Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Martin Almada: In the face of a change climate, the obvious thing to do is to seek for new energy resources, whether wind or solar or biodiesel. In the face of the energy shortage, competition is substituted by an efficient use of the energy. The reduction of poverty is a more efficient weapon to fight against the exclusion and the destruction of the environment. Against global militarization the control, reduction or suppression of weapons of mass destruction in general is preferable. We see that climate change, poverty and global diseases are provoked by the countries of the industrial nations. We have to run big campaigns, media campaigns in order to stop this collective suicide.

by Martin Almada

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Masami Saionji: This is because such ways of life are widespread all human beings around the world that people are unconcerned with the things which are not relevant to them. People have lack of interest in any kinds of things which happen in environment, in nature or around the world, such as, war, terrorism, racial discrimination and so on. That is, they are only interested in the things for themselves and their families and the things which happen around them. This thinking/conscious causes all kinds of problems. We must make an intensive appeal that each mankind takes responsibility for these problems (i.e., problems with oil, destruction of biodiversity, climate change and so on). Many people believe that these problems are not relevant to them but the others. Additionally, they think that governments, scientists and experts of this problem have all responsibilities to solve them. Such thinking comes from ignorance and reliance of each human being on the others. Each human being has no sense of responsibility for these problems. This lack of sense (or thinking) is the biggest problem. Each human being must raise our awareness more for all problems at the individual level in our lives and think what we can or must do for them. Then, I believe, these problems can be solved little by little in natural way.

by Masami Saionji

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Masuma Bibi Russel: This is a big question. I think it’s United Nation or big organization or the government concerning of the countries, where there are, you know, like oil crisis and climate change. Now you see that even the desert area in Rajasthan is having flood, which is maybe four years they didn’t have any rain, four, five years. And, then they had flood this summer, few weeks ago, then the Tsunami, then the earthquake. All this climate changing, Europe is having hot summer than some times in Asia. And poverty, I think poverty is a big, big, big thing, because everyone try to say poverty, poverty. But, do we really do anything to get people out of poverty? Do we know why these people are poor? Do we know -- do we use the human resources? These people has two hands, instead of putting their hand in front of people they can show the world the magical fingers. Some of them are wonderful crafts people, some of them can do agriculture. So, I think this -- all this thing has to sit together in the nation concerned, the government, the people, the NGOs and the big agencies like UN, UNICEF and thing. And, global disease, this is also a big problem like AIDS and other diseases, you know, like they have like yellow fevers, they have dengue, they have so many other things. I think, everything can be solved with a very good wish, and to be willing to solve, I think it can be solved.

by Masuma Bibi Russel

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Mayank Mehta: These are very diverse set of problems. Some of them, I think, are, indeed, problems and some I don’t think are major problems. I don’t think, for example, poverty is something that we can take care of right now by merely redistributing the wealth. It’s simply a question of distribution of wealth in the world without an extremely uneven distribution of wealth, rather than be really [guilty] of wealth at all. So, that’s one side of problem. Destruction of biodiversity is a much harder problem because we have just by our numbers we are using up space where food is produced. So, that is a much harder problem to tackle. An even harder problem to tackle or probably equally hard problem to tackle is the use of oil, which that’s the way it is. This is the technology right now. There are fuel efficient technologies which are available today, and for some reason they are not popular so that use, my guess is that the amount of fuel consumed, at least in terms of passenger or transportation vehicles, can easily be cut down by 20-30% within the next 5 to 10 years if people in the world and their governments put their mind to it. That is just an estimate based on what I have seen in terms of these energy-efficient vehicles. I don’t know if that is sufficient to cure the oil crisis problem. My guess is not. It can postpone it, but it cannot avoid it, the energy crisis. At the end, and global disease I don’t think is really near. I think there’ll be many cases of global disease-related alarm bells, but actually the not-so-advertised diseases are still taking a higher toll on humanity than these highly advertised global diseases in the recent times, such as common cold and so on, they take a far greater toll than the total amount of toll SARS or bird flu and so on. So, I don’t think those things are big issues.

