Yesterday as I was driving down the Dallas North Parkway I spotted this...um...zoo escapee? (I happened to have my 'lil pocket camera at hand and traffic was moving slowly, as always.) I've bought a lot of cars in my lifetime, but I don't ever recall seeing on the option list a leopard spot paint job. Have you?
Changing course, yesterday Joan Perry (Charleston Daily Photo) had a link to a cute game, The Longevity Game. You enter your height, weight, how much you smoke, drink, whether you drive like a maniac, etc, and it tells you how long you'll live. Of course everyone wants to see "100 years" or some such ripe old age, but based on a serious story I read over the weekend, that seems increasingly unlikely.
Long story short, there are too many people in the world. The world's population has roughly doubled in my lifetime, and a baby born today can expect to see it double again in his lifetime, to 10-12 billion people. (It's about 6.5 billion today.)
In centuries past various maladies...wars, plagues, famines... have conspired to hold the population in check, but not today. Climate change...think drought in Australia, floods in the USA, heat waves in Europe, violent storms everywhere, etc...are making it difficult for the food supply to keep up with world population gains. Plus all these new people want their piece of the pie such as cars, a comfortable place to live, and other creature comforts, all requiring more mining for raw materials, polluting production facilities, roads, all dictating less arable land for agriculture. The vicious circle just goes on and on.
Not to sound all doomy and gloomy, but maybe we should set our sights on a more modest number of years to roam the earth than The Longevity Game suggests we should expect. One way or another, it's going to catch up with us.
"Quality" and "quantity" are two very different things. Party on. :)
S
This natural disaster business is natures way of hitting the reset button. Horrible thought but I suspect the Earth has a way to cleanse itself of excess anything over a long enough timeline.
ReplyDeleteI think you're spot on, Bobby. Science might someday have the technology to enable us all to live to be 100, but can we afford it? Will there be enough food for us all? Can you imagine the congestion on the roads? How many windmills is it going to take for us all to have enough electricity? If they some day ration my electricity, I might be living in the dark, but I guaran-damn-tee you I'll have my air conditioning! :)
ReplyDeleteS
yep, Mother Nature is really making me nervous lately. All we can do is wait and see.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I really don't want to live forever, but some people age great. We have a German actor who is 107 and STILL performs on stage and recently in a TV commercial. That guy is amazing....
P.S. I think that car is UGLY!
ReplyDeleteYeah, not to get all New Age but Mother Earth will eventually have to deal with her excessive amount of naked primate children.
ReplyDeleteI figure environmental disasters will increase with a seriously deadly pandemic thrown in for good measure. I am not trying to be being funny, with current demands on resources and the number of people in the world wanting an American lifestyle something will have to give.
We all gotta go sometime, and he who dies with the most toys wins.
ReplyDeleteI'm for quality over quantity. Longevity is not a competition I need to win. Trying to stay healthy though. That seems to be what makes all the difference.
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