#America Shrinking Brains?

America Shrinking Brains?

Score Below Average On Global Tests

(Associated Press)

American adults score poorly on global test
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This should come as no surprise to anyone that the intellectual levels in the United States have been drifting lower over the past couple of decades. In fact. this trend plays havoc with demographers and media types who are constantly dumbing-down their programs and content in order to adjust to the lower common denominator. Why the shrinkage in brainpower? Numerous reasons exist; ranging from I and X toys, immigration demographics, costly elitist education, drug use, celebrity culture and poor diets, just to name a few. And in the long-run this trend will have serious economic, political, social and military implications. It is a National Security risk and huge economic disadvantage that cannot be fixed in a few years.

Beyond the tests.scoring and reported reasons maybe the deeper cause lies in the shrinkage of American leadership - the pictures captioned below tell a tale of a nation lacking in the quality of character, skills, knowledge and capabilities that its people deserve and who would act as role models for its future generations.

Dr Peter G Kinesa
October 11, 2013

Or Shrinking Leadership?  

GOOD NEWS: US Coal Exports Double (2007-13)

GOOD NEWS: US Coal Exports Double

 (2007-12)

(Read More)

Should we not be dancing in the streets along with the stakeholders of the coal companies experiencing unprecedented success in export sales marked by Asian customers providing even faster growth? Funny thing - what is good news for some, is bad news for others. Sure this keeps  the pressure off energy prices and perhaps defers building more nuclear plants. Also local air pollution may decrease, but other forms of environmental damage from strip and conventional mining should offset this benefit. 

The bad news starts with the fact that we are still accelerating the depletion of this non-renewable resource, despite reductions in US domestic consumption. Global air pollution and carbon emissions also increases, ensuring that we continue supporting the long-term destruction of the bio-sphere.What is ultimately more devastating is that the increase with its exponential trend in mining, means that, at some point, a future generation will simply run of another energy source. 

By then there may be a mere 14 billion living on the planet when the lights actually go out. And do you think that this might set the stage for intense wide-spread global conflicts? Hmm. So today's good news creates tomorrow's bad news. 

Ah, but who cares, every generation faces its own challenges. Right?

Dr Peter G Kinesa

August 16, 2013  

How long does the dance last?