( A Ten minute read:  That could change the world and all of us that live on it.)

For millions, 2017 is a year of unrelenting misery and fear, as governments and armed groups abused human rights in a multitude of ways.

Large numbers of people continued to flee conflict and repression in many regions of the world.

While billions of dollars are spent every year by the world’s space agencies, but does this money bring us any benefit, or should we pull the plug and spend it elsewhere?

Canada: $488 million, India: $1.1 billion, China: $1.3 billion, Italy: $1.8 billion, Germany: $2 billion, Japan: $2.4 billion, France: $2.5 billion, Europe: $5.5 billion Russia: over $7.7 billion, United States: $18 billion.

Some of these figures may seem mind-blowing when you take a pragmatic look at the current state of the global.

The standard list of threats/factors affecting the globe is getting bigger and bigger not smaller and smaller. 

Why?

I suppose the simple answer is that us humans are incapable of acting as one, and if we do manage to do so its only in small groups in the short-term. For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism.

Combine this with conflicting interests and you have a concoction of good doers all competing for limited funds to address what ever.

The problem is man is said to have evolved from monkeys and apes…but we still have monkeys and apes.

Take for instance Climate change which is now emerged as one of the most serious threats impacting on universal values.

With global environmental changes locked into our future you would think as intelligent humans we would act as one to avoid the obvious consequences.

Our best efforts to do us fall by the way side because of, not because what is obvious, but because of the costs to profit.

Hypocrisy is the Vaseline of political intercourse.

We are left with a world that is represented by what we call The United Nations.

Country names and little flags of identity rather than one unified group called humans. Perhaps if they we removed prior to passing any resolution’s that effect the Glob we might see humans acting as one.

But this will achieve nothing unless we get Capitalism to do the right thing when nobody’s watching.

So here is a solution:

Why not impose an International legal world aid commission on all activities that produce profit for profit sake. (See previous posts)

AND.

While we are at it why not impose a 0.0005% commission on all tweets, on all smart phone inquirers, on all internet purchases, on all social media posts.

Either of the above would produce a perpetual fund of billions to tackle the coming natural disasters, the coming technology inequality, the malnutrition that is now the underlying cause of nearly half of all under-5 deaths worldwide. The list is endless.

There is no simple solution to creating a more equitable world.

The world community has accepted the need to limit the increase in the earth’s temperature to 2°C and initiate changes to achieve this objective.

This will require the world to move away from burning fossil fuels and effectively reach a stage of zero carbon emissions. This will require a radical change in the way humanity lives as we move forward.

The earth has limited resources. Also, there are limits on the renewability of some of its renewable resources. Humanity is using substantially more resources than the earth can renew. We all need to change the way we live to achieve a proper balance.

In order to face the challenges posed by these dual issues, the world has to act in unison.

TAKE TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE. ( See previous posts)

There are a number of disparities to be addressed. There is a very wide range of per-capita emissions—generally, the wealthy countries having higher per-capita emissions.

There is a perception among the emerging economies that the world has reached the current situation due to the past emissions by high emitters and that they should be willing to share a higher cost of moving to low-carbon economy.

Further, different regions will be affected differently—some may not feel the consequences; at least immediately. Such countries may not want to join the worldwide efforts in a meaningful way. Getting all countries to follow a common path will be the biggest challenge in the years to come.

Doing nothing will not be an option.

Sustainability is defined as a requirement of our generation to manage the resource base such that the average quality of life that we ensure ourselves can potentially be shared by all future generations. … Development is sustainable if it involves a non-decreasing average quality of life.

For all our sake’s we need to get a grip.

We must deal with problems on Earth first, before we can leave it.

Sustainability is not “about” the integration of ecological, social and economic issues, nor is it “about” widespread consultation nor is it “about” improving quality of life.

It’s about maintaining or sustaining something called Earth.

Sustainability must be a destination, not just a journey. 

It is worth noting that treating a sustainable state as a destination doesn’t mean that society cannot revise or refine its idea of what sustainability is at a future date.

Even with everyday destinations an initial intention to go to the fruit and veg shop doesn’t preclude a later decision to go to the bank as well or to go to the supermarket instead!

Space and the Higgs-Boson can wait, when every day, 17,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday.

A future with no fresh water, clean air, energy and food, you can rest assured no one will remember the Internet, or artificial Intelligence.

So what price are we willing to pay for knowing that in the future, humanity can be saved because there are other planets out there capable of sustaining life?

Our priority surely is to take care of our planet before we go roaming around others.

For things that don’t matter we can please ourselves how we approach the sustainability effort (ie. as a destination, journey or both, or an issue of total disinterest!).

O! By the way if we did create a World Aid Commission there would be no need to stop any exploration. Today, both Voyager 1 and 2 are the farthest man-made objects in space.

Our message in a bottle was in the form of a gold-plated sonograph record containing compilations of music, images and greetings best representing Planet Earth, affixed on the outer surfaces of both the Voyager spacecrafts, if we are careful long before, “A billion years from now, when everything on Earth we’ve ever made has crumbled into dust, when continents have changed beyond recognition and our species is unimaginably altered or extinct, the Voyager record will speak for us.”

Carl Sagan’s declaration above without a doubt holds true, not just on the frailty of the ‘pale blue dot’ we call home, but also on the life it sustains. 

 

All human generated comments appreciated, all like clicks chucked in the Bin