On climate and ocean, nothing major can happen. Too many losers will take apart any initiative.

The current situation. sept 2019

Keep your thoughts on the distribution of good and bad signs about the future. Don’t stick with just half the puzzle. Things are bad enough without adding bad thinking.

There are two political groupings; the party of home (lots of Republicans)and the party of professionalized  globalization (lots og Democrats). To show how difficult this is, the professional group wants to bring in migrants who are better educated than the general American population age by age to enhance and populate the progressive globalization side eof the economy. This does  force US citizens to the side.  There is no easy way through this.

The heat is going to make climate, for the first time, central to future politics. Trump  wanting to invade Venezuela   That would unite all of latin America against the US.  Invading Iran might unite Europe against the US.

We have two party leaderships that at best represent 10% of the population.  Most of the voting for A is really voting against B and the votes for B are really votes against A. There are few proposals that many could be for.

Apocalypse we have to say,  is not coming – we are already in it. Climate, finance, impact of robots, health, population.failure of he democratic model and weakness of government, and more. The wort is food and the imapct on vulnerable pop[ulations thatare made up of humans more tlike us (the global teenagers) than we are aware.

Trump wants to play the only game he knows: win, and crush the others . Dangerous, and forces us all to be on guard. Not a good use of time.

Moving toward 2020. Trump might try to prevent the election, or, possible but unlkely, the election will become irrelevant because nobody cares.  Peopel too caught up in coping with institutional  breakdowns as climate chnag looms but solutions dont. . I keep hearing thta this will be a much worse summer – fires, urban heat, drought, migrations and war.

Meanwhile we have a majority angry at

• Losing out
•  Fear of losing what they have
• and being looked down on by a professional elite does not help.

The political process is going to keep the Democrats from making climate and economy based proposals that are adequate. That is because adequate moves on fossil fuels bring the economy to a halt. To meet the 2 degrees, or better 1.5 degree rise in temperatures we need to do the impossible, cut fossil fuel use to zero- but that means no heating your house with gas, no use of gasoline powered cars, no flying, no fertilizer, .. what about pumping water, what about trucks delivering fuel?..?

The problem is, we cannot have a civil discussion because the real problem is wealth concentration which controls the actions taken on climate so that the net result is increase in wealth concentratio  and the stuff that goes with it: class and race disdainAn open discussion about capitalism, representative democracy, the media – all in the context of weak government, population increase, and near unavoidable climate change – seems to be beyond us, but we must try.

The impact of all our problems , all at the same time,  overwhelm governance which is already cracking under Internet pressure and income inequality. A look at Crooked Timber or Alien Ecologies shows how much we have to learn. And there are many  more..

Late empire power has shifted to the global business community and their control through money of the politicians. Democracy and capitalism ar two institutional schemas for making social decisions, but the power i shifting to the corporation.

In this context government leadership is  weak and serious people know it is dangerous to reputation. The result is we have a series of clowns, all well meaning but more clowns than serious, or tragic as in the case perhaps of Clinton, all drawn to play a role in a power that Is vastly depleted.  Honest bureaucrats are below the radar and unrewarded.

One proposal is to  deploy automation rapidly and safely in the direction of green and much less energy use, and face the unemployment with distributed incomes. I still think the common good needs a vision, and GardenWorld is that vision.

current breaking points (just some of the many) 

• Climate, fires, food, migrations

• Debt

  U.S. credit-card balances are on track to hit $1 trillion this year, as banks aggressively push their plastic and consumers grow more comfortable carrying debt.

  Look especially at homes, student loans, maybe cars.

• earthquake, Washington, California

• assassination

• retirement funds

• south china sea

• Middle East

• Electric grid fragility

• Internet fragility

• plague years

• Prisons and justice

• race and fear vs. inclusion and appreciation.

• Voter supression.
• War, civil and international