The Changing Future

There are many new, life-changing laws, decrees, and practices that would affect all of us. This includes agricultural innovations, technology, and even slowing/halting the process of global warming by Geo engineering. However, the world is growing quickly and the annual crop yields are coming shorter and shorter by the year. The First Green Revolution had been started in the 1920s-1930s by the introduction of synthetic fertilizer made primarily of fossil fuels. This fertilizer made the soil much more productive, and even made some parts of the land arable; However, The Green Revolution required billions of raw materials, which included fossil fuels (the most important ingredient), sulfur, iron, magnesium, copper and zinc. However, the 2nd Green Revolution js focusing on the genetic mutation of plants to create hardier, immunized-against-diseases, faster-growing crops. Instead, the cost for this new Agricultural Age would require billions of tons of raw data. This Second Green Revolution would require an alliance between organic-farmers (Farmers who only want to grow food organically, even without fertilizer) and genetic scientists.

An example of this was the recent ongoing process of rice immunization of xanthamonas, a bacteria that decimated rice harvests all over Asia. As scientists continue their work on immunizing rice against Xanthamonas, they also believes bananas (which are being obliterated by a disease in East Africa) would also be able to have full immunity against Xanthamonas, as most edible bananas were cloned and therefore shared the same genes (which makes them very susceptible to plagues and blights). As the First Green Revolution demanded, and used up over a billion ton of resources (literally), genetic scientists plans to reduce the usage of fertilizers and increase the crops' "dependencies" on phosphorus (as it is found on the topsoil), and make it roots grow deeper and further to promote faster and even larger crop growth. The Green Revolution had its consequences: Agricultural runoff, usually poisonous, contaminated some freshwater supplies and created "dead zones" around oceans where that region was unusable. As well as the enormous cost of natural elements, scientists are also fighting countless nature activists who  resist the genetically-enhanced crops. In turn, the activists are accused of imperialism and extreme greed, and vague of the current world situation.However, no matter how much crops can be enhanced, they must be harvested, weeded, watered, and grown.

Water will grow to be a continuous, nagging problem in agricultural advances as well as pessimistic farmers who believe there is a limit to the amount of grown food, and the scientists should not go too far in their quest to stop hunger. Even Arpa-E, who sends grants to colleges and groups in order a spark a new Energy Revolution in 20 years, could get involved in this in order to speed up the process.

In addition, most organic farmers believe that genetically enhancing the soil or the crops would cause harm to the consumers and even the environment around them. Genetic scientists have deconstructed the genetic code which gives the rice immunity to Xanthomonas, which happens to be Xa21-106/TP309. This "hardened" rice crop had been cultivated by Pamela Ronald, but the rice had strangely not been (and still is not) accepted by the Chinese Department of Agriculture. 

Egypt's New Leader?

  Egypt, with its ruthless dictator Hosni Mubarak retreated to his mansion, now must choose a leader to lead the turbulent country of nearly 80 million toward democracy. At this moment, the military is holding most of the power Mubarak once had, and currently they have disassembled the Parliament and are following the demands of the populace. For 18 days, the nobel peace-prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei arrived in Egypt the fuel the flames of rebellion and inspired them to continue fighting for democracy and freedom. But now Mubarak is gone, the government is dissolved, and the army is holding power. Who will take the lead of Egypt?

Mohamed ElBaradei, Omar Suleiman, and even  Wael Ghonim, who has gained nationwide (Egypt-wise) popularity and it is reported that he was one of the main fuel-ers of the rebellion. Even though he was a Nobel Peace-Prize bearer, Mohamed ElBaradei was, and still is the last possible candidate for the new presidential seat. He inspired the Egyptians to continue the fight, but he never actively led them from the day he was injured and treated in a nearby mosque. Ghonim in contrast,   set up the Facebook page and was one of the administrators of "We Are All Khaled Said" Facebook page, which was set up to commemorate a 28-year-old youth who was brutally beaten to death on June 6, 2010. He was taken by the police on 1/27 and wasn't tortured, but was interrogated for 2 weeks regarding the rising dissent and most importantly, why he created the page. He also noted how blocking FaceBook showed a sign that the Egyptian government actually feared something, as it had been the very gathering place of the resistance movement, which empowered the protestors to continue. It also showed how even the most controlling, authoritarian governments cannot control ever single aspect of life.


Recently, ElBaradei proclaimed that he did not wish to run for presidency, but he only wished to see Egypt become a democratic country and elect a leader "in his 40s - 50s".
Now for Omar Suleiman, who is quite the opposite of Mubarak and is in favor of many Israelis, Egyptians, and even the U.S. government. He was anti - Islamist, constantly arrested muslim activists,   and fueled Egypt's efforts to crush Hamas by demolishing the tunnels that have functioned as a smuggling conduit for both weapons and foodstuffs into Gaza. However, some people think he did this to gain the sentiments of the people, and moreover, he resisted Mubarak leaving office so quickly, but wanted him to rule until the end of the term. This was to allow a steady change into democracy, as a sudden, major change in the government could bring chaos.


Which person, Omar Suleiman(Appreciated by Egyptians, Israelis, and Americans), or Wael Ghonim (who was a major influence along with ElBaradei to the Movement by creating the FaceBook page) would become Egypt's next president?