If Humans Can Change for the Better, We Can Change the World

Abstract

If humans can change for the betterment of humanity and our shared biosphere, we can change the world, so it is sustainable with minimal pollution, not over populated, hunger and poverty are eliminated, conflicts, wars, discrimination and intolerance ended, and humanity moves forward with positive, progressive, democratic change. The only means to accomplish this global task is through enlightened, scholarly education free from religion, trivia, indoctrination, and mind control. This may appear to be an impossible task, but if humans reflect upon this, the alternative is the crisis-upon-crisis humanity is confronted with today. History will judge this time period as many humans being on the wrong side of history consumed with greed, selfishness, war, conflicts, discrimination, terrorism, and contributing absolutely nothing to humanity and our common biosphere. The correct education system can liberate humans from discrimination, indoctrination, false beliefs, consumer-driven and selfish activities, consumption and waste, and replace these with humanitarian actions, conservation, and a commitment to worldwide democracies. It is an immense task to evolve a democracy in a country consumed by religious indoctrination and oppressive dictatorships with every human right violation. It is difficult for other democratic countries to assist the citizens of oppressed countries to establish and evolve their democracies. Sovereign countries are sovereign countries. However, establishing democracies provides the opportunity for the democracy to evolve and policies to be implemented that citizens have participated in through democratic activities. One can argue there are no true democracies where the rights of all individuals are always placed before the state. Every democracy has some degree of fascist activity where the state is placed ahead of the rights’ of all individuals. This simply means democracies have not evolved to true democracies and still have an immense amount of democratic evolution ahead of them. This will be necessary for humans to agree that overpopulation, global climate change, and conflicts are not our future. There is no simple formula for how to design and implement a liberal, scholarly, enlightened education system in any country, including the so-called democracies. I suspect there are those who do know how to do this. I do hope they join forces, promote universal education, and are successful. I do know that in a complex, globally polluted world with several billion too many humans and immense human suffering and death, that education and democratic states are an immense part of the solution. There is no Water Air Soil Pollut (2011) 216:1–2 DOI 10.1007/s11270-010-0647-y