This image depicts "vertical farming" in an urban setting. It provides the visual banner for an online article by Alexander Light, editor of the Humans Are Free website. Light's article is entitled "9 Things We Can Accomplish If We Re-Directed our Resources from War."
I like Light's list well enough, though it's a little bit tilted to the "high tech" side for my taste. And I suggest that there are "at least" nine things we could to, to change the world, if we were to stop our spending on war.
According to the Global Security website that was relied upon by Light, worldwide military spending for the year 2011 was $2,157,172,000,000.
That is over $2 TRILLION DOLLARS (each year).
At that level of military spending, I think I am right that we could accomplish "at least" nine major changes in the world, if we were to redirect our expenditures!
There is no law that says we can't.
Image Credit:
http://themindunleashed.org/2013/09/9-positive-things-that-we-could-achieve.html
One thing we've learned lo these many years is that we can never solve problems by throwing money at them. "If only we could redirect (insert most hated program here) then everything would be good.
ReplyDeleteEven if we could end war and redirect that money just to good things, which of course we can't, I wouldn't choose these 9 things:
1. EVACUATED TUBE TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY - Another science fiction pipe dream, like PRT. This is not a solution, it is another problem, that is, building and maintaining the highly complex and fragile technology.
2. HIGH-TECH AND HIGH PERFORMANCE ELECTRIC CARS - The method of fueling is not the problem. It is the cars and the car infrastructure that is the problem.
3. VERTICAL FARMING - makes nice scf-fi graphics but is not practical in any real sense.
4.REPLACING THE GMO AND CHEMICAL-SPRAYED FOOD WITH ORGANICS - This doesn't take trillions of dollars, it takes a complete change in our economic system.
5. THE FARMERY - growing food near stores does not take trillions of dollars. It takes a different land use approach than that which is already established.
6. FREE AND UNLIMITED CLEAN ENERGY - The is the worst possible thing we could develop! Free and unlimited energy (a physical impossibility) would result in teh utter destruction of all natural ecosystems and the extinction of our and many other species.
7. REINTEGRATING THE HOMELESS PEOPLE - Buying up empty homes and putting "homeless" people in them does not solve homelessness. It's juts a temporary relocation.
8. ERADICATING WORLD HUNGER - No amount of money will eradicate world hunger, despite what all the Miss Americas say. World hunger is caused by our corporate capitalist economy, not solved by it.
9. REPLACING THE HAZARDOUS NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS, WITH THE “GREEN” SOLAR PANELS - Solar panels are not a panacea for the problems of nuclear power plants. They require mining and transporting mineral and rare earths, manufacturing, transportation, maintenance and disposal, all which require fossil fuels.
In short, what we need is fewer people living in a steady state economy, not more money thrown thoughtlessly at problems.