the most difficult problem The most difficult problem facing the world today is sharing Earth's dwindling

resources.. There are several ways to look at this problem.. Imagine we're rats in a cage with limited food supply. There are a few distinct ways we can organize to allocate that limited food supply: dictatorship, democracy, communism, and cooperative. Surely, the food supply belongs to all rats in the cage, but some rats feel entitled to decide how to allocate that food based on: familial preference, strength, intelligence, education, or any combination of those factors.. This is the essence of human social order. i cannot question it; it's a human historical fact. But human beings have a strong tendency to administer local resources based on 'birthright' and other social/political factors. Let's say i was a Saudi with strong family ties to a region where we claimed ownership, where tremendous oil reserves existed, and where other families did not dispute our claim. Great for our family; dismal for the rest.. So our family becomes rich beyond 'dreams of avarice' and others must pay to access our resources.. simply because our family was fortunate to claim this resource laden land. Is it fair? Certainly not. Is it the case with most resources on the planet? Unfortunately yes. So one of the principal tasks of modern society is to 'unravel' and 'solve' this problem about resource allocation.. First, we must decide what are 'global resources' those material things many human beings depend on.. Like oil, like water, like arable land.. Then we must decide some scheme where those human beings are allowed equitable access to those resources.. My 'final' concern would have been about 'tithing' / paying taxes to the 'landowners' but.. We must decide globally-democratically if they even 'deserve' such a thing.. i know this sounds like communism but.. Considering our only alternatives are: global warfare, global conflict over resources, and waste of those very resources in conflicts over them it becomes a critical concern whether or not we should recognize 'original landowners' or not.. We need to decide several factors about Earth resources: 1. what are global/semi-global resources 2. how to provide equitable access to those resources 3. if we should tithe any percentage to local landowners 4. finally, how those resources are distributed How do we equitably distribute global/semi-global resources? Good question. If we base resource distribution solely on need, this would equate with 'whomever is neediest gets the lion's share' but that's horrifically unfair to responsible minorities. The key criteria is self-evident: responsible usage. So wasting oil on SUV usage is irresponsible while using oil to produce hybrid vehicles is responsible. :) i realize i'm being over-simplistic but we must begin somewhere. My mother asked the question: How do we democratically decide resource allocation? i realize it's infeasible, at present, to create a pure global democracy but a true representative parliament might temporarily satisfy this question. Another question: How can we actually conquer human greed? We can't. But we can produce a viable alternative economic model that is more sustainable and equitable than the current floundering profit model: the co-op. :) And we can emulate that model at all levels of society as best we can. :) i realize these suggestions and ideas will not be listened to nor acted upon but someone must take a stand and explicitly demarcate what is going wrong in our society and why. They must also make explicit what courses of action we may take to better our situation. :) We've already passed 'peak oil'

and so from here-on-in, the global situation surrounding oil is all downhill. We must develop alternative fuel technologies, we must mass produce them, we must mass consume them, and we must decide on more equitable social structures that both conserve and distribute resources more fairly based on responsible usage. :) If we continue to allow the current profit model to dominate our economies, we will only end in discord and discontentment based on horrific inequity. We need to make and follow an explicit global plan to convert the existing dominating profit model to a fair and balanced cooperative model. :) All it takes is one man with a good vision to guide the rest of us to a realistic utopia. :) Whether i'm alive or dead tomorrow does not matter listen to my words (and follow them;) today. :) With Love, sam A video version of this article can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_TvNgLZvpY