Forum: Terrorism and Global Warming
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The problems facing the United States today are so many, so complex and so difficult to solve as to cause people to give up on them in despair. That is a reaction that will not last, we hope. For, the problems we face, while admittedly difficult, are not beyond our ability to deal with and solve.
We will either solve them or perish because of our refusal to do so.
Globalization is changing our economic life drastically. It is already placing enormous strains on our political institutions and will shortly demand their alteration. Religious fundamentalists of the terrorist stripe are presenting a challenge to all peoples to overcome their ways or be destroyed by them. Global climate change presents the possibility of the most difficult of all our future challenges.
Only a few years ago, when we tore down the Berlin Wall and ended the hegemony of Soviet Russia and Communism in the world, we foolishly thought our biggest problems were thereby solved. The problems presented by Communism were real and terrible, but they seem much less difficult than the problems we now face.
When asked what our most serious problems were former President Clinton said that in the short run it is the problem of terrorism and in the longer run it is the far more difficult problem of global warming. Both problems must be faced and resolved to our satisfaction.
No one, it seems, denies the seriousness of the problems presented by terrorists. There are large differences, however, as to how these problems should be dealt with and resolved. That is our immediate challenge.
When it comes to the problem of global warming, there is far less agreement. There are some who deny that it is a serious problem, at all. Others, insist it is. In either event, there is general agreement that conservation is incumbent upon all of us, and now. It is a need that cannot be postponed. We are quickly running out of many natural resources vital to our way of life, and the further emergence of China and India as major consumers of these resources can only accentuate and press this fact.
The gasoline shortage is the most obvious and immediate evidence of this need. We must lessen our dependence on such fossil fuels or pay terrible consequences. Refusal to face this fact is worse than foolish, it is lethal. And, that is only the beginning.
The world that is emerging rapidly is intriguing and challenging. In it, many of us will either grow or disappear.
