Good Day Fellow Travelers,
My oldest son, Craig, and friend Jo, encouraged me to start a blog. My thought, why; what do I know or have to say that anyone would be interested? Their advice, just throw something against the wall and see if anything sticks. Ok, I will do that.
In all seriousness, I have concerns about the future. With three sons and two grandsons, 5 and 15 years old, I think a lot about the future. I grew up in a world very different from which my father grew up in and the world of my sons and grandsons will be very different than what I consider normal, often referred to as the “good old days.”
I was born in 1951 and remember when clothes washing machines had a hand crank roller to squeeze water from the clothes, I cranked my brother’s arm through it one day! My great grandmother always had fresh made biscuits on the breakfast table by sunrise and my great grandfather had a mule in the barn to pull his garden plow.
We got our first television when I was about four; our first window air conditioner for the house when I ten. At 12, Dad moved us to a ten acre plot of land in the middle of a cotton field two miles away from the nearest town. “You boys need to grow up in the country, not in the city where you can into trouble” he said.
Times changed fast! In 1903 the Wright brothers flew at Kittyhawk. In 1969, man landed on the moon, just 63 years from first flight to planting a flag on the moon! In 1971 I paid $120.00 for a four function calculator at J.C. Penny. By 1980 I was carrying a multifunction scientific calculator in a holster on my belt! In 1982 I sat down for the first time at a main frame computer terminal in a statistics class. And the rate of technological development continues to get faster and faster.
The global human population has skyrocketed heading toward 9 billion by 2100 requiring more businesses to support more jobs to create more consumption of manufactured and natural resources creating more impact on the environment etc. All of this is happening on an exponential scale.
Just how much more demand can the Earth support? How do we create more businesses to support more jobs etc? How resilient are sovereignty boundaries? The “have nots” always have and always will migrate to where the “have plenty” congregate.
In the United States we conduct life under the guidelines of the Constitution written in 1776; 244 years ago. Our governing structures at the federal, state, and local levels have established operational rules to favor one political party or the other, i.e. my political party is always right; we win – you lose.
Elected office is now a career option and not a calling to serve the wellbeing of all constituents. And, government policy is for sale to the highest bidder that keeps an elected official in office.
Climate change is real as is the coronavirus, COVID-19. Yet special interests have worked diligently to denigrate the science required to combat these global maladys. What has gone wrong in this country?
Yes, I am concerned about the future my sons and grandchildren will face. Yes, I believe we,the ruling generation, have a responsibility to future generations. Yes, I believe that nothing can be fixed if we fail to put it on the table for all the world to see and act upon. I am a scientist. My job is not to tell you what you want to hear and what makes you happy, but to tell you the truth. I will do this in the hope it will benefit the people of the future.
Quenton Dokken, Ph.D.