The Good News

The good news is that we may have already done the worst of our deeds and we have accumulated enough wisdom and knowledge to create a virtual heaven on earth.
There is no longer a need to destroy our environment, to subjugate and exploit women, or to perpetuate unsustainable ways of life. We have experimented with enough politics to know what works and what doesn’t. We have crossed the threshold.

We deforested land to create agricultural fields and to fuel the smelting of metals, creating a cycle of ecological degradation. Deforestation creates desertification and created the beginning of human caused climate change. We now have enough cleared enough lands and accumulated enough agricultural prowess to feed the worlds masses. The continental United States now has more forested land than it had sixty years ago and numerous land trusts build upon the gains.

Government subsidies favoring corporate style industrial agriculture have driven the small family farms to the brink of extinction leaving untold acres of land, unused and waiting to be made fertile again. The collapse of the housing market has slowed the creep of urban sprawl providing us time to reconsider our course of action. For the first time in history there are an equal number of humans living in cities where centralized systems are better able to prudently process our wastes while the use of communal spaces reduce our energy needs.

Patriarchy was inevitable and necessary as population grew with ever more complex social structures and habitat became an increasingly competitive commodity as cultures collided in conflict. We know that human population pressures are a major contributing factor in the environmental degradation of the ecosystem. We know that when women have control of their own reproductive rights that procreation is relatively prudent. The developed nations in Europe, North America and Asia exhibit little or no population growth and some even have declining populations. The ability for women to control their own reproductive fate is the single key factor in ending the unsustainable population explosion of the human race. The quality of life enjoyed in developed nations is incredibly attractive to the people in developing countries and it is becoming clear that the riches of western civilization cannot be gained while half of a population remains subjugated and uneducated.

We have seen that healthy democratic functions serve society for the greater welfare of the populace. When collective welfare is considered sacred, peace and egalitarianism are the norm. When greed and indifference is considered a virtue, society and the environs will suffer. The economic collapse may serve as a wake-up call for those in the United States and other developed nations, a realization that unregulated commerce equates to unlawful business.

We have witnessed that unrestrained greed on Wall Street affects Main Street, not only in our own country, but around the globe. What was marketed as trickle-down has proven to be fraud. Economic disparity has increased at home and abroad for more than a generation as corporate power has subverted and corrupted the body politic. We are now experiencing a jobless recovery which may provide enough people the free time necessary to contemplate the errs of our ways and help us return to the virtues of traditional values such as compassion, justice, reason, care of the commons and democracy. It is time to return to the vision of the founding fathers, to create a new world order based on peace, liberty and justice for all. We can continue in the great work of forming a more perfect union.

We may be at peak oil production or beyond, but we have alternatives at hand. The technological gains from our unbridled energy consumption have given us the tools to create a green and sustainable future. We have the capacity and knowledge to harness the energy of water, wind, sun and earth to supply our energy appetites. Biofuels can be made from simple algae on lands that are presently unproductive.