(Draft) Section #10 Sorting out what are real challenges and what are sound and practical

solutions

is becoming more and more difficult, as there is now, in many parts of the world, a multitude of ideas of all kinds coming to the fore in personal, family, community, and cultural lifeall at the same time

(Statistics and Observations piece)

Part of a larger project The IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment 2011 which will be
a list ranking ten critical challenges which are destabilizing efforts for quality of life and basic human needs worldwide and organized so that there are two sections for each critical challenge identified Statistics and Observations and Commentary [Note: current Table of Contents included in this paper as Appendix]

by Stefan Pasti, Founder and Outreach Coordinator The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative (www.ipcri.net ) (July--September, 2011)

Contact Information: Stefan Pasti, Founder and Outreach Coordinator The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative P. O Box 163 Leesburg, VA 20178 (USA) stefanpasti@ipcri.net (703) 209-2093

10. Sorting out what are real challenges and what are sound and practical solutions is

becoming more and more difficult, as there is now, in many parts of the world, a multitude of ideas of all kinds coming to the fore in personal, family, community, and cultural lifeall at the same time

Statistics and Observations

The following list was created from two unpublished manuscript by this writer titled 1) Chronology of Discoveries, Inventions, and other Historical Events (from Ancient Times1899) and 2) A Timetable of Popular Events in American Culture (1900-1991) (the latter is accessible on the Internet at www.writingsofstefanpasti.net , see the section 1990-1999) (Note: The above mentioned unpublished manuscript was scanned and made into pdf files to make it accessible; however, the whole document had to be made into a number of smaller parts, so the pdf files could be a small enough to be easily accessed.) stone tools, fire, domestic animals, agriculture, wheel, plow, irrigation, pyraminds, Sage Kings, Vedas, iron utensils, Buddha, Great Wall, Silk Road, Roman Empire, Jesus Christ, paper, compass, Mohammed, water wheels, gunpowder, windmill, spectacles, clocks, Black Death, printing press, Columbus, Martin Luther, padlock, microscope, high heels, Shakespeare, threshing machine, gravity, shuttle loom, steam engine, steel casting, agricultural machines, encyclopedias, gas lighting, cotton gin, battery, World Population1 billion, waltz, electromagnetism, mechanical reaper, photography, baseball, rubber, telegraph, asphalt, germ theory, machine gun, Emancipation Proclamation, dynamite, typewriter, electricity, telephone, gas engine, refrigerator, phonograph, hydroelectricity, skyscrapers, electric stove, aspirin, radio waves, hamburger, first oil strike in Texas, vacuum cleaner, air conditioning, Wright Brothers airplane flight, Ellis Island immigration, Madame Curie, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein E=mc 2, tractor, Model T, chlorinated water, Geiger counter, plastic, advertising, Let Me Call You Sweetheart (popular song), Boy Scouts, Ragtime, Picasso, cinemas, Titanic, Eleanor H. Porter Pollyanna (book), tax collection, suffragettes, conveyor belt, Paul Bunyan, Tarzan, traffic lights, military tanks, heavyweight boxing, submarines, J.P. Morgan, jazz, birth control, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, Prohibition, revolution in Russia (Bolsheviks establish first socialist state), Typhus, World War I, Red Cross, Baron von Richtofen, Vaudeville, worldwide influenza epidemic, Radio Corporation of American, I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate (popular song), John Maynard Keynes, Rudolf Steiner, Womens International League for Peace and Freedom, League of Nations, radio broadcasting, Mahatma Gandhi, Nineteenth Amendment, Growth of the Soil (book), Ringling Brothers/Barnum and Bailey Circus, Norman Rockwell No Swimming (painting), Ku Klux Klan, King Tut, Hubble discovers another galaxy, supermarkets, six bottle cartons of Coca-Cola, electric shaver, 50% U.S. bread baked commercially, inner city bus lines, Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight? (popular song), International Business Machines, Ford Motor Company produces 10 millionth car, Kleenex, World Population2 billion, cigarettes, Grand Ole Opry, Sweet Georgia Brown (popular song), Adolf Hitler Mein Kempf (book), Al Capone, Babe Ruth, Are You Lonesome Tonight? (popular song), Talkies, A.A. Milne Winnie the Pooh (book), semi-automatic M-1 rifle, more than 20 million cars in use, Im Lookin Over a Four Leaf Clover (popular song), Charles Lindberg, First World Population Conference, Sears catalog, homogenized milk, New York Yankees, U.S. crude oil consumption 7.62 barrels/capita, E.M. Forster The Machine Stops (book), corn husker, Puttin on the Ritz (popular song), Stock Market Crash, mobile homes, science fiction, The Lone Ranger (radio show), Moby Dick (movie), Sigmund Freud Civilization and its Discontents (book), William Randolph Hearst owns 33 newspapers, Texas oil gusher makes H.L. Hunt rich, Till the Real Thing Comes Along (popular song), Popeye the Sailer Man (movie), frozen food, Clairol hair dye, Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? (popular song), In a Shanty in

