• OVERPOPULATION – EARTH’S CHALLENGE

A previous post hereunder, A WATER POLICY FOR CANADA, stated the biggest challenge humanity has ever confronted is its current need for basic access to potable water. While that may well be the most complex and overwhelming mankind has yet faced, the Earth faces a bigger one. Collective overpopulation by the human race.

Procreation is a right every being on earth has always inherently considered natural and basic. Sanctity of life and freedom to procreate have brought the world’s population to levels already beyond the earth’s ability to satisfy the needs of each new life. Other than discussed, or commented on by deniers and pro-life advocates, the term overpopulation is a four letter word that has moved to the center of the politically correct protective compound. Much of the developed world has had the luxury of being able to disregard the nagging but silent provocation. It is only slightly affected, although there is the residue of our own movement toward overpopulation evidenced in our rivers and lakes.

The agenda that receives attention includes fears of global warming, cleaning up our environment, the high price of oil, a shortage of water and the increases in our food prices. New terms like ecological footprint have entered our perception window, creating vague images related to consumption, yet serving some positive purpose as they stimulate guilt impulses across our synapses. The result is that we feel a certain angst when filling up our SUVs and think about possibilities of hybrids. Our consumption of nature’s abundance continues having grown faster than most had anticipated. No amount of cutting back by those of us in developed countries, while appeasing conscience, will deliver a solution. Such can only be achieved by a determined and deliberate engagement with the collective challenge of overpopulation.

The nature and size of the uncontrolled growth of the past century get little attention, yet we are encroaching on nature to an extent now being felt by everyone, including those of us most enjoying its fruits. Even if the total population leveled off at somewhere around ten billion by mid-century, we have already stretched the earth’s finite tolerance levels on too many fronts. Consumption has already exceeded the abilities of our technological capacities for sustainability or capacities to reverse damage on the environment. Ignoring population growth is ignoring the power of nature’s determination not to be overwrought by any force.

The impact of overpopulation is being felt by some third world countries where too often food and water are not available other than when weaned from the bosom of a 747 transport plane. There are many countries such as Niger, for example, where on average, over seven children are born to mothers already overwhelmed by difficulties caring for, or feeding themselves. Niger’s population is expected to be 56 million by 2050. It had only 1.7 million people in 1960. Our own tolerance in the developed countries and even developing countries will be strained when we are directly impacted by shortages of foods, medical care, energy or degradation of personal safety. We should not wait to be surprised by the failure of human ingenuity to solve this challenge for us.

Answers lie in education and work such as that done by Doctors Without Borders which promotes female emancipation in cultures with low literacy rates, encouraging women to take control of their own bodies. Developed countries should assist developing countries with providing women and men education on health and family planning. The efforts must be dramatic. The earth has presented us a challenge with ample warnings. It awaits a cogent and persuasive response, before issuing its own.

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• THE COMING DRASTIC FISCAL POLICY

Promises of hopes and dreams of a greater tomorrow are easily fashioned in whatever vernacular the exhortation might take to energize political agenda. There are certain financial realities, however, all three current candidates vying for the leather seat in the oval office are ignoring. They have to in order to have a chance at getting elected.

The U.S. national debt is over $9.3 trillion and rising, yet it does not fully represent the reality of the government’s total commitment to a retiring generation. This amount has been calculated to be well north of $50 trillion. Given that the total U.S. GDP is expected to be $14.3 trillion in 2008, while the total Federal, State and Local spending will be $5.1 trillion, this looming debt seems difficult to ignore. It is evidently safer to neglect this reality since confronting it would mean preparing a plan and presenting it to the American public, and bad news is never enjoyable. Bearers of bad news are also rarely popular, and never elected.

Clinton is claiming no tax increases for those with incomes less than $250,000, and Obama is committing to tax cuts for incomes less than $250,000. Since the average taxpayer earns one fifth of that, and only the top three percent are in the Clinton and Obama unprotected income range, where do they expect the funds to come from?

There is also a dissonant refrain, repeated recently by McCain, that cutting taxes will stimulate the economy, as in top-down or trickle-down. This hasn’t worked so well in the past since the real incomes have been stagnant for a generation and supply-side economics have in fact coincided with increased deficits. It is also a strange and demeaning concept, or should be, for a vast majority of the population.

There are few in Congress who could be accused of being fiscal conservatives. All have been big spenders. It is amazing that somehow Republicans have been able to convince taxpayers that they are against big government and the Democrats convey the image that they are for responsible government. Neither claim is based on truth or evidence. Being against big government has really meant being against oversight of any kind while you spend your way into the history books, and responsible government has really meant just keep spending while pretending you don’t really want to, or mean to.

