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auto has spilled more blood than
weapons of war.
In Tokyo, the borne of 11.5 mil–
lion people, 75,000 factory chimneys
combine with auto exhaust fumes to
make smog a greater threat than the
pall hanging over Los Angeles, Cali–
fornia. The car density in Tokyo is
eight times that of the U.S.A. Smog
is so heavy that nearby Mount Fuji
can only be seen from downtown
Tokyo about 40 days a year.
In one year in the U.S.A. , people
spend $85-$90 billion a year on rec–
reation - or is it escapism? Ameri–
cans spent rnost of it on mortgaged,
motorized vehicles to get away from
polluted, crime-ridden cities.
lt's not that rnuch different in the
rest of the free world. West Ger–
rnany's and Japan's air is thought to
contain seven times the pollutants
the U. S. air contains. The Rhine,
the Tiber, and the Ural rivers have
become channels of waste. The
North Sea has been termed "the in–
dustrial cesspool of Europe."
We can't stand our world of tech–
nology, its noise pollution, or its ten–
sions. In World Wars
1
and
ll,
in
Korea, and in Vietnam, most na–
tions of the free world gave their
money and their men for a world of
peace through technology. But
peace never carne.
We want the good life
our way.
We want, but we don't have. We
wish there wasn't so much evil, and
we don't want to see people die. Yet
it seems we just can't help ourselves.
We shake our heads as we look at
what we've created, hoping against
hope that government
will
find a
way to save us.
All of us are sorry about what we
see. None ofus want it that way. We
didn' t plan it this way. We are not
quite sure how we became the vic–
tims of our own genius.
Communism, the " Second
World"
And what has the Communist
world contributed? A little less pol–
lution, a little less drain on energy,
and a little less hope. But they, too,
are confronted witb war costs, smog,
PLAIN TRUTH April 1974
and social ills which they have cre–
ated.
One Soviet journalist, corn–
menting on illegitimacy in the So–
viet Union, has said the statistics
reveal "a tremendous moral and
ethical problem" which cannot be
ignored. The Soviet Union is also
plagued by divorce, with a rate sec–
ond only to that of the United
States. Alcoholísm persists as a per–
ennial Soviet problem. Clearly ,
something is missing in Soviet lives
which Cornmunism has been unable
to supply. And other Communist
countries are experiencing or will
experience similar problems.
Their world ís, for many, an un–
happy world, frustrated, endlessly
looking for peace through sub–
version and revolutions. A large
proportion of the energy they con–
sume (about twice the 1.9 metric ton
world average per person) is spent
on ways and rneans to overthrow
the established order and to remake
society their way!
Sorrows of the Third
World
What about the Third World?
lt
is generally the world of the "have
nots" and it's the majority - 70 per–
cent of the world's population. A
large proportion of its people do not
have enough food to eat or energy
to use. They are the "living" who
would fight for what rnany in the
free world drop into electric garbage
disposal units each day.
There is a crisis in human energy
in many Third World nations. Not
long ago I stood on a street in Cal–
cutta. I saw an "old" 30-year-old
rnan, with a twisted body, crawling
along the street begging for food,
just hanging on, looking for one
more day of life.
Many nations of the Third World
are stocked with poverty. The in–
habitants are often only one short
step away frorn death.
While we worry over the energy
crisis, the crisis that stalls our boats,
our cars and cuts down heat in win–
ter for our bornes, the Third World
struggles for mínima! subsistence.
Tbe energy crisis to them is spelled
" hunger ," " starvation ," and
"death."
In their world, 417 people die
every hour from starvation. A mere
500,000,000 are now suffering from
hunger and malnutrition.
In the Third World, there are ap–
proximately
lOO
diverse have-not
nations. Many of their peoples tell
time, not by years but by famines .
lncorne ranges from practically
nothing to not enough. Sudan has
an average per capita income of
$120. In Ethiopia, it's only $70.
In one African city live 700,000
residents. AJI but a few live in
squalor in their very own shanty
town. One hundred thousand are
prostitutes. The city can be smelled
for miles around.
Who made the world the way it
is? Man did! Man was given a beau–
tiful world, and he traded it off for a
world of his own making - a world
of bargain hunters, a world based
on "get it frorn your neighbor." All
three worlds are worlds of sorrow.
The Holy Bible prophesied men
would reach a time when the world
would be filled with unbelievable
technological developrnents and the
capability to blast al! life off the
earth (Matthew 24:6, 22).
It
would
be a time the like ofwbicb has never
been since the beginning of the
world and never
will
be
again (verse 21 ).
God knew from the beginning
that man's society would fail, that
there would come a time when the
restoration of aU tbings as God orig–
inally created them would become
necessary (Acts 3:21). He spoke of a
great restoration tbat would bring
aU rnen back to a world under God,
once again in balance, free from
pollution, crime, and famine.
We need that kind of world. lt's
the only answer to real peace, hap–
piness, and abundant living. Just
such a world is coming, a world
fi lled with tbe knowledge of God,
even as the "waters cover tbe sea"
(Isaiah
11
:9).
That world is just around the cor–
ner, a short distance beyond the en–
ergy crisis.
O
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