In my previous article Yes Virginia There Is a Future I noted there were four basic concerns or 'dooms' related to our potential future: food, pollution, population, and energy.
In that article I presented possible solutions to the world's food crisis.
With nearly 7 billion people living on this earth, pollution has become a challenge.
Seventy percent of our planet's surface is water: Streams, rivers, lakes and oceans.
Unfortunately many of these have become polluted.
The largest garbage dump in the world is not on land.
Do you know where it is? The Pacific Ocean.
The patch of garbage stretches from the coast of California to Japan and it's estimated to be twice the size of the state of Texas.
In some areas of the Pacific Ocean, this dump is estimated to be 90% plastic and 90 feet deep.
Only 2.
8% of the Earth's water is available for human consumption.
The average American uses between 140 to 160 gallons of water every day of the week.
Not a pretty picture is it? Yet, there is hope.
Today, right now, we have the technology to clean up the pollutants in our water and air.
The California Department of Public health has reported that the cleanest water in the state is the outfall from the sewage plant of Los Angeles County.
At Lake Tahoe much of the water is reclaimed.
Filtering systems have been added to manufacturing plants, to automobiles and trucks to lessen the air pollutants.
Clean energy is available.
So why haven't we cleaned up the pollution? The answer may be below.
A Nimitz Class aircraft carrier costs about 45 billion dollars to build.
It costs $160,000,000 per year to operate.
That's roughly $439,000 per day.
One has to wonder what that amount of money could do to clean up the pollutants in our water and air.
Norman W Wilson, PhD