balanced vision

Hard to strike a balance between an overly pessimistic and an overly unconcerned view of things.

On the one hand, we're obviously heading toward global catastrophe. Even taking the best-case scenario, ie all wars stop, all terrorists retire peacefully, then economic over-exploitation of scarce global resources (water, arable land, fossil fuels), and concomitant pollution, will by itself generate an ecological catastrophe in the medium-term. This kind of catastrophe is irreversible: extinct species do not return to life; destroyed ecosystems do not re-establish themselves.

Two key points seem to be contributing to this situation: the untramelled expansion of human population (why can't all couples stick to having two children or less ?); and uncontrolled appetite for higher living standards (we're never satisfied, are we ?). So resources keep getting eaten up.

No time for the positive side. I'll write on that tomorrow. Being gloomy is all too easy !