Commentary: Opinion:

Globalization and World Crises

by Dr. Akira Ishikawa

Former Dean and Senior Research Fellow

Aoyama Gakuin University/ The University of Texas at Austin

 

Editor’s Note: The following paper points out an important ecological issue that affects us all; the author then goes on to present a possible solution, thereby fulfilling the Problem:Solution fundamental so important to this Journal’s focus on presenting ‘positive global solutions’. – JP

 

Dr. Hideo Itokawa – famous for a small planet under his name ITOKAWA excavated by Hayabusa, and an authority on rocketry who unfortunately passed away in 1999 –  predicted in his last book, Would the Human Race Be Annihilated in the 21st Century? (1994), that “Humankind is destined to be wiped out from the face of the earth within 50 years, just like the mammoths in the past.” In order to avoid this catastrophe, he proposed what is called “Population Theory” – a theory of propagating altruistic love instead of egoistic love. Unfortunately, he passed away before his theory was completed.

 

While somewhat more optimistic than Dr. Itokawa’s theory, Dr. Junichi Nishizawa、recipient of the Order of Culture and president of Tokyo Metropolitan University, co-authored with Dr. Isao Ueno a similar book entitled Humans Will Become Extinct in the Next Eighty Years, in February 2000. The nucleus of this book is that while it is predicted that it will take another 150 years for carbon dioxide concentrations to reach the lethal 3% level where people will suffocate to death; it is predicted that, as methane hydrate, which had been stable at the bottom of the sea, becomes more and more unstable, it is highly likely that this will trigger a ‘Devil’s Cycle’ of methane and carbon dioxide, considerably escalating carbon dioxide concentration. Therefore, it is not so erroneous a prediction to say that humankind will be exterminated in about 80 years from now.

 

Dr. Lester Brown, director of the Worldwatch Institute – a renowned American environmental think tank – reports that the atmospheric carbon dioxide level has now reached the highest level in the past 150,000 years, and that most of the 232 species of primates that are closest to human beings among the mammalia are on the brink of extinction. Furthermore, worldwide, approximately 10,000 people are starving to death each day, and about one billion people who live on the sterile lands in the African and Asian continents are barely surviving day-to-day. (Refer to Chapter 8, An Introduction to Knowledge Information Strategy to be published by World Scientific, www.worldscientific.com for more details.)

 

Even without mentioning a book entitled Apocalypse 2012 written by Lawrence Joseph, Timewave Zero Theory by Telence McKenna, Strangelet Theory by Martin Rees, Gamma-ray Burst Theory, Photon Belt Theory and many others, it is clear that we are likely to be faced with catastrophe before long.

 

It seems that globalization is outdated and too much passive. We push ourselves forward to terraforming, that is to transfer the planet such as Mars and moon into the environment where human beings will be able to survive.

 

In order to terraform Mars, for example, it would first be necessary to disperse the vapor of hydrocarbon that is the source of warming effects like methane. Secondly, on the orbit of the Mars, huge mirrors would need to be constructed equipped with PET films with aluminum coating. Should the sunlight be focused on both poles, north and south, through the devices so that the existent dry ice and ice may be melted, carbon dioxide and vapor will be dispersed into space, thereby accelerating a rising temperature of the airspace.

 

And thirdly, seaweed or duckweed should be bred by dispersing the seeds and carbon materials, which will transform the surface nature of Mars into livable conditions.

 

Whether or not the aforementioned terraforming will be successful in due time would determine the survival of humankind.

 

(May 22, 2012)