People will have to vote very wisely this year on who they elect president. Barack Obama or John McCain will come into office at a tipping point in world history.
It’s a tipping point that can lead to two different paths for mankind in the 21st century. The first path leads to a new renaissance of the human race. The second path leads to catastrophe. What’s good and bad about this situation is that we have our feet on both of these paths now, so we can turn from one path to the other very easily if we choose to.
On the renaissance path, we are very well along it. We now have achieved advancements in more areas of human enterprise than ever before, advancements that will lead to even greater breakthroughs as we move through the century.
In medicine, nanotechnology, disease targeting drugs and genetic engineering will lead to longer and healthier lives, bringing the devastating diseases of today under control and putting an end to the inefficient and costly health care system of today.
New research and development in technology will help us solve the problems of energy, pollution, over population, starvation and global warming. (If you doubt global warming is real, check out the Arctic Ocean meltdown in the summer and super hurricanes.)
New metallurgy, cold fusion, solar power, agro biology, hydrogen energy and oceanography will help solve those problems and move us out of the fossil fuel age.
Since exploration is one way to unify the human race and speed up the technological breakthroughs we need. An international space program made up of several nations can keep costs under control while providing the best that each country has to offer. (Not NASA’s plan to go back the moon in 2020 using retrograde 1960s technology).
At the end of this century, we should have colonies on the moon, Mars and exploration to the outer solar system underway.
We are also well along the path to catastrophe too. The earth in the 21st century is a plane in trouble with the aforementioned problems, plus nations armed with nuclear weapons led by governments driven by nationalism and religious fanaticism leave our very survival uncertain.
The greatest time of danger for the human race may be between 2030 to 2050, if we haven’t made any progress in solving the energy crisis.
Natural resources will begin to give out, causing a worldwide crisis. Regional wars fueled by nationalism, racism, idolatry and simple greed will break out as nations begin to fight for the remaining natural resources.
There will be last minute peace talks and promising new technology, but it will be too little too late. The regional wars will quickly spread to become a world war that will end in a nuclear holocaust.
We will have to think outside of the box to survive, with new ideas from technology to a world government.
So, which path will we take? As with much of human history, we will take parts of both paths as we move through this century. Hopefully, we can get to the end of the 21st century with our cities not being nuclear wastelands, but great cities of the future.
Until our Good Lord returns, we will have to use the intelligence and compassion He gave us to be good stewards of our future. Part of that will be for mankind to accept principals of morality, freedom and respect for the rich diversity of the human race. We then will be on the road to solving our problems.
Sincerely,
Terry D. Adams