There is a dearth of options and the few that exist are unpleasant for the average tax payer. Nevertheless, each individual has the ability to participate in the long term economic recovery and each has a responsibility to make wishes heard by elected representatives. The challenge lies in finding representatives that can do more than listen.Each voter has an obligation to empower and demand difficult decision of their elected officials.

All levels of government will be obliged to drastically reduce spending and increasing taxes. Taking difficult action will be the only way to prevent America and its economy from lapsing into a depression forcing years of hardship as borrowing continues unabated.

The coming five years will define America’s ethos as it makes difficult decisions. Taxpayers should not tolerate inattention to the challenge. Doing so would allow the world’s respect to shift and slide into the nether regions of human sentiment and into pathos.

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• DALAI LAMA’S SECULAR COMMISSION

Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, has been presented by the Tibetan monks who selected him as an evolved being who has chosen to return to mortal environs to help others in their search for enlightenment. He was enthroned at the age of fifteen, making him Tibet’s political and religious leader. His recent years have found him traveling the world, promoting universal concepts of peace and harmony. This week, the Dalai Lama urged America and other wealthy countries to cut back on their lifestyles stating that happiness would come, not from money and power, but altruism and compassion. He also said “We need Tibetan and Chinese brothers and sisters to meet face to face from time to time.” Such comments and sentiments inevitably raise a difficult question.

The Dalai Lama’s self effacing humor and mannerisms endear him to most listeners. He appears to be a great communicator with an ability to interact personably and directly with those he addresses. Outside his home continent, the world has enveloped this religious leader with a certain aura bordering on secular saintliness. Even the Pope would welcome such sweeping and extensive endowment.

If he is convinced of his own pronouncement that the Chinese government is causing the cultural genocide of Tibetans, then he should take it on as his responsibility to step into the fray, against what his handlers appear to have been counseling him.

Meeting with heads of state, or wealthy and connected supporters from around the world, may be helpful for raising funds and spreading the message, however it does little to move Tibetans toward any resolution with Chinese leaders. If his culture is heading for extinction, then his Tibetan brethren would anticipate that he would use the international goodwill capital he has accumulated, and apply it to some resolution that might welcome his return as a spiritual, rather than as a spiritual and political leader.

The Dalai Lama should take the next available flight to Beijing. Literally, … board a plane and appear, with no preconditions. While China may have its own preconditions for his return to Tibet, his very arrival at Beijing Capital International Airport is a completely different matter, and the event would provide him audience with China’s leadership. Dialogue or communications from afar, and through interlocutors, are ineffective in such a politically charged negotiation. Only through face to face dialogue with those at the center of power will the Dalai Lama have a chance to establish a satisfactory relationship between himself, his Tibetan followers, and China.

Too often lost in the emotional debates and related coverage is the fortuitous reality that Tibet is rich in uranium, boron, gold, zinc, chromium, lithium, copper, magnetite, barite, arsenic, gypsum, and pottery clay. Tibet also presents vast potential as a source of hydroelectric and geothermal energy. Only in Beijing will he be able to conclude agreements that will provide his fellow Tibetans with some influence and participation in the exploitation of the vast abundance of natural resources that could create a region as wealthy as any on Earth.

Lectures in Washington, Los Angeles, Ottawa or Sydney provide positive messages to the world, and enrich his personal presence as a global citizen, however, the Dalai Lama’s most important audience awaits his appearance in Beijing. Their cause would be presented in the most eloquent form, behind closed doors, but under the glare of the international limelight awaiting positive solutions, … the same limelight that will secure his longevity. His success may also find a repatriation of what remains of the Tibetan diaspora.

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• BABY BOOMERS, MAKE NO ASSUMPTIONS

Baby boomers are about to create a demographic shift that they and other stakeholders appear unprepared for. A whole generation is negotiating toward the threshold of retirement and its uncertainties, yet too many of its members appear primarily focused on reducing the impact on aging. They have made assumptions on the state of the long term financial health of their social security and medical care.

With the arrival of 2011, the first of the boomer generation will turn 65, qualifying for the potentially overwhelmed and underfinanced programs of Medicare, Medicaid and pensions. The lack of savings and preparedness by the baby boomers, and their government as well as the rest of society, suggest complete inattention to the affect that the coming shift will have on the collective social, political and economic fabric.