Old Shantytown (popular song), BBC, King Kong (movie), New Deal, bread lines, Fritos corn chips, first Baseball All-Star game, Scrabble, 11% all grocery sales through 18,000 A&Ps, C.G. Jung Modern Man in Search of a Soul (book), Home Owners Loan Company extends loans to avoid home foreclosures, book burnings in Germany, What a Difference a Day Makes (popular song), Dust Bowl drives immigration of farmers to California, Securities and Exchange Commission created, Bonnie and Clyde, Monopoly (game by Parker Brothers), Charlie Chaplain Modern Times (movie), Maurice Granville Kains Five Acres and Independence (book), Social Security Act, first parking meter, Sergei Prokofiev Peter and the Wolf, Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People(book), John Maynard Keynes General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (book), Margaret Mitchell Gone with the Wind (book), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation established, Adolf Hitler gets 99% of vote in Germany, home freezers gaining over iceboxes, James Hilton Lost Horizon (book), Johanna Spyri Heidi (book), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (movie), Tao Te Ching (translation by Chu Ta-Kao), first Social Security checks issued, cigarette smoking linked to lung cancer, photocopying, shopping cart, Superman comic book, Invasion from Mars (radio broadcast), Our Town (play), Germanys trade balance shows deficit indicating bankruptcy, oil nationalized in Mexico, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (popular song), paperback books, The Wizard of Ox (movie), propeller torpedo (PT) boats, dishwasher, Gas 17 cents/gal., New York Times 2 cents/copy, U.S. imports 70% of world coffee production, on August 15, 1940 180 German planes shot down over London, Chattanooga Choo Choo (popular song), Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbor, Baseball fans admitted free at Fenway Park (Boston) with 2 lbs. of scrap metal, White Christmas (popular song), Mighty Mouse (cartoon), Casablanca (movie), Norman Rockwell Freedom of Speech (painting), Germans begin attempt to annihilate all European Jewish people, rationing (sugar, gas, coffee, etc), Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without, Ill Be Home for Christmas (popular song), federal income tax withholding okayed, D-Day, 85% U.S. bread commercially baked, 5000 U.S. homes have television, World War II: 54.8 million deaths (15 million military, 35 million civilian)many more millions cripplied, blinded, mutilated, orphaned, impoverished), 50 nations establish United Nations charter, Abbott and Costello Whos on First? (comedy skit), Route 66(popular song), Its a Wonderful Life (movie), ENIAC computer can multiply 5 digit number by itself 5000 times in second, noticeable increase in UFO sightings, Marshall Plan for reconstruction of Europe, discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, pizza, International Planned Parenthood, 1 million U.S. homes have television, Arthur Godfreys Talent Scouts (television show), plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab state adopted by United Nations, IBM produces SSEC computer capable of storing programs, Gandhi assassinated, U.S. becomes net importer of oil, Chinese communists win civil war over nationalists, North Korea invades South Korea, UNIVAC computer installed at U.S. Bureau of Census, first year for Diners Club credit card, electricity is produced from atomic reactor for first time in U.S., Howard Johnson has 351 restaurants, I Love Lucy (television show), coal smoke smog blamed for 4,000 deaths in London, TV guide, Trix cereal (40% sugar), U.S. Supreme Court orders school desegregation, Sixteen Tons (popular song), Mickey Mouse Club (television show), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads bus boycott in Montgomery (Alabama), Disneyland opens in Anaheim (California), Hound Dog (popular song), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (movie), Highway Act appropriates $32 billion for nationwide road system, McDonalds records 1 billioneth hamburger sold, All Shook Up (popular song), Jack Kerouac On the Road (book), Great Leap Forward in China puts billion people into 24,000 communes (guaranteed food, clothing, and shelterbut deprived of all personal property), more evidence of link between high fat diets and heart disease, Arnold Palmer wins Masters golf tournament, At the Hop (popular song), Gunsmoke (television show), Boris Pasternak Dr. Zhivago (book), U.S. scientists begin testing ozone layer, World Population3 billion, Barbie Dolls, Sleeping Beauty (movie), Ben-Hur (movie), skull fragments and crude stone tools found in Olduvia Gorge by Louis Leakey (and dated to 1.78 million years ago), television becomes available to villagers in India, Camelot (play), OPEC meets for the first time, Harper Lee To Kill a Mockingbird (book), first

