When you look around lately, whether it's politics, economics, or the environment it all looks pretty grim and it's still a long time until the next election. Global tensions remain high, terrorism is as strong as ever, our economy is in turmoil and global warming has already caused some dramatic climate changes. The North Polar ice caps are melting enough to allow shipping through the Arctic Ocean (for the first time in human memory),so that now ships can take a short northerly route to and from Asia and Europe. An intensification of weather patterns and a redistribution of rainfall is causing drought in some places and floods in others. Parts of Australia have been in a drought now for about five years while islands of Indonesia are disappearing rapidly. Northern tundra land is thawing out while grasslands and forests are springing up. The south eastern United States has been experiencing a severe drought while parts of Mexico have been severely flooded, the list goes on and on. While the climactic problems seem dire enough they are only one of the three horsemen approaching us at a full gallop.
The saying used to go "if America catches a cold the rest of the world catches pneumonia". But our economy is not the driving engine of the world it used to be, it accounts for only one fourth of the total global economy. The global economy today, is driven by Asian and Arab countries building infrastructure at breakneck speeds. The number of middle-class consumers in those countries are exploding and they want a share of Western prosperity. We have lost much of our wealth in consuming imported products from China and in fighting terrorism. The US dollar is at an all-time low, oil prices are at record highs, we are in competition with Asia for natural resources. As they build their infrastructure ours ages, as they build their new homes, record numbers of people are defaulting on their mortgages here. Finally, we appear powerless to stop the tide of illegal immigrants flowing into this country and bear the costs of both policing them and supporting them.
According to CNBC there are two processes at work in our economy. The first is the financial crisis brought about by sub-prime mortgages, the second is the result of the Asian building boom. Both processes are working within the American economy simultaneously so that any business related to financing homes is generally doing poorly any business serving the demands from overseas is doing well. It is as if there are two economies existing side by side, the first is the economy of 1937 when many stocks lost 40% of their value, the second is the economy of 1946 when the soldiers returned home from World War II and the United States was undergoing a building boom of its own. Although this perspective helps us to understand the economy, it also describes a completely different animal than we've ever seen before and does nothing to tell us where we go from here.
Militarily, we are fighting global terrorism, with inadequate military forces, and using old equipment. We remain stuck in an unpopular adventure costing hundreds of billions of dollars, and at the same time, trying to maintain viable alliances throughout the world. As our prestige and influence wanes our political leaders, though determined, fumble one opportunity after the other and don't seem to have a handle on anything
In a way, we are victims of our own success. We helped to defeat Fascism, then Communism, we helped to rebuild Europe and now Asia is rebuilding itself. We united the world by providing resources for the United Nations now, those nations, historically excluded from our economic success and prosperity, are trying to get their share by beating us at our own game. Unfortunately, our economic system is based upon consuming unlimited natural resources and is unsustainable within a global economy. Today, we are beginning to realize that our economic system can bring an end to the earth just as surely as nuclear bombs. in addition,the forces of globalization have produced fractious forces, terrorists, attempting to remake the world in their own image by the use of violence. Thus we find ourselves in an untenable position with no apparent way out. The question facing us now, simply put, how can we ourselves maintain a standard of living unparalleled in human history and at the same time, spread it throughout the world to billions of people, while maintaining the global ecosystem and the American way of life?
The answer to our problems will not be found in "business as usual", we can't count on luck. Much of what we have to do depends on other nations. We need to sit down as one earth, all equal partners, in an attempt to find ways to maintain our world and to advance mankind. One of the best ways to do this is to begin a world space program where we can pool our resources and man power to find cheap ways of getting into space and of providing unlimited power and resources for the planet. Thirty years ago the lunar program ended in the United States and people were arguing that we need to stop spending money in space and use it to improve life here on earth. Wel,l in all that time, money has been spent but our problems are far from being solved. It would be ironic if spending money in space actually turned out to be the solution to many of our earthly problems.
