Recent statistics produced from the U.S.
government conclude that at current levels
of incarceration 1 out of every 15 people
living in the United States will spend time in
prison sometime in their life. If you are black,
the numbers become aprox 1 out of 5. If you
are hispanic the numbers are aprox 1 out of
10.
What is it going to take for this nations
people to wake up and stop being so easily
manipulated by those doing the manipulating.
What is happening in this country is not new
from a historical perspective, similar processes
came into play with Nazi Germany, other
places where similarities could be found would
be in the apartheid era of South Africa, as
well as in the old neighborhood watch systems
in the old Soviet Union. Our historical memories
have been conditioned to be very short in this
country, MacCarthyism was only 50 years ago,
plus or minus. People were still being impacted
by that process through the 1970's. It is
reported that over 200,000 innocent people
lives were virtually destroyed over this 25
year period. Yes, contrary to our national
collective need to forget the wrongs of our
nation, the negatives of the gift that Joseph
MacCarthy gave us, kept harming innocent
people long after that sad creature left
the national stage.
I have to face it, The United States is well
on the way to becoming the most
sophisticated police state in the history of
the world. I believe many would say we have
fully reached this point, I have to admit that
the boundries between the becoming or
become are getting very thin. I have been
watching this process for over twenty years,
Three steps closer, one or two steps back.
End result is that we keep going towards the
police state. Really interested to see what
next November brings.
Update: 9/16/08 It has been recently
reported that the FBI has recently had
operational restrictions, that were put in place
after the discovery of extreme civl rights
violations in the mid 1970's, (cointelpro),
Removed. They are once again free to rape
and pillage just like the good old days, (not
that they ever really stopped), across the
landscape of the few remaining civil rights
focused organizations.
Like A.A. the first step towards the solution
is admitting that you have a problem.
Colin Stuart McCoy
Right now it is said that aprox 80 % of our
global fisheries are in trouble...I.E. being
depleted faster than they can regenerate.
Due to human impacts we are seeing clearly
a shift in our weather patterns, this is not a
positive series of changes. Due to pollution
our planets lungs, primarily the oceans are
showing alarming shifts in currents, with an
increasing number of dead zones that are
growing in size and number, and duration.
We continue to eliminate our planets remaining
rain forests to the point that scientists claim
that the damage may be beyond repair.
Fresh water is becoming increasingly scarce
globally, the planets aquifers show signs of
steady decline, they are not rejuvenating.
The third world, (See China) is dramatically
increasing the number of it's coal burning
electric plants, using outdated, environmentally
unfriendly technology. Under existing
circumstances it is not as if these developing
countries have a large number of options to
choose from.
What I see is a global ecosystem that is
collapsing under the pressure of current demands
as they are being applied under the existing
global economic structure. I see nothing on
the horizon, other than some massive
unexpected disaster, or human caused war or
disease outbreak, that will keep our planets
population from growing by aprox 2.5 billion
people over the next 40 to 50 years.
I see the wheels coming off the bus "figuratively
speaking" if we do not change how we conduct
ourselves economically/environmentally. If the
current systems, and the people who manage
them were capable of addressing the above
mentioned problems, without any adjustments
being needed they would be doing so today on
a considerably larger scale. The level of inactivity
is at criminally negligent levels, (except perhaps
in Europe), in Europe they have reduced their use
of raw materials, their population is decreasing,
and their carbon output has gone down 8% from
their 1999 numbers. While in the United States
our population has increased, our raw material
consumption has increased, and our carbon
output has increased 19% over the same time
period.
We have had access to the information needed,
as well as common sense projections for over 30
years, for us to have used to begin the process
of making some much needed adjustments.
What our planet needs, and needed to have been
put in place by yesterday is for all coal powered
plants to have their exhaust equiped with state
of the art scrubbers and capture technology.
We believe the capture tech should be either
solidification or hydrogen elimination, what
we absolutely must not do is pump it into the
ground. We need to start building those carbon
capture "trees". (Note, these trees are human
made tech.)
Alternative clean power plants need to be
aggressively brought on line by "yesterday".
350 to 500 would be a good number for just
for starters. As I write this there are aprox
7500 large scale power plants globally that are
adding greenhouse gases to our atmosphere.
We actually will need many more of these types
of clean energy plants because typically
they produce less power per installation.
Wind, wave, geothermal, solar all need to be
brought on line in massive, environmentally
friendly, quantities.
We need to take a look at nuclear power in
greater detail. I see that the solution to nuclear
waste and coal exhaust capture tech as getting
it, "the waste", safely off planet. Send it to the
sun. (Rail gun??, Space elevator??)
Major reforestation efforts need to be put in
globally. Our natural habitats need far greater
and comprehensive protections. (Asia, Africa,
Central and South America, our oceans and
rivers.) We need to remain constantly vigilant
here in the U.S. as well, we have seen the
danger that just one ignorant or corrupt
administration can pose. We must build upon
the good works already completed to date.
