Cultural Rites of Passage into the 21st. Century
by Bob Martin ~ September 29th, 2007. Filed under: Cultural, Diversity, Education, Leadership, Observations, Tipping Points.- We seem not be ready.
- Where is the Leadership.
- The worlds’ problems are complex
I am talking about Globalization and how it is forcing an understanding of how connected we all are. There was a time not long ago when the only thing that concerned us all, was the cost of a barrel of oil. No longer, everything matters now, from toys to water, from soy beans to health insurance and world population and automobile production.
Our standard way of addressing problems (need a forest, buy a lot of trees and stick them in the ground) is not likely to work and may have been the unintentional cause of the problem.
One hundred years ago there was approximately 1.5 billion people moving into the 20th Century, today we are approaching 7 billion people and the size of the path (from century to century) has not gotten any bigger. There is congestion at the gate for “Western Standards”.
Jeffrey Sachs article in “The Daily Star” Applaud economic growth, but recognize its downsides, highlights complexities.
Each market impacts the others. With wheat markets tightening, more land is used for wheat planting, reducing maize or soybean production. And, with more maize and soybeans being used for fuels rather than food, the food supply tightens even more. The triple threat of rising world demand, conversion of food into fuel, and climate shocks has conspired to push world food prices much higher than anticipated even a couple of years ago.
Sachs is an Economist and participates in the debates on global warming, poverty and hunger. I am unfortunately like most of us alarmed when the question is asked “paper or plastic”. No one is vetting our choices anymore. We are walking on egg shells and need to be more then concerned about the mess we are making.
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