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Humans have always
faced crisis's in our long history.
Alvin Toffler in his epic books
Third
Wave and
Future Shock, predicted much of
what we are seeing unfolding today. He saw
three great waves of human history; each wave
pushed out the existing societies and
cultures then replaced them with new ways of
thinking, making a living, governing, food production,
religion, human interaction and
organization.
The First Wave was a transformation, which
occurred when humans replace the hunter
gatherer culture with
agriculture during the
Neolithic Revolution.
The Second Wave the replacement of the
agricultural society with the Industrial Age
during the Industrial Revolution.
The Third Wave we are seeing today is
replacing the Industrial Age with a Post
Industrial Society in what he called the
Information Age.
Each of these
transformative stages of human development caused
conflicts (sometimes civil but many times violent)
between those who welcomed the change and those who
wanted to maintain the status quo. The present stage
is truly monumental. Today we are facing many
issues; expanding democracy, controlling the spread
of disease, providing health insurance, preventing
hunger, providing housing, controlling population,
ending racism, insuring clean energy, ending
terrorism, ending pollution, controlling the
proliferation of guns. Finally the one issue that
overrides all the other issues is climate change,
since all others are mute since the fate of our
civilization and planet hinges. We need and should
demand leaders that are dedicated to overcome these
challenges regardless of the monetary
and political cost! We need a population that
realizes the dangers of the challenges and is
willing to do what ever it takes to insure a
healthy, informed and responsible climate. Our
planet, civilization and the future of our children
depends on what we do today!
