How many things do you figure can go wrong all at once, and still be managed?
I understand that your plate is pretty full already, with the war going poorly, the economy imploding, polar ice sheets collapsing due to global warming and all. Some days it all seems too much. So we avert our gaze and focus on our lives, families and communities, hoping "someone" will deal with the global issues.
When several things go wrong at once the media and politicians seem able to focus on only one at a time. Remember, it was only a few months ago that the war was "issue No. 1," with voters. Then global warming jumped into the lead for a short time. Now the economy is "issue No. 1," which means the war and environment, both of which remain growing problems, have been put back on the shelf -- again.
The "good news" is that these various macro-economic, climate and conflict issues are about to be greatly simplified. They are about to converge and merge into a single, mother of all problems. (For ease of writing I will call her Big Bertha, Inc.) Big Bertha. Inc. is about take over and "fix" things for us -- but we won't like how she goes about it.
I forget the fella's name, but I recall something an veteran Washington DC reporter told his colleagues the day he retired back in the late 60's at the ripe old age of 90. He had seen a lot; a couple of world wars, a depression and more. At the time he retired the world was hostage to the Cold War which threatened to end mankind.
Someone asked the retiring journalist, "Do you think we'll make it? Do you think mankind will survive?"
He thought for second and replied. "Yes...but just barely. The history of mankind is that we walk right up to the edge before we react. Then we do what needs getting done and survive, just barely."
On one hand I found that kind of reassuring. On the other hand he said that half a century ago. Is it still true? Can we still dally right up to the last minute, and get away with it? In his day there were just over a couple of billion humans on earth. Only a fraction of those people were what we'd consider today to be "consumers." Most of them were more like survivors, just scraping out an existence.
Now there's something just over 6 billion of us on Earth, and something more like 4 billion of them are either already consumers or heading fast in that direction. The growing populations in what we used to call "the Third World," are suddenly demanding their share of the earth's resources -- especially -- the fuels needed for heating, cooling, production and transportation.
This sudden surge in demand has begun to crimp the First World's lifestyle. So how do we respond? Do we change our wasteful ways? No. We decide that the best response is to maintain our lifestyle by turn ing food into fuel. Because it's better for the environment? No. It isn't.
"It would obviously be insane if we had a policy to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the use of bio-fuels that's actually leading to an increase in greenhouse gases,'' said Prof Robert Watson, former chief scientific adviser to the World Bank and now filling the same role at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in London. But that is the policy, both in Europe and in the US.
We glommed onto the idea of turning food into fuel because we don't want to change the ways we power our lives. Corn-based ethanol burns like gasoline, and that's good enough for us. Don't worry. Be happy.
(And you won't find any of the candidates for president ready to cross America's Mid-East oil sultans -- Midwestern corn farmers.)
Which brings me, (the long way around,) to my point.
Yesterday I was perusing the news and came across this story:
Egypt the pressure cooker Mar 25th 2008 -- From The Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire
Stephen Pizzo has been published everywhere from The New York Times to Mother Jones magazine. His book, Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans, was nominated for a Pulitzer.
