The following is the third part of an interview with the Executive Director of World Innovation Foundation Charity (WIFC), Dr. David Hill, on poverty and means for defeating it.

Press TV: Taking into account poverty, inflation and other major problems which we are facing in the 21st century, how do you envisage the future of the world?

Dr Hill: In my last article on this primary subject, I make no limitations on the scale of the world's problems and where poverty is a direct result of political complacency and a lack on our political leaders to forge a sustainable future. Indeed, this century is the defining century that will decide whether humans will live or become another extinct species.

In this respect, I refer to the article 'hidden holocaust-civilizational crisis. Part 3: The end of the world as we know it', which states,'This global system (capitalism and super-capitalist globalization) is hugely destructive of human life. Devoid of the capability to recognize and enact ethical values, it is driven purely by the imperatives of profit, efficiency, growth and monopoly. Consequently, it is not only destructive of human life; it is destructive of all life, nature and even itself.'

It can be rightly argued that greed and pandering to the wishes of powerful individuals and corporations, are at the very heart of why this is so and why immeasurable human misery will eventually ensue during the 21st century if we continue on this dire path.

Indeed, other than human death itself, humankind on its present direction will suffer the next thing to it and where human suffering will be on an unprecedented scale. This will predominantly be due to major problems in the scarcity of resources that will create wars and where nuclear weapons will eventually be used to defend borders and natural resources that preserve human life. The current terrorists atrocities in nuclear weapon based India, where fingers are already being pointed as nuclear Pakistan, are a constant reminder to humankind that even such weapons have the propensity of being used in anger.

Press TV: And how has poverty affected all these clashes?

Dr Hill: The defeat of poverty is also directly linked to this scenario and if we cannot conquer poverty around the world, there is very little chance of creating a peaceful and equitable future world order. Poverty is therefore a major driver and determinant of what the future world will be. Indeed, as Jared Diamond stated in his 2005 book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,"collapse isn't inevitable, but depends on a society's choices."

Press TV: Could you explain what you mean by saying 'Society's choices'?

Dr Hill: It is society who will finally decide through their actions and challenging the mindsets and strategy of the political decision-making process which tend to get it wrong time and time again. This I believe is due to several reasons but where I have noticed that political ignorance means having a lack of information, or lack of knowledge.

It is different from political stupidity which is lack of intelligence, and different from political foolishness which is lack of wisdom. The three are often mixed up and assumed to be the same by some people and the reason why political-decision making presently exercised is a combination of these three ills and which have dire effects and consequences for us all.

Press TV: What are the other factors contributing to the current condition in the world?

Dr Hill: Political and corporate arrogance has also its place in poor decision-making, as arrogance in many ways stems from privilege. Indeed, arrogance in the main clouds the main issues of life through ignorance of what others have to endure and where there is a total lack of knowledge when it comes to human understanding here.

That is why so many political and business leaders do not really understand the plight of people and their aspirations in human terms and not in materialistic terms. For arrogance and ignorance amplify the problems of the world through isolationism and the personal vested interests of the very powerful few.

Indeed, as Chris Clugston also stated in Energy Bulletin of the 17 September 2008, even the managing director of the IMF Dominic Kahn does not even know what reality is when he stated at the beginning of 2008, 'the industrialized' world was in such good shape, inflation expectations were contained, etc.

But somebody forgot to tell him that the G7 has de-industrialized and that these countries now have basically no industry, for it all lies in the emerging world where capital is rewarded, labor is competitively priced and inexpensive and taxes are dropping.

He may be right but where at the heart of the poverty problem I would say for the poor countries is not education first, but new industry first and the environmentally-friendly ones at that, so that their people can be educated and skilled in these new industries and not those of the 19th century.

Press TV: What about developed countries?

Dr Hill: The reality is that according to Clugston, that we in the West are running flat out on the highway to hell, and that societal collapse is imminent-possibly within 5 years, probably within 15 years, and almost certainly within 25 years. Our only rational course of action is to 'get off' the highway-to transition quickly and beginning immediately to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm.

The consequences associated with 'getting off' will be very painful-significant reductions in our population level and material living standards-but they pale in comparison to the consequences associated with 'staying on'.

Added to this the Commodities, Natural Resources and Precious Metals Forecasts 2008 - Part IV published on 5th February 2008 determined that the only thing supporting the welfare states of the G7 is FIAT currency and credit creation and asset backed growth. The very reason why we are in the state we are today.

They stated that the only policy the G7 LEADERS can conceive of is: 'Print the money' and create government programs which take one dollar from the private sector or the printing press and create a program which delivers one dime of production. This is capital destruction on a gargantuan scale, and as they destroy it they destroy their own futures.

Even the 'Living Planet Report 2002', a study by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) identified the world's ticking time bomb and where the Earth's population will be forced to colonize two planets within 50 years if natural resources continue to be exploited at the current rate and to sustain present lifestyles.

