Tag Archives: United States

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Lesson to ponder for Earth Day

Today is Earth Day, a time we set aside to ponder the future of the planet and whether we humans are being careful stewards of this relatively tiny orbiting object.

Are we doing enough to protect it, and ourselves? I don’t think so but I pulled a resource book off the shelf to illustrate something I noticed some time back.

The World Almanac and Book of Facts is an invaluable font of information. I found this on page 734 of the 2013 edition:

The world is going to add 2.3 billion more people between now and 2050, according to data collected from a number of credible sources, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Commerce and the International Programs Center. The world has roughly 7 billion inhabitants now; the number zooms to 9.3 billion in the next 36 years.

Let’s look at an individual country to see just how dramatic this explosion can get.

How about, say, Nigeria? The population of Nigeria, a country in central Africa, is estimated at 170 million people. By 2050, the population there will is expected to explode to 402 million.

Why single out Nigeria? Consider that the country comprises an area of 356,669 square miles, which is about the size of Texas and New Mexico combined. The United States population, which stands at 310 million people today, is expected to climb to 422 million by 2050. The U.S. comprises an area of roughly 3.7 million square miles, the third-largest land mass on the planet.

Nigeria’s population density will expand from 438 people per square mile to more than 1,000 by 2050. The U.S. density is expected to go from 88 to roughly 100 in that time.

Some countries will see population decreases in this period of time, according to the World Almanac. They are largely in the Far East and in Europe.

I mention Nigeria only to ponder out loud: How does a country with such relatively limited living space care for all those people? And what will this explosion of humanity do to the land that supports it?

I’m very afraid.

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HRC fires another 'campaign' salvo

Hillary Rodham Clinton ventured to the city of my birth and delivered what sounds to me like yet another shot in her still-to-be-announced campaign for the presidency of the United States.

Speaking to the World Affairs Council of Oregon in Portland, Clinton said the current no-compromise political climate in Washington has hurt the United States.

Gee, do you think?

http://www.oregonlive.com/mapes/index.ssf/2014/04/hillary_clinton_tells_portland.html#incart_river_default

She’s saying far more than the obvious, of course. “Don’t vote for people who proudly tell you they won’t compromise,” she said to the crowd that jammed the hall to hear her words.

Indeed, Americans have gotten an overdose of what happens when zealots place their hands on the controls of government … which is that government stops working. They don’t know how to operate the levers. They refuse to listen to other points of view. They cannot bend for fear of breaking. They believe their way is the right way and other guys’ view will doom the country to, well, a miserable future.

Clinton is married to a man who knew how to compromise when he served as the 42nd president of the United States. Bill Clinton famously enacted the strategy called “triangulation,” in which he played both extremes — left and right — against each other to come up with policies that tracked more or less down the middle.

Indeed, the nation’s greatest legislators of the past 100 years or so knew “compromise” isn’t a four-letter word. They worked well with legislators on the other side: Ted Kennedy, Bob Dole, Hubert Humphrey, Everett Dirksen, Sam Rayburn, Mark Hatfield, Lyndon Johnson, the list can go on for a long time, but you get my drift.

My strong sense as well is that Clinton well might have included the current president in the “no compromise” category of modern politicians. Barack Obama blames Republicans for refusing to bend; the GOP fires back with some credibility that the president is afflicted with the same malady.

OK, so Clinton has said she’s “thinking about” running for president in two years. Duh!

Let’s prepare for a lot more of these kinds of talks from the former secretary of state and U.S. senator.

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Don't discount pain of economic punishment

Before we let the chicken hawks and armchair generals get too far ahead of themselves in this U.S.-Russia confrontation debate, it’s good to perhaps understand what kind of pain can be delivered via economic sanctions leveled against Russia.

A number of President Obama’s critics want him to do more than just level some specific economic sanctions against Russia. They want some form of military option, such as arming Ukrainian military units and sending troops to NATO nations as a standby warning to Russia.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/03/20/obama_orders_new_round_of_sanctions_on_russia_121998.html

However, the sanctions that Obama has imposed on a number of key Russian leaders with lots of money spread around in banks throughout the world well could put a serious damper on an already-weak Russian economy.

Russia’s economic growth is near zero. The Crimean region that Russia has effectively annexed is an economic basket case. Corruption still runs rampant throughout Russia, with gangsters and thugs controlling an underground economy that dwarfs many aspects of the above-ground economy.

The measures enacted by the White House through executive orders signed by the president are meant to deny access to financial assets by key Russian leaders. It’s going to cause them considerable personal pain. There well might be more severe measures taken against rank-and-file Russians if Russia ratchets up its military involvement in Ukraine.

Let’s be crystal clear about one non-starter of an idea: War with Russia is out of the question, which Obama has declared. There will be no battlefield confrontation between the nations.

Having said that, there’s no way to guarantee what Russia might do to re-annex three Baltic states — Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, all of which are members of NATO. Let us not forget that NATO constitution says that an attack against one member nation is an attack against the entire alliance — which includes the United States of America.

The White House is banking that given the sad state of the Russian economy, the economic punishment just might be enough to give Russia pause if it aims to continue its aggression in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the chicken hawks ought to pipe down.