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___________________________________O TERCEIRO MILÊNIO–O QUE NOS ESPERA?
JB Xavier
Parte 2
Teoricamente a produção de pessoas poderia parar do dia para a noite. A tecnologia para isto já existe há décadas. Bastaria que todas as mulheres em idade fecunda tomassem a pílula anticoncepcional e a explosão demográfica seria contida. Mas, mesmo existindo há décadas, ela não estancou o crescimento da população, como se supunha quando de sua criação.
Portanto, na prática, pesquisas atuais mostram que uma parada súbita no aumento da população não acontecerá. Ainda que detivéssemos a tecnologia perfeita para o controle da natalidade, a população iria continua crescendo ainda por 70 anos mais ou menos.
A razão disso foi apontada por um perito americano em demografia, o professor Dr. Nathan Keyfitz, através de pesquisas de campo e cálculos estatísticos. Os motivos que ele aponta, são, basicamente dois:
1- Encontrando-se hoje o preservativo ideal, simples e inofensivo o bastante para ser aceito por todos – o que não acontece com a pílula atual – passarão pelo menos 20 anos até que ele possa espalhar-se pelo mundo. Mas, o mais preocupante, é que a superpopulação é, ela mesma, o motor que a alimenta. Em países onde existem mais pessoas que recursos para mantê-las, os filhos são uma espécie de seguro de vida. São eles que asseguram o complemento da renda familiar e são eles, em tese, que assegurarão a velhice dos pais. Assim, em países subdesenvolvidos, geralmente os que possuem as maiores populações vivendo nas piores condições, os filhos são mais que inevitáveis, são desejáveis.
2- Mesmo se não existissem essas dificuldades culturais, e as mulheres se sujeitassem ao lema “dois filhos por casal”, como quer a China atual, ainda assim, a população da terra continuaria aumentando. Isto porque a Medicina moderna e os hábitos de higiene e alimentação se desenvolveram muito nas últimas décadas. A Medicina salva pessoas que em outros tempos, sem a intervenção dela, morreriam. Só esse fator interventor - a Medicina - traz consigo um estranho paradoxo.
Á medida que um país domina as técnicas modernas da Medicina e da higiene, sua população cresce “vegetativamente”, como chamam os demógrafos, ao fenômeno do aumento da população com baixas taxas de natalidade. Ato seguinte, a população desse país será constituída, em sua maioria, por jovens. O contínuo desenvolvimento da prática dessa medicina preventiva, baixa ainda mais os índices de natalidade, e, por diminuição dos óbitos, a população começa a envelhecer, e o ônus de sua manutenção recai sobre os ombros dos mais jovens, que passam, pouco a pouco a ser minoria. Isto sobrecarrega os sistemas previdenciários existentes e os destrói.
Portanto, há que se criar também uma nova economia para uma era de superpopulação. Este é o atual estágio do Brasil.
Na hipótese de que o sinal de parada do crescimento populacional tivesse sido dado em 1975, a população mundial só pararia de crescer por volta do ano de 2045. Como ele ainda não foi dado, e não há sinal de que venha a sê-lo tão cedo, o mundo dos 15 bilhões de pessoas será uma realidade ainda em vida das crianças que estão nascendo agora. Todos os planos para o futuro têm que partir dessa cifra.
Esse número significa que, se quiséssemos continuar vivendo como agora, sem fazer espaço para os outros, teríamos que disponibilizar outra espaçonave Terra de igual tamanho.
A esperança dos planejadores do futuro, é que por volta dos 15 bilhões, os fatores que alimentam o crescimento populacional tenham, de alguma forma, adquirido novos contornos, ainda imprevisíveis, que os redefinam em sua essência e tragam em si as soluções para o problema.
Entretanto, com base nessa inevitabilidade, já é possível traçar alguns cenários da vida adulta de nossas atuais crianças.
Neste futuro não tão distante, os tripulantes da espaçonave Terra terão que conviver ainda com o fato de que a maioria das reservas de bordo está em terra firme.