Nothing has changed here and things are accelerating year-on-year. Indeed, in 2005 Kofi Annan reacted to the findings of the UN's Millennium Ecosystems Assessment that ... "the basis of life on earth is declining at an alarming rate."

Press TV: How much time is left before all the natural resources are used?

Dr Hill: Predictions are that with increased population growth and increased resources demand through globalized capitalism, world resources in the following elements as samples will run out in a matter of a few decades or even a mere few years in the case of some.

Antimony (drugs) - in 15 to 20 years and without recycling, the least value.
Hafnium (computer chips, power stations etc) - in less than 10 years
Indium (LCD screens etc) - in 5 to 10 years
Platinum (jewelry, catalysts, fuel cells for cars etc) - in 15 years
Silver (jewelry, catalytic converters etc) - in 15 to 20 years and without recycling, 10 years
Tantalum (cell phones, camera lenses etc)- in 20 to 30 years
Uranium (weapons, power stations etc) - in 30 to 40 years (possibly less)
Zinc (galvanizing etc) - in 20 to 30 years
Tin (cans, solder) - in 17 to 40 years, depending on recycling
Gold (jewelry, dental etc) - in 36 to 45 years
Lead (lead pipes, batteries etc) - in 8 to 42 years
Gallium (solar cells etc) - limitations on discovered resources presently means that only 1-2 percent of solar technologies will be produced using this element.

Added to this, the world's natural resources to preserve human life and in the West in particular, are spread and concentrated in countries around the world. Therefore no country has every chemical element or mineral in the abundance necessary and by a very large margin.

Indeed as examples, 60 percent of chromium (plating etc) resides in Kazakhstan, 33 percent of Indium resides in Canada, 42 percent of phosphorus (fertilizers, animal feed etc) resides in Morocco and the Western Sahara, 38 percent of copper (wire, coins, plumbing etc) resides in Chile, 48 percent and 52 percent of Tantalum resides respectfully in Brazil and Australia, 27 percent of aluminum (transport, electrical, consumer durables etc) resides in Guinea, 88 percent of platinum/rhodium, 35 percent of Chromium, 40 percent of gold and 26 percent of Hafnium resides in South Africa, 23 percent and 16 percent of uranium resides in Australia and Kazakhstan respectfully and a massive 62 percent of Antimony resides in China.

Therefore our natural resources are unevenly distributed around the world and when they run out to support normal life for those particularly in western economies, military confrontation, invasions and wars to acquire them is predestined and on our present politico-economic path, assured.

Press TV: What are the other threats contributing to this condition?

Dr Hill: Having outlined some of the threats to humanity in this and previous interviews for Press TV, we have also to be conscious of other threats that are allied to all those that I have so far mentioned. In this respect pressures on fertile land is increasing by the year and where it requires presently 12.2 hectares of land to support each American citizen and 6.29 hectares for each British subject, but where the people of Burundi for instance have to survive on a mere half a hectare each.

Unfortunately for humanity we are now losing arable land (that what we depend upon for growing our food et al) to desertification, urbanization and human induced disasters at a rate in excess of 10 million hectares a year or nearly 40,000 square miles year; an area the size of Iceland or Wales and Ireland added together according to UNEP.

Indeed, according to Drake Bennett, the staff writer for the Boston globe, the world is losing soil 10 to 20 times faster that it is replenishing it. He says that it takes tens of thousands of years to make 15 centimeters of topsoil, about 6 inches worth. Indeed in the US every year, more than 2 million acres of cropland are lost to erosion, salinization and water logging. One-fifth of the world is presently threatened by the effects and impact of the loss of fertile land.

I have mentioned before but because it is a very important fact for human survival I will say it again. We depend totally on oil and where a minor shortfall according to the Peak Oil, Life after oil crash Website, between demand and supply of as little as 10 to 15 percent, is enough to wholly shatter an oil dependant economy and reduce its citizenry to poverty.

Therefore we are all now living on borrowed time and where we have to understand this fully, its implications for our children's sake and where we have to find alternatives quickly.

Indeed, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Paul Salopek described the consequences of Peak Oil as follows,

"... the consequences would be unimaginable. Permanent fuel shortages would tip the world into a generations-long economic depression. Millions would lose their jobs as industry implodes. Farm tractors would be idle for lack of fuel, triggering massive famines. Energy wars would flare. And careless suburbanites would trudge to their nearest big box stores, not to buy Chinese made clothing transported cheaply across the globe, but to scavenge glass and copper wire from abandoned buildings."

Adding to this, Matt Simmons the CEO of a US based energy company has said that global oil peaked in 2005 and was set for a steep decline in production levels from the present levels of 85 million barrels a day. According to him, "... By 2015, I think we would be lucky to be producing 60 million barrels a day and we should worry about producing only 40 million."