television debates by presidential candidates, 141 cities in world with populations over 1 million, Where Have All The Flowers Gone? (popular song), The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (cartoon), Americans advised to build nuclear fallout shelters, Peace Corps, Presidents Physical Fitness Program, Blowin in the Wind (popular song), 90% of U.S. homes have television, Beverly Hillbillies (television show), Rachel Carson Silent Spring (book), first industrial robot, Willie Mays first $100,000/year baseball player, Da Do Ron Ron (popular song), Bonanza (television show), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I Have a Dream speech in Washington D.C., President Kennedy assassinated in Dallas (Texas), New Hampshire creates first state lottery, I Want To Hold Your Hand (popular song), Cant Buy Me Love (popular song), Bewitched (television show), Fiddler on the Roof (movie musical), The Sound of Music (movie musical), Nelson Mandela sent to life in prison for sabotage/subversion in South Africa, 51,000 Americans killed in car accidents in one year, Youve Lost That Lovin Feeling (popular song), Like a Rolling Stone (popular song), Get Smart (television show), teach-ins at 100 colleges on U.S. role in Vietnam conflict, Americans buy $60 million dollars worth of prescription drugs designed to help them lose weight, cigarette packages must have Surgeon Generals warning, first Rare and Endangered Species List by Department of Interior, Scarborough Fair (popular song), Sounds of Silence (popular song), Star Trek (television show), U.S. troops in Vietnam increase from 215,000 to 400,000, world food crises as food production drops by 2%, co-ed dormitories on college campuses, I Heard it Through the Grapevine (popular song), Ive Got Rhythm (popular song), average 18 year old has viewed 17,000 hours of television, Guess Whos Coming to Dinner (movie), worst race riots in U.S. history erupt in Detroit, CIA begins search for ties between foreign interests and anti-war groups, scientists predict increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in atmosphere will cause greenhouse effect, Beatles record sales (200 million worldwide), Piece of My Heart (popular song), Born to be Wild (popular song), While My Guitar Gently Weeps (popular song), Planet of the Apes (movie), Moscow claims right to intervene in counterrevolutionary activity and invades Czechoslovakia, Pope Paul VI bans all artificial contraceptives, Joe Namath leads New York Jets over Baltimore Colts 16-7 in Super Bowl II, Get Together (popular song), Its Your Thing (popular song), prime time television commercial costs $65,000, average child of 5 sees at least 13,000 people violently destroyed (on television shows or movies) by age 14, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin of Apollo XI mission walk on moon, oil spill off Santa Barbara (California) coast draws attention to need for environmental protection, Gallup Poll70% of people polled feel influence of organized religion is declining, Ball of Confusion (popular song), Woodstock (popular song), MASH (movie), Alvin Toffler Future Shock (book), David Reuben, MD Everything Youve Always Wanted to Know About Sex, but Were Afraid to Ask (book), first Earth Day in U.S., Its Too Late (popular song), American Pie (popular song), INTEL announces first microprocessorseveral integrated circuits on one silicon chip, Heart of Gold (popular song), The Club of Rome The Limits to Growth (book), first UN conference on human environment in Stockhold (Sweden), video games, Knockin on Heavens Door (popular song), American Graffiti (movie), Ernest Shumacher Small is Beautiful (book), 6% of world population (in U.S.) consumes 33% of world energy output/OPEC quadruples price of oil/U.S. experiences energy crises, Apollo 17 photograph of Earth, Supreme Court delivers stricter anti-porn ruling (requiring serious social value), UN FAO mobilizes 471,000 tons of grain and $130 million to keep Ethiopian famine victims alive, U.S. spends $2 billion/year feeding pets, World Population4 billion, Cats in the Cradle (popular song), NBC charges $225,000 for commercial during The Godfather (movie), Richard Adams Watership Down (book), President Nixon resigns over Watergate scandal, 50% of Americans believe quality of life has deteriorated over the last 10 years, Born to Run (popular song), divorce rates rising, Jaws (movie), One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (movie), Bernard Grun The Timetables of History (reference book), U.S. selling arms to over 130 countries, Happy Days (television show), world spends $300 billion on arms, 44 states have legalized gambling, 20th anniversary of space age: 4,472 man-made objects orbiting Earth, 4700 MacDonalds outlets worldwide have sold 25 billion hamburgers, Close Encounters

