Forum Post: One Souls Thoughts: What To Do? by foamy (part 2)

Establishing a Green and Sustainable Energy Policy. Fossil fuels will not last forever. By definition they are a finite resource. The production and byproducts of this form of energy are inducing long term pollution and climate change in ways that we cannot currently control. In the short term, using local country governments to regulate existing energy companies so that fossil fuel profits are put towards the permanent conversion to a sustainable and green technology base, on a scope of cooperation yet unseen amoung the human community. To wit, the sun gives planet earth 120,000 terawatts of useable energy per year. Wind gives us 72 terawatts of useable energy per year. Currently humanity consumes 15 terawatts of energy per year. Less than 0.02% of available renewable resources are sufficient to entirely replace fossil fuels and nuclear power as energy sources. The fact is that abundantly available clean energy surrounds us. Logic and expedience demands that we tap it.

Ending the Mass Extinction of Species That Humanity is Currently Causing. Hand in hand with the sources, gathering and use of energy, is a need to control human waste and the byproducts of our manipulation of resources. Ignorance, desperation, short sighted or corrupt policies, over harvesting and poor management practices are killing species at an alarming rate. This portends poorly to our own future and prosperity on the planet. Life is a coevolving and interdependent web, of which we are only one part. Stress the system too much, and the whole thing falls. If we are the shepherds of the earth, as often is taught, then we must act like good ones. With our current technology and knowledge, there is no place else to go. So we have to be nice to Mother Nature.

Pursuit of a Truly Sustainable Food Source Through the Use of Permacultural Solutions. Famine and starvation should be obsolete. Current knowledge and technology allows this to be a bitter relic of the past: greed, war, ignorance and troubles with distribution networks are main current culprits. However, the growing world population, climate change, desertification, diseases within main food stock species, and the problems of reliance on finite fossil fuels to run farming operations, threatens all humanity with the possibility of hunger, irrevocable environmental damage, lack of balance within the water cycle and ecosystems, and lessening of biodiversity.

Establish equitable and sustainable water regulation, in large part through pursuing greater agricultural diversity. Expand the number of food sources, taking into account traditional/indigenous regional techniques proven well suited for the local environment. Approach the food distribution system from the standpoint of favoring local food growth and shorter range distribution, saving both environmental costs and those of energy. Use wild, heirloom, and insect foods better suited to giving more with less, able to produce in a larger range of conditions: expand the pallet of foods to choose from. Replace factory farm monocultural practices with polycultural ones, intensive gathering techniques, and other methods that achieve the goal of ecologically balanced self sustaining food procurement systems, that have little or no reliance on pesticides, inorganic fertilizers, antibiotics, or outside energy sources. The use of on site biodiesel and alcohol production and methane capture facilities to run farm machinery should be commonplace. Plant as much as possible to sequester carbon dioxide.

Ongoing Space Exploration. Outer space presents our greatest challenge. Only by solving earlier mentioned problems will we truly be able to properly confront it. A current starting place is the necessity of gaining a complete understanding, prediction and mapping system of extraterrestrial threats: asteroids and comets, solar activity, pulsar beams, nearby supernovas, and other possible extinction level events. Come up with solutions to clean up the space junk that is encircling the planet, so that we may move forward. Continue the search for life outside the earth by all means that are available. Actively pursue colonization of the near solar system as the start of an ongoing goal for the reorganization of humanity. Space surrounds us, and the amount of stimulus from the possibilities of growth beyond the home planet cannot be underestimated; there are more jobs than we can fill in a thousand thousand lifetimes. Further, the earth is finite in scope. The sun and solar system won’t last forever.

In all, there’s plenty to do. Humanity is here to go. So let’s get busy with it.

;) foamy333