(This is Part 1 of a 2-part article.)
In my opinion, terrorism is not the #1 challenge facing the United States. It's not even second. It's probably not even third.
What's first? Again in my opinion, that would be the environment and global warming. The heating of the planet is an extremely serious matter, something which is coming on at an ever-accelerating pace, and yet it's virtually unmentioned in our current electoral debate.
But global warming and the health of life's ecosystem is of paramount importance. The warning signs are everywhere—disappearing glaciers, extinction of species, toxic buildup, increasingly destructive weather and so on. We can't say we haven't been warned.
It seems obvious to say it, but without a planet we don't have anything else to work with. Everything else depends on the well-being of the planet itself, and yet we humans are in the process of gravely damaging this one, perhaps irretrievably. Meantime the administration is basically oblivious to the problem.
The second greatest challenge faced by America is probably the woeful state of our finances. If the federal books were kept like any normal corporation's they would show that the U.S. government is already technically bankrupt, but just doesn't know it yet.
Our unfunded obligations at the federal level are currently approaching $44 trillion, an astounding sum far in excess of the "official" federal debt of some $8 trillion, which is already alarming enough. Moreover, the spiraling twin U.S. fiscal and trade deficits are creating extreme imbalances within the global financial system.
This deterioration is mostly occurring behind the scenes, but the financial system, laden down with a veritable Everest of debt, has become extremely fragile in the judgment of many observors. History teaches that systems that become too fragile usually succumb to a catastrophe sooner or later because they encounter some stressor that, in their fragile state, cannot be dealt with effectively or sufficiently.
(This is the end of Part 1. Go to Part 2.)
—jim sloman, 10.5.06
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