This is my 100th posting in the Huffington Post. I've had a couple of retrospective articles, as for example at the end of 2008 with "Simple Solutions for 2009," and on May 12, 2009 on "My Year with the Huffington Post."
I want to do more than merely summarize my cerebrations of the past two score months, and in my wildest imagination thought that this virtual portal could galvanize a viral movement to save Planet Earth and Humanity. Maybe I should select the one most fabulous idea I have that can best accomplish this miracle... but I'm a realist, so let me instead provide a list of opportunities for the more enlightened HuffPo reader to seize and initiate this process. I suspect there is no silver bullet, anyway, and that it will take a wide range of integrated activities to bring future progress to our globe.
First, a discussion on priorities. Yes, world peace is to some an ultimate goal, or perhaps for others just to mend our broken government, but what's the point if peak oil and global heating so decimate our economy and living conditions that life becomes a matter of bare survival?
Sure population is a factor, and it would be more manageable if we only had a billion, instead of 7 billion to feed. But we don't, so it might take some kind of quasi-doomsday to cull out a few billion, for there is no legal or moral way to otherwise reduce the numbers. Yes, a quantum leap in the economy of the world will help, but that will take too long, and might never happen.
So what can we do? Not much given the world as we know it. Our society has an almost fatal flaw: we cannot make command decisions for the good of all until it is too late. However, it would be smart to have ready programs to implement when the following crises come crashing down on us:
1. Peak oil: FREE green energy. Yes, make renewable energy free. Sometimes crazy is necessary.
2. Global warming: a five cents per pound carbon dioxide credit. Sea level and temperature rise too slowly to affect decision-making, so I chose to use fear as my weapon of choice with The Venus Syndrome.
While waiting for something to happen, we can at least begin the following:
1. Develop a truly colossal clean energy technology. First, all signs point to solar, wind, biomass and the other conventional renewable energy sources as important, but insufficient, to satisfy a world population of 7-10 billion. As our sun and all the stars do it, I would recommend Starpower.
2. The tragedy of Fukushima has opened the door to the ocean as our next economic frontier. Japan has mediocre sun, wind, biomass and geothermal potential. Their Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is 10 times larger than their land space. The Blue Revolution is their salvation. The U.S. has the largest EEZ, so we too, and the world at large, will benefit. An exciting first step is the Pacific International Ocean Station, the marine analog to the soon to be abandoned $150 billion international space station.
3. Funding will be needed to stimulate the above, so I return to the defense budget as the obvious source and world peace as the resultant collateral benefit, which, coming full circle, was my very first article with the Huffington Post.
During the past three years I've published three books:
While Occam's Razor is more than 600 years old, there is something sensible about the simplest solutions being best. For a daily serving of simple solutions, click on Planet and Humanity.