by Mayank Mehta

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Michael E. Tigar: Much of the answer to this question is suggested by the answers that have been given before. But you know when the ship Titanic began to sink, I think it was the stern that went, many people went to the bow and pointed back and said, “Look, look, look, those peoples’ end of the ship is sinking.” Well, you know --and then if you look over my shoulder I'm going to duck down now, you can look back that way, they have a pile of books representing the books that were burned in this very place, the Bebelplatz. I've said this before, I think today even, Bertolt Brecht wrote a poem called “All of Us or None” and I don't do German, but that's the English title and you can look it up. He was talking in the context of social organization, comrades getting together to make a more just society, but boy, aren’t we aware that our planet is small? Aren’t we aware that we are all in this together? Aren’t we aware that it's all of us or none? And look what's happening. Look what's happening. In our own country, the United States of America, what's the greatest risk? The greatest risk is this willingness to point to the other. The greatest risk is the racism towards groups within our own society and community, whether it's over the immigration debate or anti terrorism or wherever, everybody's getting permission to speak in terms that 10 years ago we would have recognized as overtly racist. And then we couple that with the fact that as we look abroad, these same sets of policies and attitudes lead towards jingoism xenophobia. So the step that we must prepare -- we can talk about the scientific steps, I guess maybe that’s what I’m supposed to say -- but the step we need to prepare is to organize around the principle of our united interests in preserving the world and in turning the social system upside down so that we can do that. That's where really need to put a lot of our energy right now.

by Michael E. Tigar

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Michael Laitman: We must immediately take the following measures. We must explain to all humanity that all of our problems are, in the end, the result of our disbalance with nature, since nature is altruistic and we are egoistic. Until we change and bring ourselves to balance with nature, we will not become similar to it on the speaking level. After all, in all other levels—the still, vegetative and animate levels—we become similar to nature instinctively, while on the human level we have freedom of choice. It is by our own free choice, our personal efforts, that we will achieve balance with all of nature and will become like all of nature. Then we will feel the eternity, perfection, and harmony that are present in all nature except our own. Otherwise we do not feel nature, but our oppositeness to it. We feel this oppositeness in all of nature's negative reactions to us, on the ecological, physical, and physiological level (disease), on the speaking level (depression, drug-addiction, divorce), and in the social sphere (terrorism, wars and violence). The first step we must immediately take in order to avoid all of us together colliding with some global problem, an upshot of catastrophes—is to explain the reason for our misfortunes and problems to all humanity. And it lies only in our attitude towards one another.

by Michael Laitman

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Michael P. Totten: What we need to do is to get out of the simplistic notion of forecasting energy and then expanding it at whatever cheap cost. We need to recognize that we have normative values that we appreciate about our energy. We want to make sure they are climate-friendly, that they are biodiversity-friendly, that they don’t assault the air and the water, but in fact help to enhance its cleanliness. That if it fails, it fails gracefully, not catastrophically. If it does fail that it can, it’s resilient and resistant enough that it can rebound in a meaningful time without cost rather than being extraordinarily expensive. It should be job creating. And we all should have few negative externalities like pollution and high levels of consumption and waste, and it should be amenable to allowing for improvement to shrink that negative approach. But also it should be a robust opportunity for improving the, let’s call the learning experience or the experience curve, so that the more it scales up and the more you expand, the more you learn to how to make it less expensively as well as to shrink its footprint. And, it should be naturally or certainly intrinsically impossible, safe from destruction whether from nature, acts of God, or malignant malicious destruction by war or terrorism. By my account that doesn’t -- that leave out nuclear power, it leaves out large hydrodams, it leaves out large coal plants, it leaves out long distance foreign oil imports. It does mean you want to be highly efficient at the point of view so that if you lose your electric grid, your house can coast through even a very cold winter or a very hot summer and not cause occupants to be put at any risk. You want a car that’s still efficient that a tank of gas can go for months without refueling or that you have a smart designed city so that you can get around as a pedestrian or in a bicycle-friendly way. So even if you lost your oil supply for a year, you would still have most of your ability for people to have mobility access. This is all turns out to be both ecologically superior, economically superior, and probably one of the best natural security approaches, going local and distributed highly diverse forms.

by Michael P. Totten

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Mohammed Arkoun:

by Mohammed Arkoun

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Mohau Pheko: Look, I think that first of all we've got to move out of the notion that we are going to the same energy sources for generations because I think that first of all, we have trespassed, to be honest, on our uses of these energy in such a way that there is no way that there is a way to go backwards and change what we have done but can only start to look forward. One, I think that we have to find new ways of creating energy, new renewable sources of energy, fuels, etcetera, because I think that -- when for example, I look at plants like Jatropha, which are biofuels, one they create economic opportunities for women in communities, they enable us to create other products so that women can use oils, they can use candles, and those can be used to generate income. And so, at that level, you are beginning at the local communities and local levels to begin to help them to become self-reliant and beginning to create local economies that can sustain people and create employment opportunities for them. I also think that we only have one opportunity to preserve biodiversity in the world today. So, I think that we need to create a model that helps us create new sources of energy that also create opportunities for people while at the same time preserving and enabling, particularly women, to continue to be the custodians of our biodiversity.

