User talk:JakPen

What would happen if we continued destroying our planet at the rate that we are today? Using resources faster than they can be restored or replaced all the while faced with the exponential growth in global populations. What's behind the clear-cutting, over-fishing, pollution and of course deserts and ocean dead zones growing at an alarming rate? Industrial Capitalism is a deranged model used globally that is based on the extraction of resources. With technology focused on how to deplete the land, even bigger and more destructive equipment and machinery is being employed to destroy environments and the communities that depend on them leaving behind them a wake of contamination, pollution, loss of habitat and bio-diversity and most of all, health and livelihood burdens on the people that live nearby. This system does not give accounting value to any of this. Not for the resources exploited, the cost of the health problems it causes, costs of filtering and cleaning water and land left behind, the cost of not having trees and fish and mountains that were blown up for their ore. Some may dismiss this as to being the problems of developing countries', which of course do bear the biggest hardships in the externalized effects of these practices, but even in the U.S., National Forests are leased for as little as $2.40 per acre to be deforested or stripped of their valuable minerals, left barren of their resources and polluted through the process contaminating the people and animals. Capitalism as practiced is financially beneficial for the few, for now, but will not continue to be as it is not sustainable and gives little value to the most valuable resources involved in the system; that is human and natural capital. To add fuel to the fire, policies and subsidies devised to initiate new business and competition into the marketplace, have contributed to these practices and have been successfully fought by lobbyists to keep some of the most exploitative businesses on public welfare year after year. David Bollier who wrote "Private Plunder of Common Wealth" offers a model based on the common good rather than the corporate good suggesting that resources depleted should be appropriately valued, replaced and payments distributed to the communities that they are taken from allowing for a more fair distribution of wealth. He goes beyond natural resources to the extent of pointing out even markets are not owned by Wall Street but are a creation of the social commons. In our current financial crisis, the fact becomes more clear as it was a $700billion and perhaps even up to $7.4trillion bailout that was financed by the tax payers, yes, We the People. We now have an opportunity to restructure our broken system into one that works for the people as it was originally intended to. It is our duty as citizens to demand a sustainable return on our investments. A reorganizing of the value we place on natural and human resources and adapting a new model that implements a triple bottom line of Economy, Environment and Social performance will create a regenerating return in prosperity for generations to come. It is in this state of emergency in our current conditions that have caused me to imagine a future that has risen from the current hazards of "business as usual." With the doubling of human populations and dwindling of resources to sustain us all, a picture of bleak possibilities emerged. This work is the first in a series of probable science-fiction scenarios that may seal our ancestral reputations as a curse to the planet. Utenia is a world created by the science and ecological communities as a self-generating and sustainable Biome that has protected it's inhabitants from the degrading world around it. In this not to far off future account, scarcity of food, water and basic necessities has led to even further contamination of the planet wiping out species after species almost including humankind leading the Science community to resort to genetic engineering to save Humanity. Over hundreds of years, the Earth begins to heal itself and human survivors do emerge. Evolution plays it's literal role not of reconfiguring genotypes into some great final purpose or plan, but by adapting the remaining species to the environments they are made to survive in. That of Utenia is a fruitful world which has been protected by a society which has used it's technology to provide a means of sustainable energy driven by the sun's power and has shielded a large area against the contamination and wars of the outside world. Outside of Utenia, anything remaining has had to adapt underground in a harsh and scarce environment away from the sun's effect on the chemicals that fill the air. Another mutation yet in human kind, is a civilization remaining of the corporate giants, policy makers and financial leaders that were responsible for the fall of Earth. Although they had a plan in place during the Last War, involving a storage of food, water and vital supplies in their shelter "region of safety.", it eventually depletes leaving their geographically isolated environment just as scarce and harsh as that of the “Outsiders" which is now what the common people have become.  Through generations of stories in the remote region semi sheltered from atomic blasts, the Pinacle people have passed down lessons of greed, power and plunder which becomes rekindled when the people and animals come back above ground from their dwellings.  This series is designed to illustrate potentials and consequences of a not far off future. I hope this work will appeal to all ages to pass on the value of our most precious resources and realize the common good in this day when only a select 2% alone own over half of the global wealth

-***	It is 3002 and every country has broken out in Civil War over the remaining resources. A group of ecologists, biologists, scientists, doctors and professionals have come together in Denmark to launch a biome shield years in the making called the Orka as a means of protecting themselves from such a disaster. They have made agreements with the leaders of surrounding countries to extend this shield across nations in a radius of thousands of miles calling the project "Utenia". The project is a success as the Orka is activated protecting the group that has made it in. Bombs have been launched to attack the region, but the molecular structure of the Orka absorbs the blasts and radiation to covert it into stored energy for the system. Meanwhile, a contamination by the corporation Monsteno has wiped out practically every living organism as their products were distributed to every country and even natural seeds saved and stored have not been able to grow in the soil left behind. The planet quickly becomes a desert as populations of every species began to rapidly die off. The Last War has raged the planet for years. Corporations begin to offer "regions of shelter" to the important, the elite and the rich. Pinacle is the lead company in it's industry offering a hidden spacious fall-out facilities, fortified, secured and stocked with the most prized commodities and services. Refugees of all civilizations scatter looking for a way to survive. Heightened in stalemate country after country begin to launch nuclear attacks against each other in panic. The planet is plagued by disease from the bio-weapons and nuclear waste is the new atmosphere on planet Earth. Utenia's communication with the outside world is empty of the news of wars and battles now and airways stop producing even the final broadcasts on individuals' radio waves and become forgotten about. More than a thousand years pass and somehow, there are survivors, forced underground in to the scarce pockets deep enough and sheltered enough from the fall out, some have managed to live.