Terra: O conjunto de todas as terras secas do planeta soma um quadrado com 12 mil Km de lado. Quantas pessoas poderão alojar-se aí, partindo-se do pressuposto – ainda não conseguido pela humanidade – de que todos teriam um pedaço de terra equivalente?
Ar: A atmosfera da espaçonave Terra pesa 5 trilhões de toneladas. Quantos poderão respirá-la?
Água: Existem 1,3 trilhões de metros cúbicos de água potável disponível no planeta. Num mundo de 15 bilhões de pessoas, cada um disporá de 86 m3 de água para si, ou seja, o equivalente a uma piscina quadrada com 9,3 m de lado e uma profundidade de 1 m. Água potável, portanto será um dos principais problemas a serem resolvidos no futuro imediato. Temos o Ártico e a Antártida com suas imensas massas de gelo, mas não temos ainda a tecnologia para derrete-la e transportá-la nas quantidades necessárias. E mesmo que tivéssemos, estaríamos de tal forma alterando o equilíbrio climático do planeta que as conseqüências seriam catastróficas para a humanidade. Dois efeitos disso nós já conhecemos: A elevação da temperatura mundial e o aumento do nível dos oceanos.
O acesso à água potável ainda é um desafio diário para grande parte das populações do mundo. Apenas para se ter idéia do quão próximo está o futuro, veja abaixo:
- O Níger é um dos países mais secos da África subssaariana
- Em Cingapura, água potável encanada é considerada um luxo
- Recentemente, na cidade russa de Losino-Petrovsky, a má-qualidade da água – uma espécie de água barrenta avermelhada, gerou protestos da população.
- No rio Irquis (Equador) pode-se beber sua água num certo trecho. Mais à frente, ela deixa de ser potável e precisa ser tratada
- No norte da Síria, em Hasaka, água da chuva é coletada em áreas remotas e carregada em burros para as casas.
- O Brasil é o quarto consumidor de água engarrafada do mundo. Algumas marcas custam até R$14,00
Apesar das inúmeras fontes naturais de água no mundo --rios e lagos, em geleiras e aquíferos, chuva e neve, a quantidade de água que diferentes países conseguem extrair para fornecer a seus cidadãos varia bastante.
Um estudo da FAO (Organização das Nações Unidas para a Agricultura e a Alimentação) identificou países onde a demanda por água excede a oferta natural do recurso. Segundo a organização, essas nações fazem maior pressão sobre as fontes de água doce.
No topo da lista dos que mais utilizam o recurso está a península árabe, onde a demanda por água doce excede em 500% a disponibilidade na região. Isso significa custos adicionais elevadíssimos para que a água seja trazida de fora por caminhões-pipa ou aquedutos ou por meio da dessalinização.
Países como o Paquistão, o Uzbequistão e o Tadjiquistão também estão muito próximos de utilizar 100% de sua oferta de água doce, assim como o Irã, que usa 70% de seus recursos hídricos.
De acordo com os dados da FAO, o norte da África é outra área sob pressão, em que a Líbia e o Egito particularmente são afetados. A região possui somente metade da água doce que os países consomem.
Mas a maior pressão sobre as fontes de água doce não está necessariamente nos lugares mais secos, e sim em regiões com o maior percentual da população global.
O sul da Ásia, por exemplo, consome quase 57% de sua água doce, mas abriga quase um terço da população mundial. Situações que alterem a distribuição de água nessa região causadas por mudanças climáticas, pelo aumento do número de terras irrigadas ou pelo aumento do uso geral de água, ameaçam a vida de bilhões.
No leste da Ásia o consumo proporcional é menor - os países da região usam em média apenas 20% das suas reservas hídricas. No entanto, um terço da população do mundo vive ali.
O Brasil consome 0,72% da sua água doce renovável ou 331,48 metros cúbicos por habitante a cada ano, segundo a FAO. No entanto, 0,4% são exclusivos para a agricultura.
