Recently, our species have reached 7 billion and the count is still on. Have you visited http://www.worldometers.info/?
It is equally scary and delightful, just watching the numbers change. Be it human population, number of cars and computers produced this year or the huge sums spent on healthcare, education and military.
Let us stop for a moment and review what is happening around planet Earth - the only home, we know a bit of.
Recently, I was reading about a great race in the Gobi desert, Mongolia. Stated as the final frontier. Where huge corporations are racing to retrieve tons of mineral ores and other riches from the earth. Shaking up the ecosystem, as it were. All of this, simply because of the insatiable demand that people like us make. Everyday. Every minute.
A simple example. With Diwali having just gone, Christmas and New Year in the offing, people like us are turning to e-cards, as a way of conveying our wishes in an ecologically friendlier manner to our family and friends located elsewhere. We think that by sending an e-card, we are saving the earth by not requiring more trees to be cut down for making paper, by not require petroleum products like paints and plastics, etc. However, every e-card requires energy to be stored and sent as data across servers worldwide. All of the servers require electricity and air conditioning further adds on to the energy demand. This is met through coal fired, thermal or nuclear based electricity generation plants. Where's the ecology friendliness in this?
Last week, as I was waiting for my turn to provide my fingerprint and iris scan details to the Indian government - Aadhaar scheme, I was observing the number of school children milling around the bus stop nearby. There are at least 3 largish secondary schools near this rural Indian location. If I take this example as a microcosm of what is happening in the India, China and the other parts of the world, I begin to get a bit scared as much as smile.
The smile, because there is a young future working population who will be around in the next decade and that bodes well for our economies which are dependent on these replacement populations, contributing to the economic prosperity. At the same time, scared/feeling challenged, because there are so many hands coming into the market and we need to ensure they have jobs to do, salaries to earn and an environment to prosper in.
Meantime, political parties are engaged in making the most of any possible situation, be it the 'occupy wall street' protests, the 'fuel' price hike dilemma, the 'nuclear' concern, the Eurozone crisis and more... all about today. Financial behemoths are no better. Moody's decides to downgrade the Indian banking system while Standard & Poor decide to upgrade it. Result: tirades of negative and positive responses across the system. Again, it is all about today.
When will we stop bickering about the present and start focussing on the future? I am not condoning the past, nor stating that we let go of a present negative situation, but unless we start thinking about tomorrow and work towards where we want to get, we are forever doomed to remain mired in the past and the present. Isn't it?
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| We are the world |
It is equally scary and delightful, just watching the numbers change. Be it human population, number of cars and computers produced this year or the huge sums spent on healthcare, education and military.
Let us stop for a moment and review what is happening around planet Earth - the only home, we know a bit of.
- American and European nations are being convulsed with people protesting about declining job availability, corporate greed and bad economic policies
- Arab nations are being convulsed with people protesting and fighting for democracy
- African nations are seeing humanitarian crises with people decimated in the race to plunder, loot and exploit existing natural resources
- While some Asian nations like China and India seem to be forging a state of continued growth yet battle at reaching the benefits to the masses
Recently, I was reading about a great race in the Gobi desert, Mongolia. Stated as the final frontier. Where huge corporations are racing to retrieve tons of mineral ores and other riches from the earth. Shaking up the ecosystem, as it were. All of this, simply because of the insatiable demand that people like us make. Everyday. Every minute.
A simple example. With Diwali having just gone, Christmas and New Year in the offing, people like us are turning to e-cards, as a way of conveying our wishes in an ecologically friendlier manner to our family and friends located elsewhere. We think that by sending an e-card, we are saving the earth by not requiring more trees to be cut down for making paper, by not require petroleum products like paints and plastics, etc. However, every e-card requires energy to be stored and sent as data across servers worldwide. All of the servers require electricity and air conditioning further adds on to the energy demand. This is met through coal fired, thermal or nuclear based electricity generation plants. Where's the ecology friendliness in this?
Last week, as I was waiting for my turn to provide my fingerprint and iris scan details to the Indian government - Aadhaar scheme, I was observing the number of school children milling around the bus stop nearby. There are at least 3 largish secondary schools near this rural Indian location. If I take this example as a microcosm of what is happening in the India, China and the other parts of the world, I begin to get a bit scared as much as smile.
The smile, because there is a young future working population who will be around in the next decade and that bodes well for our economies which are dependent on these replacement populations, contributing to the economic prosperity. At the same time, scared/feeling challenged, because there are so many hands coming into the market and we need to ensure they have jobs to do, salaries to earn and an environment to prosper in.
Meantime, political parties are engaged in making the most of any possible situation, be it the 'occupy wall street' protests, the 'fuel' price hike dilemma, the 'nuclear' concern, the Eurozone crisis and more... all about today. Financial behemoths are no better. Moody's decides to downgrade the Indian banking system while Standard & Poor decide to upgrade it. Result: tirades of negative and positive responses across the system. Again, it is all about today.
When will we stop bickering about the present and start focussing on the future? I am not condoning the past, nor stating that we let go of a present negative situation, but unless we start thinking about tomorrow and work towards where we want to get, we are forever doomed to remain mired in the past and the present. Isn't it?