A current Presidential candidate potentially becoming the oldest person ever elected to the White House is not an accidental quirk of nature. The average North American born today is expected to be more productive for longer than any member of preceding generations and has a reasonable chance of becoming a centenarian. The population’s average age is increasing, and by 2020 it is expected that there will be 53 million people 65 years or older. The retirement and medical care programs were developed when average life spans were shorter, cost of living was much lower, and medical care expenses were cheaper, yet the system is committed. There is some good news however, as older people are healthier and have fewer disabilities somewhat reducing their dependence on medical care. There is an expectancy that boomers will head into retirement in better health than the previous generation. It remains that health care will become the heaviest burden weighing on the federal budget over the coming thirty years.

As boomers make their way through life in retirement, they will tap into the pension system that has represented the significant portion of national savings and investment funds which have historically provided fuel for the economy. There is an anticipated reversal of that trend to begin in the mid 2020’s. The capital base supporting boomers will begin shrinking, and the impact will affect both the retirees and the broader economy.

Baby boomers must make plans, as much as they can, to augment the financing of their retirements through the establishment of cash flow streams of their own creation. Boomers should not assume that current or future pension fund governance will work in their favor, or that market forces and direction will prove positive influence on their collective pension nest eggs. Boomers should prepare to make up possible shortfalls when bills arrive, whether for fixing leaky roofs, or purchasing prescribed drugs not covered by medical plans. They should also exert pressure on Congress, demanding that fiscal responsibility and oversight be assiduously applied to government spending, and that effective reforms be implemented to the health care system.

Boomers, whatever you are saving, increase it. Every dollar will count, but then, that’s not news.

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• POLYGAMY – HIDING IN THE SKIRT OF RELIGION

The conflict between church and state has long been a difficult element of contention, and is actually a debate between religion and the state. That somewhat opaque wall erected between political authorities, and adherents of particular religious beliefs has provided enough room for interpretation that some groups have found refuge in a well guarded gray void for over a century. The state has been restrained and shown little haste in its dispatch of legal process against endless cases of abuse against children. Why act now?

The confusion that arises over the government’s intrusion on religious practice is evident in the wake of the current conflict between the State of Texas and a group of polygamist Mormons. It is also in full display in British Columbia, Canada, where the Attorney General, Wally Opal, is not as lucky and has yet to receive a scream for help, as is the case with Texan authorities. Mr. Opal remains inhibited, lacking confidence that his court of appeals, or his Supreme Court will support him in these very lax, politically correct, and indulgent times, should he decide to lay charges. The man in his sights is Winston Blackmore, owner of three hundred acres he calls, Bountiful. Blackmore reportedly has fathered well over 100 children and by his own words appears to be a contender for the Warren Steed Jeff’s throne as leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

By any other definition, polygamy is a male concept seeking mastery over women. Through polygamy men are in complete control of all facets of their women’s and children’s lives, including their bodies and their minds. The harm to both has been well documented and researched for over a century and has included abuse, coercion, constraint, violence, health problems, sale into marriage, and poverty.

Can governments exert authority over the individual’s conscience? If religion is a matter of belief, and is therefore protected by the first amendment, how do you adjudicate over polygamy which is a conduct supposedly directed and instructed by a religion? In an early unanimous decision on polygamy, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Field, in Davis vs. Beason in 1890 opined: "Bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries. They are crimes by the laws of the United States, and they are crimes by the laws of Idaho. They tend to destroy the purity of the marriage relation, to disturb the peace of families, to degrade woman, and to debase man. Few crimes are more pernicious to the best interests of society, and receive more general or more deserved punishment. To extend exemption from punishment for such crimes would be to shock the moral judgment of the community. To call their advocacy a tenet of religion is to offend the common sense of mankind."

Subsequent decisions concluded that although laws cannot interfere with religious beliefs, laws could interfere with practices. The proximity of the two as pertains to polygamy blurs the distinction, and therein lies the hurdle that judicial systems have been almost totally unable to leap for prosecution. Polygamists have been so effective at controlling and manipulating their broods, that over the last hundred years very few children have escaped, and been able to describe their ordeals. In the world of polygamy, the administration of justice has been left to depend on the emergence of evidence of crimes from behind well guarded compound gates and the almost non-existent witness testimony. Proof is extremely difficult to come by, and corroboration virtually impossible.

The whole judicial system waits for a child, not only to be raped, but to then cry for help from beyond the walls. The childrens’ mothers won’t do it. The overwhelming challenge for authorities has been the ability to mount a legal case against any abuser. Polygamists have covered their tracks, including the records indicating the age of their wives at marriage. Two nations await effective outcomes in the Texas prosecutions, after which it is hoped, Mr. Opal will manifest some confidence in British Columbia and other prosecutors in Utah will feel empowered to take action, extinguishing the gross abuse endured by thousands of children and future mothers under the guise of religious freedom.

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