Mas há ainda outros problemas não menos graves para resolver. Para chegar até a atualidade e alimentar quase 7 bilhões de pessoas, o homem transformou florestas em trigais, construiu enormes paisagens urbanas, transformou superfícies verdes em asfalto, destruiu sistemas vegetais que se mantinham em equilíbrio desde muito antes de seu aparecimento sobre a terra, represou rios, alterando todo o ecossistema ao seu redor, empestou sua nave com radioatividade, extinguiu espécies necessárias ao equilíbrio de pragas, jogou fuligem no ar que respiramos – são mais de 300 milhões de toneladas de pó jogadas no ar anualmente – espalhou veneno na fina camada de húmus que cobre o planeta – são mais de 1 bilhão de quilos de inseticidas espalhados anualmente nas plantações pelo mundo afora – e estragou boa parte da água potável do planeta, água essa que valerá ouro dentro de poucos anos.
para cada progresso conseguido na área social, o homem causou pelo menos um problema na área ambiental.
Não há sinais de que isso vá mudar. Por outro lado os problemas causados ao meio ambiente estão diretamente relacionados ao número de pessoas que habita a Terra, mas não é possível imaginar que o dobro da população exigirá, para se manter, o dobro dessas ações, porque então, a espécie humana estaria decretando sua própria extinção.
Então, a não ser que novas e fundamentais descobertas aconteçam na esfera científica que possibilite à humanidade se manter sem continuar com os atuas e alarmantes níveis de depredação do meio ambiente, nossos filhos, e mais exatamente nossos netos, terão muito cedo, sérios problemas pela frente.
Como passageiros de uma nave assim avariada, temos a impressão de que ela está irremediavelmente superlotada. Particularmente não creio nisso! Ela está, sim, mal aproveitada.
As cidades só crescem para os lados, porque ainda há espaço para isso. Mas já começaram a crescer para cima. Essa tendência deverá se consolidar. No Japão há muitos anos já existem hotéis que parecem pombais, onde as pessoas dormem em pequenos casulos, onde só cabem agachadas.
Ninguém disse que a indústria terá sempre chaminés poluidoras. Quando os industriais começarem a morrer pela própria fumaça que produzem, buscarão novas formas de energia e taparão as chaminés!
Já se provou que os alimentos hidrófilos são viáveis economicamente e não precisam sequer de terra para se desenvolver. Alimentos básicos já são produzidos artificialmente, como o leite e outros tipos de proteínas. Juntamente com os novos alimentos sintéticos que surgem, experiências como essas talvez estejam a nos demonstrar que a agricultura está mudando conceitualmente.
Com 5 milhões de pessoas, a espaçonave Terra, há 10.000 anos, já esteve superpovoada, e quem a tripulasse então, diria que chegou ao seu limite para albergar pessoas. Diria que dali em diante pessoas morreriam de fome, porque já não havia lugares onde coletar. Então o homem inventou a agricultura, que consistia num conjunto de técnicas para retirar da terra o alimento necessário.
Hoje, quando aparentemente chegamos a outro limite, não resolveremos o problema com soluções igualmente revolucionárias?
Essas descobertas não são somente vislumbres. Quem prestar atenção nas oficinas do futuro, e principalmente quem souber orientar seus futuros artífices no caminho certo, verá que essas soluções já estão em curso.
Mais que isso, estará fazendo parte delas e, como é desejo inato do homem, perpetuando-se nessas soluções.
* * *
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
Leia a primeira parte clicando no link abaixo.
THE THIRD MILLENNIUM-WHAT'S WAITING FOR US? PART 2
JB Xavier
Part 2
Theoretically, the production of people would stop immediately The technology for this already existed for decades. It would suffice for all women of reproductive age to take the pill and the population explosion would be contained. But it exists for decades, and did not stop the growth of population, as supposed in its creation.
