Today we plan for economic growth

Our economic growth is the envy of many countries. We took pride in our economic growth and place all our bets on it. Economic growth, growing the economic pie, is the answer to all our social problems. And the key to our economic growth is economic activity, and the basic ingredient is human beans. The more human beans there are, the more economic activities can be generated and all the numbers added up to a lovely piece of cake, a bigger cake for all. The formula is simple. More human beans, more work, more productivity, more revenue, more activities, more needs, and more of everything. There is more creation of wealth, more consumption, more expenditure, more demands which will create more and more demands of other supporting and service activities. Today we plan for growth. Tomorrow this growth will dictate how the economy will run and all the other human activities. More people mean more food, housing, transportation, jobs, services and space. We can build up and build down. We can share the piece of rock with more people and more people. There will be higher demand for food, water and electric power. So more facilities will be built to store water and generate power. The nuclear option will not be an option but a necessity. There is no way out. The nuclear disaster that is awaiting to blow up in Japan must be food for thought for many who think it is a logical road to take. Our economic growth and growing population and needs for power will push us down this road. Japan, with probably the most efficient and trained workforce, is now staring at a human disaster they think will not happen. It happened. They are trying to play it down. People from a radius of 20km were evacuated. If we have a nuclear plant on our shore, 20km radius means the sea. No where to evacuate, no where to run. And the beautiful architectural feat of high rise buildings, the new Towers of Babel, are massive disasters and tragedies waiting to happen. They are death traps. So are the massive underground living space. No, we don’t have to face an earthquake or a tsunami. The worst we could get was a little tremor from a distant quake far away. And the water level, if there is, will be a knee deep flood in Orchard Road. We are blessed with no dramatic natural disaster, yet. We cannot escape from human error and human created disasters. With so many people packed tightly together, even a full loaded sardine packed train can take several hundred out at one go. A high rise collapse can be more destructive. Our planning for economic growth today could be our planning for a major disaster tomorrow. If the Japanese can foul up a top security nuclear plant with all the safety measures, the lesser beans of this region better restrain their ego trips and don’t think they can do better than the Japanese.