Therefore even the experts in the field are saying reading between the lines that the world will in the not too distant future reach well over the 10-15 percent decline figure needed to bring the world to its knees. Other studies by Petroconsultants of Geneva and the Institute of Sustainability and Technology Policy at Murdock University conclude the same and where respectfully production post-peak would halve about every 25-years, an exponential decline of 2.5 to 2.9 percent per annum.

Clean water supplies are another major global problem and as humans, if we lose more than 15lbs on average, we die, even though 70 percent of the human body is water.

The water supply problem for people throughout the world including the USA is getting far greater by the year and where the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in November 2008 that half the world faces water shortages by 2080. Indeed, IPCC said that as many as 2 billion people would not have sufficient access to clean water by 2050, a mere 41-years from now, and where the figure on our present path is expected to rise to 3.2 billion by 2080, nearly tripling the numbers. As an indication of where we are going, at the beginning of the decade, the World Health Organization estimated that 1.1 billion people did not have sufficient clean water.

A member of the UN Panel stated recently that, "In Asia, water distribution is uneven and large areas are under water stress. Climate change is going to exacerbate this scarcity.”

In this respect also according to Reuters in late 2007, China with a fifth of the world's population, will have exploited all available water supplies to the limit by 2030 their government has recently warned and ordered their officials to prepare for worse to come as their lakes and rivers are drained through global warming and economic expansion. Indeed according to the IPCC in Asia 1 billion people could face water shortages by 2050 and where some climate models show sub-Saharan Africa drying out completely.

Unfortunately for humanity, according to EU MEP Emilio Molinari, about $10 billion a year is needed to meet the UN Millennium Goal Campaign's target of halving the proportion of people with no access to safe drinking water by 2015, but only about five percent of required funds have been raised to date. This clearly shows again I believe that our politicians are totally complacent to the problem and do not understand what is happening in the real world. For this sheer complacency will definitely have a soul destroying effect further down the road in the years ahead.

Food scarcity is also a fall-out of many of the things that I have already described, as climate change and peak-oil threatens to undermine global food security over the next few decades. In 2006 a study by the Met office's Hadley centre predicted that if global warming continued, drought that already threatens the lives of millions, will spread across half the land surface of the Earth before 2100, and extreme drought would undermine the ability to grow food, the ability to have a safe sanitation system, and the availability of water, pushing millions of people already struggling in conditions of dire deprivation over the precipice.

The grim truth is that we are already pushing the limits on world food production according to SAGE at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who state, "...Except for Latin America and Africa, all places in the world where we could grow crops are already being cultivated. The remaining places are either too cold or too dry to grow crops."

The maps thus show that the Earth is rapidly running out of fertile land "... and that ... food production will soon be unable to keep up with global population growth."

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) stated this year that global food reserves are at their lowest in 25-years.

I shall not dwell on the global financial crisis to a great extent but which is another major threat to humanity as we are all now fully aware, but only to say that we have not seen the worst of it yet I believe. Indeed, the financial system that supports the capitalist system can only be seen as a system that creates great harm as does the impostor that it supports.

In this respect it has to be said that this global economic system is not merely unjust and unequal, but it is also fundamentally unstable, tends towards the generation of erratic period crises and where as the events of the past half-year have shown, it is progressively more susceptible to collapse.

Overall it is a system that in 1980 had created a global debt equal to the world's total economic turnover but where now after a mere 28 years it has spawned a global debt of 3.5-times the global economic turnover of the world, some 180 trillion dollars. This is therefore a very destructive system in human terms to say the very least.

All of what I have just said as singular threats to humanity are clearly devastating in themselves but their cumulative and simultaneous impact would be so devastating that it is perhaps beyond imagination. Considering this stark reality all this leads to one conclusion, that due to the continual haphazard breakdown of the existing political, social, financial and economic systems, we unquestionably need an alternative and where this should no longer be disputable.

Press TV: How can we overcome the current inflation?

Dr Hill: We need a whole new vision of life to replace the dead, broken materialistic vision associated with the concurrent global capitalist system. Therefore in many ways the world is at the start of a process, through the dictates of the capitalist system and consumerism, that has no other eventual outcome than global conflict, hunger and eventually mass extinction. I say these things with no satisfaction but where these harrowing times will come to pass as we proceed presently.

Unfortunately at the root of this future nightmare are the political decision-makers, who through short-term political gains do little in regard to long-term global sustainability and peace. They are more concerned with their own personal status and their own financial situation than the people's continuing concerns for a peaceful and sustainable world order. Indeed, the UN is overall a joke in many ways, but a very bad joke in that it is a toothless institution that cannot in its present form solve global problems.

For in this respect the UN only acts at the whims and under the control of the political masters throughout the world (mainly from the USA) and that is why in many ways it is impotent in steering the world to a peaceful future existence.