In practice, however, current research shows that a sudden halt in population growth will not happen. Although we had the perfect technology for birth control, the population would still continue to grow for 70 years or so.
The reason for this was reported by a U.S. expert on demography, Prof. Dr. Nathan Keyfitz, through field research and statistical calculations. The reasons he indicates, are basically two:
1 – Even we find the ideal condom, simple and harmless enough to be accepted by everyone - that does not happen with the pill today – it will spend at least 20 years until it can spread around the world. But more worrying is that overpopulation is the engine that feeds itself. In countries where there are more people than resources to maintain them, the children are a kind of life insurance. They are providing the additional income, and they, in theory, will ensure that elderly parents. Thus, in underdeveloped countries, usually those with the largest populations living in appalling conditions, children are more than inevitable, he is desirable.
2 - Even if there were not these cultural difficulties and women subjecting themselves to the slogan "two children per couple”, as wants China today, yet the earth's population would keep increasing. This is because modern medicine and hygiene habits and diet have developed greatly in recent decades. Medicine saves people that in pssed times, without her intervention, will die. Only this intervening factor - Medicine – is itself, a strange paradox.
To the extent that one country dominates the modern techniques of medicine and hygiene, their population grow under the label "vegetative" as demographers call the phenomenon of the increase in population with low birth rates. Next act, the population of this country will consist mostly of young people. The continuous development of the practice of preventive medicine, low again the birth rates, and by a reduction of deaths, the population begins to age, and the burden of its maintenance falls on the shoulders of the younger, which became little by little to be minority. This overloads the existing pension systems and destroys them.
Therefore, we must also create a new economy in an era of overpopulation. This is the current state of Brazil.
In the event that the stop signal of population growth had been given in 1975, the world population would stop growing only around the year 2045. As it has not yet been given, and no sign that it will be so soon, the world of 15 billion people will be a reality even in the lives of children now being born. All plans for the future must start from that numbers.
This scenery means that if we wanted to continue living like nowadays without making space for others, we would provide another spaceship earth of equal size.
The hope of the planners of the future, which is around 15 billion, the factors that fueling the population growth has somehow acquired a new shape, still unpredictable, which redefine itself in essence and bring new solutions to the problem .
However, based on this inevitability, we can already draw some scenarios about the adulthood of our children.
In not so distant future, the crew of spaceship Earth still will have to live with the fact that most of the reserves board is on solid ground.
Earth: All dry lands of the planet define a square of 12 000 km away. How many people can stay there, starting from the assumption - not yet achieved by humanity - that everyone would have an equivalent piece of land?
Air: The spaceship Earth's atmosphere weighs 5 trillion tons. How can breathe it?
Water: There are 1.3 trillion cubic meters of potable water available on earth. In a world of 15 billion people, each will have 86 m3 of water for itself, the equivalent of a swimming pool with 9.3 m sides and a depth of 1 m. Potable water, hence, will be a major problem to be solved in the immediate future. We have the Arctic and Antarctica with their huge masses of ice, but we do not have the technology to melt it and carry it in the quantities needed. And even if we did, we would be so changing the climate balance of the planet that would have devastating consequences for humanity. Two effects that we already know: The increase in global temperatures and rising sea levels.
Access to clean water is still a daily challenge for most populations worldwide. Just to get an idea of how close is the future, see below:
- Niger is one of the driest countries around the Sahara desert.
- In Singapore, piped drinking water is considered a luxury
- Recently, in the Russian city- Losin Petrovsky, the poor-quality water - a sort of reddish muddy water, generated mass protests.
- At the Irquis river (Ecuador) you can drink its water in a certain passage. Later on, it ceases to be drinkable and must be treated.
- In northern Syria, in Hasaka, rainwater is collected in remote areas and loaded on donkeys to the houses.
- Brazil is the fourth of bottled water consumer in the world. Some brands costing up to ten dollars
Despite the numerous natural sources of water in the world - rivers and lakes, glaciers and aquifers, rain and snow, the amount of water that different countries can draw to provide its citizens varies widely.
