Disaster Rescue ships

The recent earthquake disaster in Haiti deserves help and all should contribute what they can.

More generally, the world needs more disaster rescue ships. They should be of several types: hospital ships of multiple drafts for different harbors, emergency electrical power ships, communications ships in addition to whatever emergency communications might be standard on the other varieties of ships, emergency sanitation and shelter ships capable of deploying temporary sewerage and water systems and civil reconstruction vehicles such as bulldozers and cranes.

Rescue aircraft are also desirable, but they can do less because of the limited cargo capacity on devastated airfields. Most of the world's population is near the sea. Disaster aid by rail is also possible and it could be done by keeping modules ready for loading on flat-cars.

Optimism about the Future

Despite the immediate cares of the world, there is also plenty of reason for longer term optimism. As usual, this mostly centers around the improved living made possible by improved technology.

In health care, many and profound discoveries are being made about the origins of disease and aging. Inevitably this has resulted, and will result in advanced medications that pinpoint target the origins of medical problems. Sadly, soon to be instituted proposals to limit profits from pharmaceuticals have already resulted in disinvestment in pharmaceuticals in anticipation of a new political world order. Eventually new meds will find their way to market in other countries, but later than necessary in the good old USA. In any event, the wealthy or desperate will be able to travel to find advanced medications.

Imagine a world where cancer, obesity, and aging are conquered. It will be great for the individual. The resulting overcrowding of the world population will lead to very regrettable means of limiting population, but that can be solved by war, pestilence, famine and suicide. Whoops ... I forget that pestilence will be fixed, and, that is reason for optimism.

It has long been a truism of science and technology that advances in materials result in advances in engineering and in science. Those advances, in turn, feed back to create still further advances in materials. It is a virtuous cycle of advancement. New materials such as nanotube paper, biologically inspired catalysts, and electrochemical batteries will all have immediate application to real world living.

The late Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, is famous for his predictions that the costs of all products, over the long term, become less due to advances in technology. So far he has proven to be correct. When a raw material such as copper becomes costly, someone finds a different way to provide the same function in the final product. Alternatively, someone invents a more economical way to extract a product such as copper from abundant low grade ores hitherto ignored.