Dr. Stephen Hawking asks on Yahoo! Answers: "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?", while Bono of U2 asks "What can we do to make poverty history?".
In reading the answers, it seems a lot of people have faith that somehow the human race will be able to endure and survive the next hundred years, if only because we've managed to survive the previous centuries. Our future depends on us -- the us living in the here and now -- not just the young, but the middle-aged, and the old. It is our problem, and it's not a problem that just one person, one group, one country or one generation is going to solve.
Hawking wants to make sure the human race survives by colonizing other planets, but it seems that we are rather slow to establish permanent settlement anywhere else in our solar system, and even if we did, that colony would still be dependent on Earth for regular supplies. There is no way to set up a colony without Earth. If we kill this world, we kill our only chance of survival. What scares me, however, is knowing that we will survive the next hundred years, but without real change in the lifestyle we live, the world will not be a very pleasant one.
If we keep searching for a magic solution to these problems, we might find the solution, but it might already be too late. But the more we deny that this problem exists, the less time we have at finding a solution.
--------
Leave a comment