A study by the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture) has identified countries where demand for water exceeds the natural supply of the resource. According to Greenpeace, these nations are increased pressure on freshwater sources.
Topping the list of the most use of water is the Arabian Peninsula, where demand for fresh water exceeds 500% availability in the region. This means huge additional costs for water to be brought out by tanker trucks or pipelines or through desalination.
Countries like Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are also very close to using 100% of its supply of fresh water, as well as Iran, which uses 70% of its water resources.
According to FAO, North Africa is another area under pressure, where Libya and Egypt are particularly affected. The region has only half the fresh water that countries consume.
But the greatest pressure on freshwater resources is not necessarily in the driest places, but in regions with the highest percentage of global population.
South Asia, for example, consumes almost 57% of its fresh water, but shelter to nearly a third of the world population. Situations that alter the distribution of water in this region caused by climate change, increasing the number of irrigated land or increasing the overall water use, threaten the lives of billions.
In East Asia the consumption ratio is lower - the region's countries use an average of only 20% of their water resources. However, one third of the world's population lives there.
Brazil consumes 0.72% of its renewable freshwater or 331.48 meters cubic per capita each year, according to FAO. However, 0.4% is unique to agriculture.
But there are other no less serious problems to solve. To reach the year 2010 and feed almost 7 billion people, the man transformed forests into cornfields, built massive urban landscapes, transformed green spaces into asphalt, destroyed vegetable systems that remained in balance since long before his appearance on earth, dammed rivers, altering the entire ecosystem around it, stink up the spaceship Earth with radioactivity, extinct species necessary to balance of the life, threw soot in the air we breathe – it is more than 300 million tons of dust thrown into the air each year - spread poison in the thin humus layer that cover the planet – it is more than 500 million pounds of pesticides scattered annually over the plantations around the world - and ruined much of the planet's freshwater, the water that will be worth gold in a few years.
For each progress achieved in social area, mankind caused at least one problem in the environmental area.
There are no signs that this will change. On the other hand the problems caused to the environment are directly related to the number of passengers of the spaceship Earth, but it is not possible to imagine that will be necessary twice the population, to keep the double of those actions, because then the human species would be enacting their own extinction.
So, unless new fundamental discoveries happening in the scientific sphere that enables humanity to exist without the actual alarming levels of environmental degradation, our children, and more accurately our grandchildren, shall have very early serious problems to solve.
As passengers on a ship so damaged, we have the impression that she is irremediably overcrowded. I do not believe it! Our spaceship is, yes, barely ridden.
Cities only grow sideways, because there is still room for it. But it began to grow up. This trend is expected to consolidate. In Japan for many years now there are hotels that seem pigeon houses, where people sleep in small cocoons, where only fit squatting.
Nobody said that the industries will always polluting chimneys. When the industry owners began to die by their own smoke they produce, will seek new forms of energy and will destroy his chimneys!
It has been proven that hydrophilic foods are economically viable and do not even need soil to develop itself. Basic foodstuffs are already artificially produced, such as milk and other proteins. Along with the new synthetic foods that arise, such experiences are showing us that agriculture is changing conceptually.
With 5 million people, the spaceship Earth 10,000 years ago, was already overcrowded, and who manned it probably would say that it reached its limit to accommodate people. He would say that from now people would starve, because there were no places to gather foods. Then mankind invented agriculture, which consisted of a set of techniques to remove from land the necessary food.
Today, when we apparently reached in another limit, I believe we shall solve the problem with solutions equably evolutionary.
These findings are only glimpses. Who watch with attention for the future, and especially anyone who can guide their future craftsmen on the right track, will see that these solutions are already underway.
More than that, he will be doing part of it, and, as is the innate desire of man, perpetuating himself in these solutions.
JB Xavier
Part 2
Theoretically, the production of people would stop immediately The technology for this already existed for decades. It would suffice for all women of reproductive age to take the pill and the population explosion would be contained. But it exists for decades, and did not stop the growth of population, as supposed in its creation.
