If you took Biology 101, you may remember “Natural Law 1: Every human needs adequate nutrition, clean air and clean water, and, therefore, must respect the symbiotic environmental processes relevant to those needs.”
Air is abundant; therefore, it’s free. Nobody charges others for breathing air. With desalination technology, we can now turn (rising) salty water into fresh water, and we do! Until recently, only 1 percent of the earth’s water could be used for drinking and irrigation. Now, almost 100 percent is available. Water can now become abundant, and should therefore become free. No more wars over fresh water (like Israel-Palestine), or death and disease due to lack of clean water.
With hydroponic technology, we can now grow anything with just water and electricity, and we do! We now grow food in deserts and the poles. If food no longer requires land or sun, we can grow anything anywhere and on a vertical scale. Imagine a tall building with a different vegetable or fruit in every floor. We can get rid of all world famines and malnutrition. In fact, every vegetable and fruit would become equally available everywhere. We can make food abundant anywhere, and therefore free everywhere. Every year, millions of people die from lack of clean water or inadequate nutrition. Thanks to hydroponic agriculture, millions of lives (and much more suffering) can be saved
every year.
But if hydroponic agriculture requires water and electricity, and only water is free, how do you acquire and pay electricity? Well, the only clean, safe, environmental, sustainable and recyclable energy is electricity that comes from geothermal, solar, wind, and wave energy.
Some people wonder how much of today’s world energy needs can be produced if we combine these four sources. It turns out, geothermal, solar or wind alone would be enough. Geothermal equals 4,000-plus years of power; solar equals 10,000 times current world’s needs; 20 percent of wind equals all world’s current needs; wave equals 50 percent of the world’s needs. In fact, 34 percent of the UK’s energy can come from tides (far less powerful than waves). Energy would be so overabundant that electricity would be free.
Some people say “I don’t like electric cars because they can’t go faster than 80 mph.” Well, look at your dashboard: who drives 150 mph? Why make road signs that say “speed limit 70 miles,” when you can design cars not to exceed those limits. If all cars were electric, and electricity is free, then there’s no more paying for gas (or borrowing money from China to pay Saudi oil), and no more polluting the air.
Like air, water, food and electricity can now be free. No more water or electric bills. Free trips to the grocery store. No more deaths and suffering due to poverty and famine. No more work is necessary once you own a home and a vehicle. No more crimes due to hunger and unemployment. Why aren’t we living in this world?
People die every day from lack of clean water, not because it’s unavailable, but because they can’t buy it. A decade ago, the oil industry “killed” GM’s electric car, and is now doing everything it can to prevent other sources of energy from growing. Pollution in air, water, and soil are not just causing cancer, disease and death (Natural Law 1); air pollution is also causing global warming, causing the extinction of species 1,000 times faster than the natural rate.
Every year, 34,000 children die from poverty and disease. It’s time we grow up. In the future, people will look back at this time and call our system and lifestyle “primitive.”
Oregon Daily Emerald > Opinion
Food, water should be free for all
Guest Commentary
Published: Sunday, March 7, 2010
Updated: Monday, March 8, 2010 00:03
32 comments
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