Who is responsible for fixing this planet?

Imagine for a moment that you are aware of the following facts:

In a world population of about 6 billion:
• 6% owns ½ of all the wealth in the world
• 75% do not own a phone and 50% have never made a phone call ever
• Only 7% own a car
• Less than 1/10 of 1% has a computer or has ever been on the internet
• 80% live in substandard housing
• 70% cannot read
• 50% suffer from malnutrition
• 33% do not have access to safe, clean drinking water

(Figures courtesy of Teresa Beed, Ph.D., CPA)
www.newaccountantusa.com...

And imagine further that you had some confidence in the accuracy of these facts.

Now take the even more dangerous leap of concluding that these facts have some bearing on the survival of the planet. Yes, the planet that you, your children, and hopefully your grandchildren will be living on for the foreseeable future. Imagine that if the above facts, seen as planetary situations, were mitigated, the survivability of the planet would be improved. (My reference only lists some of the more obvious social situations on the planet. It doesn’t mention pollution, species die-offs, etc. which also bear heavily on this point.)

The next hopefully obvious question is: Whose responsibility is it to handle these situations? Is there a particular course you take or job you get hired for where you learn how to do this?

What would be your answer?

When I was a teenager I assumed that the answer was basically: The educated people of the world. This was their job. I assumed that if someone was going to go to the trouble and expense of obtaining a higher education, they were doing it because they were aware of all the situations out there that needed to be handled, and were eager to learn enough so that they could participate in solving these problems.

Naïve? I guess so!

And though as a young man I had a woefully inadequate understanding of what our modern education system was really all about, this didn’t change my basic observation. Who else but the institutions of higher education and the people that went through them were in a position to do anything significant towards handling these situations?

I was still quite young when I read Plato’s The Republic. Though I don’t recall it all that well, I recently downloaded and re-read a few pages from it, “The Allegory of the Cave.” In these few pages, Plato lays out, though the voice of Socrates, his basic understanding of how educated people are created and why it is their duty to sit in positions of leadership in society.

www.historyguide.org...

The theme of social responsibility and community service is repeated so many times by members of the academic community that I don’t think it’s necessary to quote them here. This idea gets a lot of lip service, but not much bottom line.

As a young man, I was so unimpressed by the academic world’s so-called commitment to making the planet a better place that I could not make myself go to college, though I was very qualified and my parents were totally ready to pay my way.

And though I eventually found a group that does seem to be attempting to wear these shoes, in the absence of the ones who we would expect to be wearing them, there is no denying that (college) educated people are a huge resource across the planet and many of them do dearly want to help.

There is another group, even more dubious in stature than the academics (who after all have contributed all sorts of useful discoveries and technologies to the planet in spite of themselves) and that is the “intellectuals.” Strictly speaking, you don’t even have to have a college degree to me a member of this group.

Back in 1967, Noam Chomsky wrote an article entitled “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” which offered this group a somewhat extracurricular hat to wear in society:

IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.

Hm. I guess that’s what we call “intellectual honesty.”

www.chomsky.info...

This adds a dimension to the responsibilities of the truly educated that Plato was quite aware of but that apparently did not survive well down through the centuries.

I did find one obscure professor that posted a PDF mentioning this. He put it this way:

Increased global competition can lead to temptation to employ undesirable means to succeed superficially; highly undesirable trait!

(“Traits of an Academic” Prof. Arun S. Mujumdar, NUS Mechanical Engineering Dept, February 2004)
serve.me.nus.edu.sg...

Why, we may ask, with all these good thoughts from all these good people, has the population of the world been left out on a limb to “twist slowly in the wind?”

Only the most dedicated and intellectually courageous among us will survive with a certainty of the true answer to that question.

To return to Ms. Beed:

I guarantee that every one of you, regardless of your degree area, will be in a situation sooner or later where you will be in a position to take advantage of others due to your education. Think about that. Keep it in mind your entire life. AND DON’T DO IT. More over – go one step further… actively look for ways to use your education for the benefit of all. Thank you.

I don't understand where you have come to the conclusion that the planet is dying? Species will die off and new ones will arise, environmental changes will force species to adapt and survive. It is quite an arrogant attitude to believe that in the approx 200 years of industrialisation that we have the capability of destroying this planet let alone the biosphere.

I believe what you mean is the survival of the human species?

I am 100% sure the 4th one is wrong.

have faith... in the aliens.

Originally posted by l_e_cox

Who is responsible for fixing this planet?

Humanity is collectively responsible.

If we fail. Humanity failed.

Not the rich or the poor.

Humanity.

If Iwere in charge - I would embark on a programme of genocide.
I'm not tellin you who i would choose to eradicate though - but trust me, it would certainly solve earths problems.

Who is responsible for fixing our planet?

You and I are, regardless of our differences, muslim, jews, christians, hindus, buddhists, atheists, white, black, male, female, young, old, educated, uneducated, etc, for we are ALL ONE RACE - Humans, sharing this planet.

Which is why we must have that vital and critical freedom TO VOICE OUT, to speak our minds over our concerns, to discuss and debate freely without fear or favour for the direction of our planet and species that should be going.

Should we remain silent, apathetic or leave it to a few, than chances we will all be doom, for that few are only flawed mortals just as we are, capable of making wrong decisions if unchecked.

The fate of our planet lays in you and I. Individually, we have no power, but if we can convince others through free discussions and debates beginning with our families, relatives and friends, to change others or our own flawed perceptions, then changes for the better will come, for yours and mine family, relatives and friends make up our society and world we live in.