In practice, however, current research shows that a sudden halt in population growth will not happen. Although we had the perfect technology for birth control, the population would still continue to grow for 70 years or so.
The reason for this was reported by a U.S. expert on demography, Prof. Dr. Nathan Keyfitz, through field research and statistical calculations. The reasons he indicates, are basically two:
1 – Even we find the ideal condom, simple and harmless enough to be accepted by everyone - that does not happen with the pill today – it will spend at least 20 years until it can spread around the world. But more worrying is that overpopulation is the engine that feeds itself. In countries where there are more people than resources to maintain them, the children are a kind of life insurance. They are providing the additional income, and they, in theory, will ensure that elderly parents. Thus, in underdeveloped countries, usually those with the largest populations living in appalling conditions, children are more than inevitable, he is desirable.
2 - Even if there were not these cultural difficulties and women subjecting themselves to the slogan "two children per couple”, as wants China today, yet the earth's population would keep increasing. This is because modern medicine and hygiene habits and diet have developed greatly in recent decades. Medicine saves people that in pssed times, without her intervention, will die. Only this intervening factor - Medicine – is itself, a strange paradox.
To the extent that one country dominates the modern techniques of medicine and hygiene, their population grow under the label "vegetative" as demographers call the phenomenon of the increase in population with low birth rates. Next act, the population of this country will consist mostly of young people. The continuous development of the practice of preventive medicine, low again the birth rates, and by a reduction of deaths, the population begins to age, and the burden of its maintenance falls on the shoulders of the younger, which became little by little to be minority. This overloads the existing pension systems and destroys them.
Therefore, we must also create a new economy in an era of overpopulation. This is the current state of Brazil.
In the event that the stop signal of population growth had been given in 1975, the world population would stop growing only around the year 2045. As it has not yet been given, and no sign that it will be so soon, the world of 15 billion people will be a reality even in the lives of children now being born. All plans for the future must start from that numbers.
This scenery means that if we wanted to continue living like nowadays without making space for others, we would provide another spaceship earth of equal size.
The hope of the planners of the future, which is around 15 billion, the factors that fueling the population growth has somehow acquired a new shape, still unpredictable, which redefine itself in essence and bring new solutions to the problem .
However, based on this inevitability, we can already draw some scenarios about the adulthood of our children.
In not so distant future, the crew of spaceship Earth still will have to live with the fact that most of the reserves board is on solid ground.
Earth: All dry lands of the planet define a square of 12 000 km away. How many people can stay there, starting from the assumption - not yet achieved by humanity - that everyone would have an equivalent piece of land?
Air: The spaceship Earth's atmosphere weighs 5 trillion tons. How can breathe it?
Water: There are 1.3 trillion cubic meters of potable water available on earth. In a world of 15 billion people, each will have 86 m3 of water for itself, the equivalent of a swimming pool with 9.3 m sides and a depth of 1 m. Potable water, hence, will be a major problem to be solved in the immediate future. We have the Arctic and Antarctica with their huge masses of ice, but we do not have the technology to melt it and carry it in the quantities needed. And even if we did, we would be so changing the climate balance of the planet that would have devastating consequences for humanity. Two effects that we already know: The increase in global temperatures and rising sea levels.
Access to clean water is still a daily challenge for most populations worldwide. Just to get an idea of how close is the future, see below:
- Niger is one of the driest countries around the Sahara desert.
- In Singapore, piped drinking water is considered a luxury
- Recently, in the Russian city- Losin Petrovsky, the poor-quality water - a sort of reddish muddy water, generated mass protests.
- At the Irquis river (Ecuador) you can drink its water in a certain passage. Later on, it ceases to be drinkable and must be treated.
- In northern Syria, in Hasaka, rainwater is collected in remote areas and loaded on donkeys to the houses.