Overall it can be seen as a defunct 21st century organization presently that will do little to prevent the human catastrophes that lay on the horizon in this century. Indeed, at the very heart of the world's problems is what Ignaciot Ramonet stated several years ago in his famous editorials in the Le Monde, " ... of the 6 billion people in the world, only 500 million live in comfort; that is approximately one-twelfth of the world population. This leaves a massive 5.5 billion people living in need, over five-sixth of the world's total population."

The G8 governments, the banks, IMF and the World Bank are no better than the UN and where constraints imposed on developing nations have deepened poverty in these countries. In this respect as two examples of countless examples, why was there increased malaria in Sri Lanka? Because the IMF and the World Bank insisted on the closure of the anti-malaria program of crop spraying and special clinics as part of their so-called further financial support.

Why was it that Kenya's infrastructure collapsed? Because the World Bank in the 1980s insisted on huge cutbacks in government spending in return for more loans, so state services like education and health fell to bits, as did the roads and government buildings in even a large city like Mombassa.

This is the general pattern, compounded by corruption and privatization that have made things much worse for the poor in many 'third world' countries. Added to this it has to be said that global corporations now challenge the very sovereignty of the most powerful nations and where this adds to the demise of nations not being able to reduce poverty as they are dictated too by even greater external forces than themselves.

Considering these sad facts one has to come to the conclusion that we have to embrace new definitions of success, wealth and progress to secure peace and the human experience beyond this century.

Therefore, in this respect the greatest challenge for the people of the world is in changing the directions and present thinking of their leaders and where political corruption and economic coercion by many powerful corporate entities, more concerned with personal wealth than what their decisions place on the world-at-large, has to be curtailed.

If not, with ever-dwindling resources to sustain life, eventually our world will be totally immersed in conflict. Virtually all natural resources demand in this respect is accelerating and supply is declining.

I am not only saying this but where there are many sign-posts that dictate that this will be our future nightmarish scenario on the world's present politico-economic course. Indeed, even in their report 'Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World', issued by the USA's most influential intelligence body the National Intelligence Council (NIC) on the 20th November 2008, predicted a tense, unstable world shadowed by war and where the use of nuclear weapons was most probable.

In this respect the root cause that was cited was the scarcity of natural resources, water and food and where all current technologies are inadequate for replacing "traditional energy sources on the scale needed."

These grim warnings should make our political leaders see that our present global development structures and mechanisms are leading us all to Armageddon, but where unfortunately their complacency and blinded judgment presently will steer us all towards such days.

My institution agrees with the NIC's assessment as its members should know, as they are many of the world's most eminent scientists, engineers and technologists, permanently working at the leading edge of all known knowledge. In this respect if they don't know, no one knows.

Consequently independent thinkers, only concerned with sustainability, the health of our planet and human survival, have to be listened too before it is far too late to change from global conflict and human misery far greater than the two world wars put together.

Indeed, world leaders have to change from the philosophy of individual rights and resources for themselves as can be depicted in the words of George H. W. Bush Sr. at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro where he stated, "... the American way of life is not negotiable". This fundamental flaw in the mentality and thinking of world leaders brings human conflict far nearer as we start to run on purely petrol fumes in the next three-decades or less.

In this respect therefore as poverty is a side product of the world's present inability to provide human sustainability and individual universal per capita growth values, major global scientists in the 1990's put forward a new mechanism that would steer and support humankind to its long-term preservation and survival. Dr. Glenn T Seaborg, honored by having Element 106 Seaborgium named in his honor and being adopted whilst he was still living, was a great supporter and contributor to this global system of cooperative thinking.

Indeed, no other eminent scientist in the history of the world, not even Einstein, had an 'adopted' Element in place whilst he was still alive. Glenn was our institution's founding president. This thinking was not therefore just highly 'visionary' for its time, but where eventually I am certain that it will be seen as the most crucial aspect for our species' continued existence.

This new required system in its entirety was coined as 'Revolutionics' and where the main premise of this new global mechanisms and structures was the communication, collaboration and cooperation of all nations throughout the world to bring them together and solve humankind's ever-increasing problems on a national and global basis. It is therefore basically a 'blueprint' for the sustainability of our planet and the human experience itself.

Indeed, this thinking was based upon the judgment that only by harnessing and joining together the intellectual, creative and knowledge capacity of all humankind could our world preserve the human experience. Indeed, without solving the world's problems, there would only be one outcome, the total decimation and demise of humans in the next century (now the one that we live).

This thinking was therefore far away from the current capitalist dog-eat-dog mechanism and the market-forces dogma in that it was a sharing mechanism and where all the world would participate together. This mechanism was simple in its operational understanding but where it would enable national and global problems threatening humans to be solved on a united front.