Life has always been a balancing act between the haves and have-nots.
Less
populated industrial countries use the major portion of fossil fuel
while third world countries still farm by hand and recreate. The world
population is expected to increase by a billion every upcoming decade.
If we could snap our fingers and by magic, make some change that might save the earth from its inhabitants, what would we do?
“Birth control,” said Steve.
“You mean anything?” asked J.D.
“Yup . . .” I said. “I’d transport everybody into the future 100 years
to see how the earth would have been taken care of under their
generations.”
A great idea. . . though
hard to predict. But we could compare it to someone in the past lookin’
forward to today. My grandpa was born in 1866 in Bonham, Texas. Twenty
years later he had moved to Oklahoma, staked a claim in the land run of
‘89, married and started a family. He was a farmer, horseman and fiddle
player. If he was suddenly transported at age 53 to today, how would his
world have changed?
First, I think
he’d notice there’s a lot more people . . . and a lot less farmers. Yet
these farmers are producing enough to feed their neighbors. The absence
of draft horses and mules would be a shock. He’d see smoking diesel
tractors draggin’ discs, combines, cotton pickers and corn pickers
through the fields. The number of bushels yielded per acre might leave
him speechless as would dairy cows that milk 70 lbs a day, a 100,000
head feedlots, hog and chicken confinement barns and the loss of
self-sufficiency on the family farm.
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