- Brazil is the fourth of bottled water consumer in the world. Some brands costing up to ten dollars
Despite the numerous natural sources of water in the world - rivers and lakes, glaciers and aquifers, rain and snow, the amount of water that different countries can draw to provide its citizens varies widely.
A study by the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture) has identified countries where demand for water exceeds the natural supply of the resource. According to Greenpeace, these nations are increased pressure on freshwater sources.
Topping the list of the most use of water is the Arabian Peninsula, where demand for fresh water exceeds 500% availability in the region. This means huge additional costs for water to be brought out by tanker trucks or pipelines or through desalination.
Countries like Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are also very close to using 100% of its supply of fresh water, as well as Iran, which uses 70% of its water resources.
According to FAO, North Africa is another area under pressure, where Libya and Egypt are particularly affected. The region has only half the fresh water that countries consume.
But the greatest pressure on freshwater resources is not necessarily in the driest places, but in regions with the highest percentage of global population.
South Asia, for example, consumes almost 57% of its fresh water, but shelter to nearly a third of the world population. Situations that alter the distribution of water in this region caused by climate change, increasing the number of irrigated land or increasing the overall water use, threaten the lives of billions.
In East Asia the consumption ratio is lower - the region's countries use an average of only 20% of their water resources. However, one third of the world's population lives there.
Brazil consumes 0.72% of its renewable freshwater or 331.48 meters cubic per capita each year, according to FAO. However, 0.4% is unique to agriculture.
But there are other no less serious problems to solve. To reach the year 2010 and feed almost 7 billion people, the man transformed forests into cornfields, built massive urban landscapes, transformed green spaces into asphalt, destroyed vegetable systems that remained in balance since long before his appearance on earth, dammed rivers, altering the entire ecosystem around it, stink up the spaceship Earth with radioactivity, extinct species necessary to balance of the life, threw soot in the air we breathe – it is more than 300 million tons of dust thrown into the air each year - spread poison in the thin humus layer that cover the planet – it is more than 500 million pounds of pesticides scattered annually over the plantations around the world - and ruined much of the planet's freshwater, the water that will be worth gold in a few years.
For each progress achieved in social area, mankind caused at least one problem in the environmental area.
There are no signs that this will change. On the other hand the problems caused to the environment are directly related to the number of passengers of the spaceship Earth, but it is not possible to imagine that will be necessary twice the population, to keep the double of those actions, because then the human species would be enacting their own extinction.
So, unless new fundamental discoveries happening in the scientific sphere that enables humanity to exist without the actual alarming levels of environmental degradation, our children, and more accurately our grandchildren, shall have very early serious problems to solve.
As passengers on a ship so damaged, we have the impression that she is irremediably overcrowded. I do not believe it! Our spaceship is, yes, barely ridden.
Cities only grow sideways, because there is still room for it. But it began to grow up. This trend is expected to consolidate. In Japan for many years now there are hotels that seem pigeon houses, where people sleep in small cocoons, where only fit squatting.
Nobody said that the industries will always polluting chimneys. When the industry owners began to die by their own smoke they produce, will seek new forms of energy and will destroy his chimneys!
It has been proven that hydrophilic foods are economically viable and do not even need soil to develop itself. Basic foodstuffs are already artificially produced, such as milk and other proteins. Along with the new synthetic foods that arise, such experiences are showing us that agriculture is changing conceptually.
With 5 million people, the spaceship Earth 10,000 years ago, was already overcrowded, and who manned it probably would say that it reached its limit to accommodate people. He would say that from now people would starve, because there were no places to gather foods. Then mankind invented agriculture, which consisted of a set of techniques to remove from land the necessary food.
Today, when we apparently reached in another limit, I believe we shall solve the problem with solutions equably evolutionary.
These findings are only glimpses. Who watch with attention for the future, and especially anyone who can guide their future craftsmen on the right track, will see that these solutions are already underway.
More than that, he will be doing part of it, and, as is the innate desire of man, perpetuating himself in these solutions.
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