The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side

To achieve sustainability in an ever growing population we must not put others to blame for the harm being caused to our planet.

When we look at the Earth from space all we see is a pale blue dot surrounded by nothing, except an endless dark stretch of space, void of life, breathless, dead.

And on that little blue dot speckled with green is our home. Our families, our loved ones, friends and all we care about. What we do today is putting all of this into jeopardy.

What we do today will affect our future. What we do tomorrow depends upon today.

To change our world we need ideas. Some ideas are simple. Growing a plant, turning off a light bulb, keeping the windows closed when the AC is on. All of these are important tiny steps, but we must not be scared to be a little more ambitious. We should strive to be both ambitious and simple.

Most of all, however, we must be positive!

The ideas we need must stem from the problems we face. How are we to assign priorities to these problems? We must look beyond boundaries, beyond borders and political noise. Climate change, ozone layer depletion and similar phenomena affect us all equally. How conscious are you of your fragility on that pale blue dot?

We must also look beyond time. Think about your daughters and your grandsons. Will they merit a world worse than the one you inherited?

The only green we know is Earth. We know not of any other planet that harbours life. And even though Earth is plentiful and has provided for us for millennia, it is not infinite. Resources are running out.

The cost of metals such as copper keep rising and to keep to demand extending mining operations threaten to destroy our ecosystems.

Reducing our impact is ensuring our survival. We must keep the balance intact.

On a positive note, the 2000's (as they may be called) are a great time to live in!

There are great minds at work to solve the problems of an ever growing population.

Here I present the four ideas that I believe will shape this century, lest they save us and drive us into a Greener Tomorrow:

1 - Cities in the skies
2 - Automated electric vehicles
3 - Space elevators
4 - Asteroid mining

I will be going into more detail in each one of these on separate blog posts to show how they might hopefully be our lifeline for the future.