food crisis, water shortage, destructive pollution, disasterous wars, devastating cyclones, drugs trafic, massive illegal migration from the south to the north, fast population growth rate etc....
Everything you mentioned, except for the cyclones, are self-inflicted wounds. We have the means to solve those issues but not the will. Humanity has shown that it doesn't act until it's looking down on the precipice, but we're not there yet. The main challenges in the next decade will be energy and water. Energy isn't a real problem as we already have the technologies, it's just a question of economics, they won't be put forward until we've exhausted the last oil patches. Water is a bit different, it's abundant on earth, but most of it is salt water, again the technologies are available but not lucrative enough. There's an old saying that would befit humanity's behavior : necessity is the mother of invention. We'll be fine.
The real issue is the damage done in the meantime, before we reach that breaking point, wars will increase over ressources, old hatred dug up to justify them, all of this will be accompanied by a huge intellectual leap backwards. To some extent, it has already begun, the public debates in the recent years on almost anything have demonstrated that, the level keeps sinking to new lows year after year. In conclusion, I'd say we'll go green but we'll go dumb as well, "green and dumb" that's the future
Technology will never stop if the oil runs out there will be other measures to produce energy and in a better way. People are learning how to economize and help others but very slowly.
The world will never go completely green, dump/lazy is something else. We are evolving all the time perhaps there going to be tickets on e-bay to Jupiter or Mars. Who knows may be free ones too.
Quote kamal a i only can't see how can we go green if we 're dumb ?
Well, as I said, old hatred dug up to justify wars over ressources. Let's take the example of the current war in Iraq, to go to war the american admnistration dumbed down the debates, they couldn't be forthcoming, their public opinion wouldn't have swallowed the pill. The discussion was deflected towards the clash of civilization, "we must bring democracy to the region", it's easier to sell than "we're running out of oil and we need to grab the last reserves". The result is that now, the so-called clash of civilizations is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, stupidity runs high now on both sides of the fence.
Scarcity brings conflicts and war usually taps into the lowest of human instincts, a return of a tribal reflex is a symptom we can witness right now, "us and them". The scarcer those ressources will be, the more tribal-like the discussions become : hence dumber. Ever wonder why nationalism or religion are at their peak in times of trouble ? These two don't exactly bring people together, they operate on the "us and them" premise. All of us, to some extent, fall victim to that process, willingly or not.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/2008 12:18 by chelhman.
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