OWS, World Population of 7 Billion, and other Concerns . . ., I wonder

There are many issues and concerns in the world.  I wonder how we will address these issues satisfactorily.  For example, we have placed a lot of confidence in our scientific know-how and wherewithal, too much so I think.  We assume that our scientific approach to things will discover, invent, create, dig, climb, and build our way out of the mess we’ve made of things.  I wonder.

I wonder about fresh clean drinking water and its cost in the future.  Desert cities have grown exponentially while our water resources have not.  Think of our three big Southwestern desert cities drawing from much of the same water sources: Los Angeles CA, Las Vegas NV, and Phoenix AZ.  They keep growing and growing, will they not meet the limits of their water resources at some point?  Of course they will.  Our world population is now 7 billion and more are coming.  I wonder how we are going to feed everyone and quench everyone’s thirst in the long run.

I wonder about our energy resources and our transportation system—yes, I love my car and the freedom it gives me to go wherever I want (or so I think until I drive up against closed bridges due to unrepaired structural weaknesses and bump into detours due to unrepaired roads, not to mention coming to a complete stop due to impassible traffic jams), just how long will the world’s energy resources support our individual driving independence—one car per person—across the globe.  Keep in mind that China has over a billion people, not to mention India.  I’m sure that all these people would like the same opportunity to own and drive their own vehicle and have several cars per family, as we have in the U.S.  Can the earth’s present energy resources sustain all these eager drivers?  Not at this rate.  I wonder how the world will meet its total energy needs in the future, which only keep increasing—computers, heaters, air-conditioners, electric cars and other digitized electronic energy hungry technologies.

I wonder how new scientific discoveries will get us out of this mess?  Will science save us?  We assume so, hope so.  But we also have the problem of politics getting in the way of science.  Just take the question of Global Warming as an example, one political side says that there is no such thing as global warming along with its potential disastrous effects, siting their own scientific gurus; the other political side begs to differ on the basis of scientific studies from a different set of scientists.  Who should we believe (by “we,” I mean the common layperson on the street that is neither a politician nor a scientist)?  We are turning scientific findings into a kind of commodity.  This is not good.  Real knowledge, truth, and insight are lost to the highest bidder.

I wonder why we place so much faith in pure Capitalism and therefore become unwilling to critique and correct its flaws.  Nothing is perfect, not even our precious capitalistic system.  Everything is about business, capital investment, free trade, and economic gain.  But when we make policy decisions solely based on what’s good for corporate America and global corporations—with the argument that that’s what creates jobs—we become economically myopic, wearing short-range profiteering blinders that tend to steer us away from making necessary long range investments that may require immediate sacrifice and/or losses.  Thus, we do things like support oil drilling methods that may satisfy our thirst for oil in the short run but may also be doing irreparable damage to our precious water supply in the long run.

I wonder about the haves and have-nots, global corporations, the powerful wealthy-few versus the masses who are feeling more and more financially pinched.  I wonder about the stability of a world whose economic system seems more and more unjust to the average worker on Main Street, especially when those who make any attempt to suggest improvements are accused of being trouble makers and instigating class warfare just because they ask for a more equitable economic system.

I wonder how our thinking needs to change.  For example, it seems to me that we need to think locally as well as nationally and globally respecting social, economic, and energy policies.  We also need to think long-term in the face of present day crisis and short-term demands so as not to save a dollar today only to spend a hundred tomorrow (penny wise, pound foolish).  We need to think more like a community that is indivisibly interconnected to insure the fair management of and the just distribution of vital resources for the whole—town, city, state, and nation—protecting our communities against the unfair accumulation of precious resources landing in the hands of a few tight-fisted private citizens.  We need to think of multiple precious resources at the same time, so as to prevent the damaging of one precious resource while going after another (e.g., the damaging of precious water wells and water ways when drilling for precious natural gas resources).  We need to think of just and fair systems, ways and means to satisfy the needs of the many and avoid merely pleasing the selfish interests of a few.  We need to think transparency and accountability, think of equitable regulations and just economic and tax laws that neither favor special business interests nor favor private parties and/or personal interests.

I wonder: do we really have what it takes to overcome the world’s challenges?  For those readers who believe there is no God, it means that we humans are basically on our own.  I have to ask, how are we doing on our own?  For those readers who do believe in God, I have to say: It’s no wonder that God promises a new heavens and a new earth, for we’ve certainly made a mess of this one.