A Dark Moment, if You Please

Global warming, the internal combustion engine, coal, and other forms of generating electrical power. Pitiful attempts at creating hybrid cars that help in miniscule ways to cut down on fossil fuel production. And that's just here in America and across Europe. What does the future hold?

Seems simple enough. As we work to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, China, India, Pakistan, and others are growing at alarming rates, and of course they'll be sucking up as much oil as they can to improve their economies and automotive mobility. They'll also be searching for deals with Iran and others so that they can trade expertise on nuclear technology in return for favored deals on oil. It's entirely possible that these emerging nations will overwhelm greenhouse gasses to the point where our attempts at weaning ourselves from oil will more or less be pointless over the long run.

Increased global competition, along with South American oil finds, and coastal African oil finds, will continue to raise the price of oil. And of course those profits go directly to fundamentalist Middle Eastern countries with no incentive to play ball with the West, while the windfall profits play directly into new nuclear technologies, as in the case of Iran, surrounded by American troops, and Israel's nuclear weapons program. Not to mention funding radical Moslem fundamentalist agendas. And guess what? We're footing the bill.

And so, with America dragging its heels on moving towards hydrogen-powered vehicles, and at least biodiesel stop-gap measures, not to mention mass transportation, by the time we're seriously less dependent on fossil fuels, the rest of the developing world will be filling the atmosphere with more and more unregulated dirty fuels.

Do we have the luxury of time in which to save our own atmosphere? Probably not, in today's climate. So, keep a close eye on the medium term as to global warming and radical climate changes. Sorry to say, we may be on the losing side when it comes to saving our own species on this planet. Although I feel sure the planet will survive, I won't be surprised it the planet decides to chew us up and spit us out in order to preserve what's left of the Earth. "Free will" and the arrogance available to promote it in so many distorted forms remains a fundamentally strong urge for human beings. Making the planet intolerable for our species is a real possibllty in the next century. And it may be unavoidable. Time will tell. Our obvious disdain and many serious mistakes do not, in my judgment, bode well for our children in the next 50 years. Our absence, leaving them with monumental problems of climate and the pollution of our own creation is hardly a gift for the future of the human race. We oughta be ashamed, but we're not. We just continue to exacerbate the problem, and emerging nations are hungry to do so exponentially. It's a dark picture from where I stand. One that once was avoidable, but now may be too far gone to make any real difference. In truth, the planet may, in the long run, be better without us. And that's a sorry state of affairs.