Population growth must be addressed by us
before Mother Earth addresses it for us. Our
best chance lies in education and economic
incentives. I believe that our planet can safely
support around 6 billion people, but even this
may be too many people. There are 6.7 billion
people on our planet at this time. Bottom line
is we need to dramitically reduce the size of the
negative human footprint/impact currently
being made. I believe that this goal must be
attempted though non-coercive, voluntary
processes. The resources needed in order for
this voluntary effort to be successful must be
provided.
Family planning resources available to us in the
western world must be made readily available to
the rest of the global community. What we
need to see happening on a voluntary basis is in
the most seriously effected areas the greatest
economic and educational resources must be
allocated with the goal being to reach an average
of each couple having just one child. This is no
doubt a sacrifice, but I believe this sacrifice, as
we could create it to be, is much less severe
than what could be forced upon us during an
environmental or resource collapse. In areas that
have reached an essentially zero population
growth further stability may be able to be
obtained through a target goal of two children
per couple.
Retirement/pension resources must be made
available, quickly on a massive scale to those
living in developing nations where having a
large family is needed to better assure care for
parents in their old age.
Again, we have had valid documentation of these
needs for decades, we have done essentially
nothing and now we see the problems heading
our way far more clearly.
As Bill O'reilly eats his freedom fries, we should
see if we can get the French to show us/the
world how to build and maintain modern nuclear
power plants for stop gap purposes. If safety
issues could be addressed and breeder programs
could be as effective as required, nuclear power
plants could perhaps be more than just a stop
gap measure, waste disposal must be dealt with
measurably better than it has been to date.
I have always been and always will be
uncomfortable with nuclear power plants. The
reason being is simple. The constant need to
reach for greater profit always leads to corner
cutting, at least here in the U.S., and nuclear
power plants do not do well in a corner cutting
environment. Nuclear power plants clearly
could help reduce the greenhouse gases being
produced by the coal burning plants. Due to
past failures and the concern that said failures
have created no new nuclear power plants
have been commissioned here in the U.S. in
aprox 20 years plus or minus. Our existing
nuclear power plants are reaching the ends of
their design life.
In the United States alone we need to cut our
water use in non-agricultural, and non-critical
industry, or that needed for the preservation
of natural habitat by at least 50% in effected
areas. For agricultural and industrial uses
water conservation needs to be a priority.
The pollution going into our oceans and rivers
must be reduced by at least 50%, this is again
needed to be done by "yesterday".
Our fishing fleets need to reduce the size of
their catch in the effected species by at least
50% until clear signs of recovery are noted.
Our domesticated animal, and agricultural food
production must be increased while our natural
food sources recover. We must put into place
pollution reduction and capture tech in these
industries as well.
Our space program has been badly neglected,
it must be given the resources it needs to
quickly develop the technology needed for
humanity to be able to access in an
environmentally safe fashion the resources
that are available off our planet. This all needs
to be done by "yesterday".
Instead of spending a trillion dollars on ill thought
acts of aggression the money could have been
spent on any or all of the things I have touched
upon.
We must work to make hydrogen fuel cell tech an
affordable resource.
We need to move towards personal vehicles that
can get 100 mpg, or that are fully electric.
These vehicles need to be agressively provided
to developing countries, as well as to our own.
We need to retro fit all homes located in
appropriate areas with 12 volt solar and wind
powered systems. All new homes should be
mandated to have these systems incorporated
into their construction. This is another area of
tech that should be aggressively provided to
developing countries such as China, India, Africa,
ect..
It also looks like we need to start looking at
humane ways to trap or deal with the green
house gases that are produced in our meat
industry. On the surface it looks like this could
be dealt with by building large barn structures
where the animals would spend aprox 66% of
their time on a rotational basis. These barn
structures would be equiped with filter and
capture tech, and I would anticipate that they
could reduce these "emissions" being released
into our atmosphere by 25% to 45%. Might
also turn out to be a good source of energy?
(Methane).
As a society we are not functioning in a sane
or conscious fashion, we are failing to address
our major problems and short comings in a
rational manner. This is not new, what is new
is that the human race finds itself at a moment
in it's history that may be very unforgiving and
unable to absorb these thinking errors.
If I am wrong, and we act agressively to make
the corrections that so many think are needed,
we will, at worse, end up with a cleaner
healthier planet to live on. If I'm right, but we
continue to along the path of the nay sayer, it
could be very grim for humanity.
I have repeatedly used the term by "yesterday".
We are at least 20 years behind where
responsible global leadership should have
brought us. We must get back on track.
Colin Stuart McCoy
We were given a garden, actions are said to
speak louder than words. If God was to be
looking down upon his creation would it be
unrealistic to expect God to view what we
have done to this planet as coming from a
society that viewed the well being of the
garden with utter contempt?
