Hi everyone. In my last post, I talked about the Paris Climate Agreement. Today I want to talk about humankind and how much time we have left on Earth. About a month ago, physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking said that unless we colonize another planet in the next hundred years, humankind will not survive. He predicted this based on 4 possibilities: Nuclear Warfare- In the 1980’s during the height of the cold war, only the US and Russia had nuclear weapons. But now many countries have that capability and our aggressive nature could lead to nuclear warfare which would destroy us. Global Warming- This goes back to the Paris agreement. Mr. Trump has said that it is a hoax. But there are definitely signs of global warming and that humans are the ones responsible. Now many people say that our models could be wrong, but what if they are right? We need to take some deliberate steps to reduce/reverse global warming. Also, by the end of this century, i.e. in the year 2100, human population is predicted to be 20 billion. We are probably going to run out of space to live and food to eat especially because we are destroying forests and open land to make room for housing. Man Made Viruses- Decoding the human genome is a great advance. We can now figure out what genes are responsible for diseases. But we still don’t know a lot about genes. What if we create microorganisms that are resistant to existing medicines? They could wipe out our race. Robots-Advances in Artificial Intelligence could lead to more advanced weapons. Robots could take over kind of like in the Terminator movies.

But Mr. Hawking also says that he is an optimist and that human beings can survive longer if we recognize all these dangers and take steps to manage them.

Please let me know what you think.

Hi everyone. Good morning. It has been a long time since my last post. But recent events have given me a reason to write this post. I am pretty sure all of you know that on Thursday June 1st, President Trump said that he was withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. Now for the record, I don’t agree with the decision and many people around the world don’t either. Also, for the record, I don’t believe global warming is a hoax. Obviously, President Trump received a lot of criticism for making that decision. The Paris Agreement, while good in theory, had a lot of practical issues. You are welcome to delve deep into its details, but basically the agreement states that countries will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by a certain percentage by a certain time. First, it is a non-binding agreement. So if a country does not meet its requirements, there is no penalty or consequence. Second, there was not set date by which the countries are supposed to lower the emissions. For example the US said it will do so by 2025, while China said that it will do so by 2030. Not sure why there was no fixed date for every country. The third and the most important according to me is that there is no enforcer of the agreement. In other words, if a country does not meet their commitment, who will enforce the agreement. Given that two of the biggest polluters, the US and China, also happen to be the two most powerful countries, enforcement could be a big issue. Granted countries could form a coalition to enforce it, I still think it is difficult.

In his decision, President Trump said that I was elected to serve citizens of Pittsburgh and not Paris. Ironically, the Mayor of Pittsburgh is in favor of staying in the Paris Agreement and he said that Pittsburgh will do whatever it can to protect the environment. There in lies the message of this post. I don’t think it is up to Government to protect the environment. Granted that Government makes policy, but as voters, we can influence that policy. Just like anything else, if we want to protect the environment, we have to take steps ourselves by doing whatever we can. For example, recycling, reusing and reducing the waste we create, driving energy efficient or hybrid or electric cars.  Using solar or other forms of alternate energy. So I hope we can do our part and let the Government catch up.