by Mohau Pheko

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Monira Rahman:

by Monira Rahman

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Neela Marikkar: I think controlling the excessive use of resources is very very important. I think the only way that we can manage is, is we’ve got to educate people. We’ve got to teach people about conserving thing -- to conserving this. And, I think it is only through education, through media, and public awareness programs that we can raise these issues. Perhaps we need to have a day every year, where we shut down things in order for people, I mean, where we have a “Save Energy Day” where all the people in the world would have a day when they can feel what it is like not to have these, the use of all these energies so that people become sensitive and become more conscious to conserve. I think that apart from educating people and from people experiencing what it is like to not have these sources of energy, it would also save a lot of energy for if the world would just shut down for one day. So, I think this would be one possibility, but the biggest thing, I think the most important way, is through public education, through awareness building campaigns. These are the ways that we can educate people on the alternatives, on the issues that would result if we were to carry on consuming this the way we are at the moment.

by Neela Marikkar

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Oliviero Toscani: Our habit, our habit has to stop; they have to start to be our rights. We can go on to have certain habits thinking that is normal and it is kind of a right, so that what we have to do. But we won’t do that. We won’t do that. We will come to the cows, we will come to the emergency, we will come to the final disaster, probably, and the final disaster will be easy, we will get rid of humankind. We are the problem; human kind is the problem. So we don’t have to save that world so we have to save the human kind. We can’t do that. We can’t – we don’t have – you know, we say we have to save the nature; no, we don’t. By thinking, by saving the nature we save ourselves right, no. We are not completed, we are not finished. We haven’t – you know, our creation is not completed yet. We have to go on, and of course earth is what is helping us. We have to go on creating ourselves – finishing to create ourselves to become a perfect creation like any animal or any tree is. I don’t believe in humankind. No, I don’t. I’ll tell you, I am embarrassed to belong to that race, and at the same time I am fascinated by it. [more in another language].

by Oliviero Toscani

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Oscar Olivera: The "Long Emergency" is caused by global powers that are eager to continue extracting everything that our mother Earth has given to us. I think we should fight against the economic model, against global powers that extinguish national conscience of the people and destroy this way humanity. There is no other historical role for such nations because otherwise we are condemned to a total destruction of humanity through the interests of global powers.

by Oscar Olivera

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Paul D. Miller:

by Paul D. Miller

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Paul Knight: I think the answer once again is education. People need to understand what this is about. We can’t prepare if people don’t understand what they’re preparing for. It’s a matter of insuring that people really know what’s being said, know how it’s being said, understand the implications on their lives and that this an issue for us all. We can’t just say well, the end is nigh. If we don’t explain to people that may not have been engaged in the process along the way what it means to them and what it’s going to do they really do need to focus on this. So education I think is the most critical thing we can do at this stage. We need to educate all the communities globally about what’s required and what this is.

by Paul Knight

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Pauline Tangiora: Dear, dear Mike, you give a really doomsday look at our humanity. Humanity will survive because it's strong enough to realize that there is a point where they have to look at what they are doing. We all know that our planet cannot survive at the current rate it’s going in the misuse of our resources. But there is time to change; it is time to be more hopeful because I have a belief that the creator is going to give us that incentive to do what we need to do. Indigenous peoples around the world have been saying for long time, that there are many things we need to protect before it is destroyed. But indigenous peoples also know that there is a greater power than us and if we put belief in our system of knowing that things can lead on to stop it and I will consistently say again and again that it is not the ordinary people that is at fault, it is the big companies that produce all these consumer goods which we are asking for and if we continue on this consumer demand instead of being satisfied with what we need and not what we want, then there is a survival. There is a poverty in the world which is created by the multinational creation of goods that the consumer -- and it’s a throwaway world we now live in and we must realize we cannot keep going in a throwaway world and continually replenish what we don't need to, goods.

by Pauline Tangiora

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Pico Iyer:

by Pico Iyer

Sep 9, 2006 3:00:00 PM cite

Rachid ElDaif: Yes, exactly, exactly. I personaly don't have an idea. I think there are experts who are able to answers such questions. But I, personaly, honestly, I don't know how.

by Rachid ElDaif