Back to the topic, the Mudcat Think Tank is a good place to put some of the bright possibilities for a better future down, given that some of the brightest and best-intentioned people in the world visit these pages... just don't ask which ones! :D

For example, what are the best avenues to resolve the major crises of planetary life in this century?

One such crisis is that homo sapiens gets violent when threatened by lack or loss. But he tends to be less so when engaged in self-determined productive activity which enhances his survival. The critical resources for expanding that ability (and thus reducing violence) are water and energy. Given enough of those two things, almost anything is possible, including terraforming the deserts to render them arable.

Of course, the kind of social inventions needed to make technical solutions possible and viable is also an issue -- for example, breaking the lock on alternative enrgy usage imposed by vested interests. OR somehow breaking the "catastrophic greed" syndrome that has ruined the great nations of whales, seals, sea-birds and molluscs which once populated the oceans of the North. The sad history of the Canadian governments protection of seal-slaughtering and rampant overfishing comes to mind.

Come one, come all.

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