of a Third Kind (movie), 61% polled in U.S. agree its getting harder and harder to know whats right and wrong these days, 51,500 motor vehicle related deaths in U.S., Little House on the Prairie (television show), poll: 69% believe countrys leaders have consistently lied to them over the last 10 years, Xerox advertisement: 75% of all information available to mankind has been developed in the past 2 decadesand total amount in doubling every 10 years, Oh! What a Feeling! (Toyota), I Wanna Be Sedated (popular song), James Trager The Peoples Chronology: A Year by Year Record of Human Events from Prehistory to Present (reference book), partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island (Pennslyvania) nuclear power plant, medical costs rising, 22 states seek no Federal deficit amendment cutback of big government, Rubiks Cube, Jackie Windsor Exploded Piece (in progress) (modern art), John Lennon murdered in New York City by mentally unstable fan, Microsoft software company has significant increase in sales, cocaine $30 billion industry in U.S., Raiders of the Lost Ark (movie), Buckminster Fuller Critical Path (book), with military buildup, U.S. debt reaches $1 trillion, scientists identify AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) in Africa and Europe, IBM introduces personal computer, junk food, Gary Larson Far Side (book), John Nesbitt Megatrends (book), Americans with personal debt problems increasing, CNN 24 hour news service begins, Equal Rights Amendment falls 3 states short of ratification, shop till you drop, Trivial Pursuit (game), Miami Vice (television show), Starman (movie), Dr. Norman Myers Atlas of Planetary Management (book), makers of Agent Orange agree to pay Vietnam veterans affected the largest mass damage settlement in history, computer viruses, Cheers (television show), farmers facing subsidy cuts/squeeze from laborprocessing-packaging-transportation20,000 farms auctioned off (from 1981-1985), Gramm-Rudman Act: Federal deficit must be reduced by $36 billion each year from 1985-1991, U.S. Defense budget increases by $31 billion, Soviet President Gorbachev begins glastnost, perestroikaseeks arms reductions, Chinese peasants move from purchasing bicycles, watches, and sewing machines to refrigerators, washing machines, and tape recorders, World Population5 billion, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (movie), Chernobyl (Soviet Union) nuclear reactor explodes in partial meltdown, mounting consumer debt slows economic growth, gridlock, Taylor Hicks How to Borrow Your Way to Real Estate Riches (book), Junk bonds-credit panic-program trading lead to stock market crash affecting markets worldwide, cellular phones, cable TV, John Bradshaw Bradshaw on the Family (book, PBS series), Solidarity wins majority in Poland-Gorbachev reforms-lead to callapse of Communism in Eastern EuropeBerlin Wall comes down, Exxon Valdez (oil tanker) runs aground in Prince William Sound (Alaska) spilling 10 million gallons of oil, President Bush signs $300 billion bail out plan for savings and loan industry, Americas Funniest Home Videos (television show), Iraq invades KuwaitUN coalition of money, troops (mostly U.S.) and economic sanctions pressure Iraq to withdraw (at stake, % ownership of oil reserves), Simpsons (television show)

Appendix IPCR Critical Challenges Assessment 2011

(draft) Table of Contents (seeking input)
Introduction 1. Global warming and reducing carbon emissions 2. Cultures of violence, greed, corruption, and overindulgencewhich have become so common that
many of us accept such as inevitable; which are a significant part of the current crises of confidence in financial markets; and which are in many ways slowing the restructuring of investment priorities needed to respond to an increasing number of other critical challenges

3. The end of the era of cheap energy (particularly in reference to peak oil) 4. The increasing world population and its implications relating to widespread resource depletion (with
special focus on the increasing number of people who are consuming material goods and ecological resources indiscriminately)

5. Current trends indicate that we are creating more and more urban agglomerations (cities with a
population of more than 1 million peoplemore than 400), which require more and more complex and energy intensive infrastructures, where it is more and more difficult to trace the consequences of our individuals investments of time, energy, and moneyand which are the least appropriate models when it comes to implementing resolutions to many of the other challenges in this ten point assessment

6. The U.S. and many other countries will enter the next 15 to 20 years burdened by substantial public debt, possibly leading to higher interest rates, higher taxes, and tighter credit 7. A marginalization of the treasured wisdom associated with religious, spiritual, and moral traditions 8. Global inequities and the tragic cycles of malnutrition, disease, and death 9. Community building associated with responding to the above eight challenges may or may not be accompanied by an exponential increase in compassion for our fellow human beings. In such
circumstances, shortages of goodwill in times of unprecedented transition could tilt already precarious systems into further disarray, and thus erode established systems in even the most stable communities and regions

10. Sorting out what are real challenges and what are sound and practical solutions is becoming more and more difficult, as there are now, in most communities of the world, a multitude of ideas of all kinds coming
to the fore in personal, family, community, and cultural lifeall at the same time

Concluding Comments