THE EARTH: RECYCLED
There are two processes that could help solve a great many of the problems we experience everywhere on earth if we can expend the time, money, and creative thought processes to make them practical and available cheaply to all countries: Desalination and efficiently recycled waste.
Desalination: All countries on every continent would benefit from pure water for drinking and cooking, agriculture and for solving basic problems of drought and desert conditions wherever they occur. With this solution everyone, everywhere benefits, from the rich to the poor. All would benefit economically and culturally with the advantages of plentiful crops, the beauty of plants, trees and flowers, and even ponds and lakes, both natural and artificial. Water is essential to life, but with climate change occurring throughout the history of the earth, there are times when rainfall and snowfall just don’t fall where they are desperately needed. However, with three-fourths of the earth’s surface covered with water, there is no reason to have to depend on rainfall or snowpack. Technologically advanced peoples are capable of learning how to remove salt and other impurities from sea water to make it useable. But this must first become a priority.
Recycling waste efficiently: Throughout the history of the earth, humans have deposited their waste back into the earth and its lakes and streams. This works, but it takes a very long time for the earth itself to accomplish the recycling process. We technologically advanced peoples with our advanced creative abilities on the other hand should be able to accomplish this in a comparatively short time. By reducing our waste products to a basic state that can be used again in many areas, it could become the fundamental for new plastics, metals, ceramics, etc, that would make it possible to make new building materials for housing, new and more efficient machines, and cheaper and more efficient clothing. All of these would become easier once again to recycle. This would lessen the need to use natural materials and help to preserve the environment, and this should give nature the opportunity again to replenish and grow naturally. The jobs that this would open would then be in completely new areas which could grow into new ways of producing materials for space travel, lighter and stronger building materials for space, and new possibilities for society’s needs in vehicles, clothing, food, water and medicines. And, as new sources of power and drive are discovered, this in turn could facilitate cheaper and more ubiquitous space travel. The probability then increases of reaching distant planets and galaxies where these same techniques for recycling would apply.
Socially, when everyone has enough to eat and is satisfied, territorial tensions of all sorts tend to decrease. When you have enough, then the desire to take someone else’s (the grass is always greener tendency) decreases. War just might become obsolete or at least no longer viable. At this point a sort of calm could ensue. Mind altering drugs for escape should no longer be as necessary, at least to the extent and for the reasons we now experience. Peace of a sort may just be within reach. (Maybe not perfectly for we are still human). But in this way, science, religion and free creative thinking could all coexist. The arts could once again bloom and flower. And all of this could conceivably occur because of two processes: desalination and efficient waste recycling. Is this even possible? Everything starts as just an idea…
Musically, we are increasingly dealing with recycled notes, forms and patterns. There is very little that is new or innovative. Creatively we are stuck in a system that is hundreds of years old. Long, long ago only melody was necessary to express the ideas of the time. This lasted through the ancient Greeks and Romans. At some point 4ths and 5ths became consonant and relaxing to the ear. Then there was a gradual change to the consonance of 3rds and 6ths which has continued through the present day. Though there was a brief trial of the 12 tone system, it was still part of the scale system we still use. As with desalination and efficient recycling, the problem we deal with musically is how to get to the next stage of development. How do we build upon the accomplishments of preceding generations? It is never easy, but it happens. The organization of sound, the sounds themselves and the use of language and the human voice will all be recycled into something new that will satisfy the new needs of those humans living on this and other planets. The possibilities are endless. There are no limits, only creativity. Thoughts precede realization. Think about it…