief that we will overcome our problems as we always have or that we’re all fucked, that we are incapable of fixing our problems. Hence my above post referring to people who believe in the latter. Just go find the other lemmings and head for the cliff.
Just a final thought. Many of the proposals of addressing climate change will adversely effect developing countries. Look at the change the US and the West has made in the last 30 years in fighting pollution. We know that it’s the developing countries now that are pumping out the majority share of pollution. However, the solution is not to stop them from doing so by imposing draconian measures on them.
The route to take is the same that the US has taken which is to develop quickly. I had the great fortune to witness and participate in the building of a country. In 99 I arrived in the UAE and I left there last year. In those two decades the country transformed to a degree that had taken the US many decades to do. This is what we have to offer (the Americans and Europeans were hugely influential in the building of the UAE) the world. With the West’s knowledge, experience and resources we can accelerate the growth of developing countries. As for now, those of you familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy should understand that you can’t get people in India to worry about pollution and climate change while they’re worrying every day about whether they’ll have access to a toilet, or enough food.
Here in the US we have the luxury of worrying about things other than housing, food and security. Many great minds have already told us that the best use of our resources right now is to bring the entire world’s standard of living up, not on these stupid and wasteful ideas some people are proposing. Until we do that, all that self-serving hand-wringing and virtuous whinging in the world isn’t going to do shit for the world.