Everything is connected. This is a reality that humanity was largely able to ignore through the Industrial Age but one that staring us in the face now.

Notice the quandary illustrated in some of this week’s news.

Humanity’s growing dependence on oil has many affects; two notable undesirable ones are its contribution to the geo-political instability in the Middle East along with the related terrorism and secondly the contribution to global warming that comes from burning of fossil fuels.

Decreasing our dependence on oil would in theory decrease the geo-political tensions in the Middle East potentially aiding to reduce terrorism either by increased regional stability or at the least by a decrease in oil revenues that are sometimes used to fund terrorism.

Sounds like a win/win/win, geo-political tensions ease, terrorism is reduced while combating global warming.

Well maybe…

Tremendous amounts of money and research have been expended in recent years to find alternatives to our dependence on oil. One of the up and coming alternatives to oil is biofuel, which in many cases is converting food crops into fuel, biofuel.

Its renewable, a big advantage over oil, touted as being more environmentally friendly, designed to both decrease dependence on oil and decrease green house emissions which contribute to global warming.

Sounds good but an Associated Press article reported today (10.26.07) that a UN official, Jean Ziegler, called for a five year moratorium on biofuel because current biofuel approaches are driving up food costs, causing food shortages and prices jumps that are a “catastrophe” for the poor of the world.

The AP article quoted Ziegler as saying "the effect of transforming hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tons of maize, of wheat, of beans, of palm oil, into agricultural fuel is absolutely catastrophic for the hungry people." The article went on to report that the world price of wheat doubled in one year and the price of corn quadrupled, leaving poor countries, especially in Africa, unable to pay for the imported food needed to feed their people.

Wow, a bit of a catch 22, deal with global warming, starve the people.

But it doesn’t stop there. In an October 2006 article on Water Use on Ethanol Plants (biofuels) by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy it stated “one of the most important emerging concerns is the consumptive use of water … most ethanol plants are being sited in the Corn Belt. Many of these regions are also experiencing significant water supply concerns, particularly in the western portion of the region … shortage of water could be the Achilles heel of corn-based and perhaps cellulose-based ethanol.”

The report determined that there was “a 254 percent increase in volume of water used in ethanol production from 1998 through 2008. If changes aren’t made, it is likely ethanol water use will see even more of an increase in the next decade.”

Well unfortunately today there was another AP article this one about the growing water shortage. The article stated, “The government projects that at least 36 states will face water shortages within five years because of a combination of rising temperatures, drought, population growth, urban sprawl, waste and excess.”

"We've hit a remarkable moment," said Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The last century was the century of water engineering. The next century is going to have to be the century of water efficiency."

The article continued, “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations network of scientists, said this year that by 2050 up to 2 billion people worldwide could be facing major water shortages.”

Is this a Catch 33? Deal with global warming, starve the people and give them no water.

To make biofuels to decrease dependence on oil, improve geo-political relations, potentially reduce terrorism and deal with global warming creates a “catastrophe” in feeding the poor. At the same time this approach increases water usage by 254% when, "The need to reduce water waste and inefficiency is greater now than ever before. Water efficiency is the wave of the future." says Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the Environmental Protection Agency. Two billion lives depend on it.

And for a finishing touch, one of the key components to attempting to deal with these complex, interconnected, interdependent issues is money. Private organizations and governments need funds to find viable approaches and solutions. Yet this week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) painted a grim picture for the global economy.

The outgoing president of the IMF likened the recent events in the world economy to an earthquake, "Like most earthquakes, it has been something distant for most people, something they read about in the newspapers. But there is still a risk of aftershocks, and the full effects of the disruption we have already had will only be felt over time."

What earthquake?

Subprime house loan problems in the U.S. are having a global impact.

Our collective attention should be directed towards dealing with geo-political issues, decreasing our dependence on oil, dealing with global warming, providing affordable food for the poor and assuring adequate supplies of water for humanity. Yet we find the global economy which can provide funds for these activities tenuous and distracted because some unscrupulous companies in the United States sold loans to people who were not qualified, just so they could make a profit.

The challenges we face in the 21st century are not our old fashion cause and effect issues. These are examples of the realities in our interconnected interdependent world. Old mechanistic linear approaches of dealing with one problem at a time will not work. It is only by seeing the interconnected whole of what is happening, how all the elements come together impacting one another and shaping the whole situation that we will be able to devise new approaches that can really work.

Can we, can humanity rise to the challenge?

Going to the moon was considered impossible by many people and yet within less than a decade from deciding to do it men were walking on the moon.

Twenty-five years ago the concept of a handheld personal communication device was literally the stuff of Star Trek. Today we carry cell phones, but going beyond Star Trek we have wireless ear pieces to talk on, we can listen to our entire library of music, even add to it at will, the same device is also our personal camera and it has a built in GPS to tell us where we are (ten years ago how many of us even knew what GPS was?).

This article was distributed on the Web, a concept that one man, Tim Berners Lee came up with, designed and built the first generation, fundamentally altering our world in less than 15 years on a scale and with an impact beyond our ability to quantify or comprehend.

Clearly humanity can rise to the challenge. History is full of examples of extraordinary feats and accomplishments humanity has made when faced with seemingly insurmountable odds. But first we must see the whole of the situation; we must recognize and respond understanding that everything is connected.

Spherical,
Phil