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%CRISES' TIMES 770726
America is a relatively young nation. At 201 years
we do not have the timeless perspective of the Chinese or
Egyptians, whose histories run into thousands of years.
Because we are a young nation, we tend to see our problems
in short time-frames. We try to solve our problems within
such short time-frames. Yet, there are many problems
which cannot be understood, much less solved, within short
time-frames.
The energy crisis and our water crisis are but
examples of problems which could easily have been
anticipated by people with the appropriate orientation and
training. A major future crisis will be a soil crisis---
due to loss of topsoil by erosion. There will also be
major crises as the demand for limited supplies of rare
elements outstrip the supply on a regional and/or global
scale. There will be major crises as the demand for land
of certain qualities outstrips the available supply of
such land.
Less predictable, but just as certain, are crises
occasioned by climatic changes, which cut agriculture
productivity and increase energy demands for heating and
cooling. Similar crises will be occasioned by thoughtless
and heartless capitalization upon technological
possibilities---at the initiative of both corporations and
governmental agencies.
If we stumble along keeping our eyes focused only a
few years into the future we will stumble from crisis to
crisis. It is not enough, however, to anticipate these
crises. We must structure our political parties,
electoral processes, legislatures and civil service so as
to make them more sensitive to problems which can be
solved only within long time-frames.
We need to find ways to reward political leaders,
elected officials, legislators and civil servants who are
willing and able to dedicate their lives to long-term work
on solving problems which take a long time to clarify and
solve. Such service will require emotional maturity,
intellectual ability, agility, flexibility and the ability
to be in dialogue with all kinds of people.
Our current political processes too rarely give solid
support for people interested in thinking in terms of 50
to 500-year time-frames. Unless we create ways of
supporting them we will stumble from crisis to crisis for
a long time to come.
(c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in
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