Long Term Problems

The world is faced with an unusual number of problems that require long term solutions. But unfortunately, politics, one of the key sources for solutions, just plain does not work long term. And that spells trouble.

Global warming comes to mind first; this definitely won't be fixed overnight -- or even over the next couple decades.

The oil situation. Frankly I think the oil is drying up quicker than anyone realizes. No one knows what the Saudi oil reserves are except the Saudis, and its quite possible that they have much less on reserve than is commonly believed. There is new oil out there somewhere, no doubt about it, but the big reserves have already been found and are well on their way to being tapped out. Other than the oil shales in Canada, I think oil is in decline. And if oil dries up -- admittedly something not likely for a while but on the horizon -- then no amount of price increases will fill your tank.

If oil goes away there are at least two major problems. One is fuel, of course. The fact that so much of the world depends on oil as an energy source means things are going to grind to a halt in a hurry unless long-term plans are made for alternative sources to take over. The other problem is petroleum-based products, like plastics. We can find alternative energy sources; where are we going to find alternative materials to fill in for all the things currently made of oil-based plastics?

(There's a third problem, namely that contentiousness for an increasingly rare resource now in greater demand than ever is as likely to lead to international conflict as anything. And of course, to paraphrase from the movie "Syriana", two hundred years ago the Arab states were just sand, and when the oil runs out, that's what they're going to return to -- except that now those Arab states are under the influence of questionable demigods who might do who-knows-what when whatever source of prosperity runs out.)

The shift in world political dominance away from the US and Europe and towards India and China is also a long term problem. This is not to say that the US and Europe are going away, just that the stage that they are acting on is now getting crowded (think Marlon Brando and Cary Grant being added to thbe cast of a movie already starring Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne). Getting the balance to make all these actors get along is not going to be easy or fast.

We look to our governments to help sort out and find solutions to these problems. Science, religion, engineers all have their place, but politicians are the prime actors. Unfortunately, politicians have only a short time horizon and rarely seem to act on anything that will last longer than the next election cycle (if that). How can we expect these short-term blowhards to deal with problems whose solutions need to be measured in decades?

Not good, folks, not good.