Now is the time ...

What time is it?

• question: Where are we in the flow of history?
• answer: This is the change point.  It's as big as our move from wanderers into agriculture and cities. This is the move from an era of empires to the global era where we're all connected.
• basis: History, future studies, anthropology, archeology, global modeling, global trend analysis.
• strategy: Look again.  Wrestle with a whole-world context, and find the ethical points for involvement.

To see the world in terms of yourself and your norms is as sadly uninformed as Columbus was about 'Indians'.

Now our choices touch the world.  Every day, we choose.

What legacy shall we leave our children?  Money?  Land?  Or a good conscience and an ethical worldview.

Chance of a lifetime!

Powerful change!  Extraordinary opportunity!

These will not be the 'boring years'!

• The last century has brought unprecedented change in the economy and the environment, in population and technology.

• We face challenges, including that humanity now exceeds the long-term biocapacity of the Earth.  It can't sustain us in our current way of life.

• Our response to such challenges has been limited as we work through institutions and ideas developed in earlier times. The gap between our challenges and our ability to address them seems to increase with each passing year.  We'll adjust and adapt, of course.

You might notice which national policy issues include consideration of the long-term sustainability question.  Many of our folks deny there are any such problems.  Perhaps they can do so because as a nation, we're wealthy enough to hold the problems and the reality at a distance.  Try looking with a global perspective though, and see what others see.

Making a place for everyone is perhaps the greatest challenge we face now.  Providing one meal a day for our children has become more difficult.  Population growth has been stunning over the last century, and most dramatic in the developing world. 

Energy is the enabling resource for our standard of living.  The next few decades will, of necessity, see radical changes.   We will peak in our capacity to produce fossil fuel based energy in this generation, by optimistic estimates.  Our children will see a sharp decline in energy available beginning around 2030.  We will make adjustments in every area of civilization.  Home, office, roadway, store, farm, shipping, entertainment, mobility, business, travel, all will change. We will adjust and adapt, of course.

UN projections suggest population will top out around ten billion or so in the next decades.  That limit will be triggered by population support capacity more than by any particular choice. Our ability to feed and house  ourselves is limited by energy, primarily, and there are a finite number of locations where populations might be supported as well.  We'll change to adapt.


At least, most of us will.  The worrisome side of such change is that often, personal needs and required adjustments are made by the wealthy because they can.  The poor, of course, are left behind.  Reports this year tell us of the wealthier folks in North Korean making the move to China because food is more easily available there. The poor remain behind where they live in great distress; many die, and some have begun to take their own lives rather than starve.  That's today's reality.  We're in the process of choosing tomorrow's reality.

For now, the wealthy gather themselves and their possessions and say of the rest, it's their fault they're hungry; they shouldn't have so many children, they should work harder, they should stay in school, they should plant more rice/wheat/corn/soy/tomatoes.  The rich draw the line at their borders and say of the rest, "let the rest solve their own problems."  They've discovered that they can indeed walk by on the other side of the street.  "So sad, but not my problem."

Here's our chance!  So, how shall we then live?  And how might we prepare our children?  Does our worldview contain a rational understanding of such things?  Or our theology?  How's our selfish/selfless balancing act these days?  The upheaval is now a given, and as it approaches, we get to choose our response.

We'll perhaps see: 

• divergent societies - already visible among secessionists, preppers, offgriders, alt economy participants (millions,  perhaps 2-3% of pop now), philosophically now an emerging sub-culture; all good.
• cultural separation between the 'havers' and the 'doers' - separatists now visible in every professional venue; formalized rebellion against fiscal/social model, increasing dissatisfaction with a pure capitalist market approach; all good
• disintegration of nationalisms - already visible - embarrassed to be western, searching for non-nationalistic identity; not inappropriate
• multi-fracture generational disassociations - greater numbers of young idealists drift off the mainstream, some discontinue participation in nation and state; perhaps for the best
• abandonment of fiscal-centric in favor of member-centric communities/businesses/orgs/gov - we're perhaps a couple of decades into this emergence. The change is strongly opposed by federal and state governments.  'Occupy' is perhaps the recent expression of those most abused.  It's about time.

Large and perhaps a little frightening are the changes we'll see in the next generation.  Shall we let them sweep us and our children along, tumbling down the river?  Or might we take a step or two on our own?

Suggestions on finding our way?  :)

Off in the distance, our goals ...
  Nobility
    Courage
      Generosity
        Compassion
          Strength
            Powerful vision

Change makers and help bringers

The hard question.

The gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and the poor ... well, there will always be some among us that are poor, right?
  
There are some interesting things we know objectively and in general about our world's poor.  One, they work harder than one might expect.  Two, they know more about survival than is common across the population.  Three, they're bright, creative, innovative, and willing to try new ideas. The availability of resources, of education, employment sites, agricultural venues, even fresh water, all of it varies from place to place, from region to region.  Not everyone will have the same opportunity, particularly if the rich bend things in their own favor as is common.

An interesting issued was raised in the 70's by Eric Fromm, 'to have or to be'.  His thesis is that two modes of existence struggle for the spirit of humankind: the having mode, which concentrates on material possessions, power, and aggression, (and is the basis of greed); and the being mode, which is based on relationship, the pleasure of community and productive activity.  The having mode has given us our current circumstance.



How might our family or any family qualify to live in poverty?  If we're lazy?  If we won't work or refuse to learn?  Those are the causal elements often suggested.

But ... they didn't choose poverty for their family, for their children.  Day after day, it is done to them by government, by the rich, by the developed world, by the world economic community.  It is done to them by those who somehow think there is enough for everyone if they'll just work really hard for their share.  Foolishness.


A deadly by-product, the variations in the market place.  Congress wrangles over the debt ceiling or Wall Street triggers a another hiccup, and we see price fluctuations.  We're annoyed, perhaps, but in the developing world, the fluctuation causes a family who spends 50% of their income just on food to fall short of enough.  Now they have to choose who goes to school or who gets enough to eat.  We do that to them.  All the time. It's globalization; it's been with us for almost a century.


Our cultural choice to 'have' causes a competition between the rich and poor for resources.  As an example, biofuels now compete for grain with the world's poorest who depend on maize meal (corn meal) for survival.  The gap widens, the rich get richer, and the poor pay for it.  At the lower end of the world's economic scale, the poor ... well, survival choices become more difficult.  

The GAP

• The GAP  - We know a few things about 2020 for certain ...  
  
• The GAP Part I  - we cannot have both
• The GAP Part II  - nice try Mr. President
• The GAP Part III  - what he told his mother
• The GAP Part IV  - the cost
• The GAP Part V  - the money flow
• The GAP Part VI  - global
• The GAP Part VII  - Meanwhile, Wall Street is doing quite well ...

Phenomenally off the mark!

Republicans and Democrats!  One of the enjoyable aspects of being only loosely associated with either party is the objectivity you enjoy when either is proven wrong.  Publicly wrong, reported in the news media wrong, wrong at great length through speech after speech and even election platform speeches.  Just phenomenally wrong!

As we approach the fiscal cliff, the score is perhaps about even. Deregulation of the banking industry, fighting over the debt ceiling, silliness goes back a ways.

I remember when the Dems thought recycling paper would make all the difference for the world’s forests.  Almost zero impact, actually; maybe even a little negative effect in the final analysis. 

Recycling paper consumes energy, of course.  More than you’d like to hear about.  Well-managed forest regions can support the paper industry much more efficiently, and burning paper instead of oil can produce energy with virtually no waste for the landfills.  It's now an expensive part of our culture.

For the GOP, their assertion that global warming was a myth turns out to be a little less than half right.  Climate change is now visibly underway even though the actual results are still somewhat in question.

In the 90’s, I recall hearing a Republican friend scoffing at the 0.1 degree change per year and casually dismissing all the associated science.  And too, I remember all the left-leaning college crowds chanting the ‘recycling’ mantra in the same decade; fun stuff.  And digital media will bring an end to paper consumption.  That worked out really well.  

The left's ‘Limits of Growth’ we’ve been told about are less concrete than suspected.  Based on projections from the 70’s, we were supposed to run out of aluminum, gold, copper, mercury, natural gas and oil, all before now.  The world should have ended, or at least fallen apart. 

We adjusted and adapted, of course.  We’ve discovered more of everything or changed what we use.  Mercury used to be the backbone of the battery industry, but consumption is down 98% now as other technologies emerge.

Did you know we were supposed to run out of copper a few years back?  Known reserves were around 280 million tons when the prediction was made.  Since then, we've produced 400 million tons, and we’ve discovered new reserves of copper (about 700 million tons so far) faster than we’re consuming the existing reserves.  Not bad. 

Reserves of everything really are finite, of course.  We can't just consume.  As humanity, we’ll have to adjust and adapt.  Some of the changes will be fairly large, I suspect, but spreading them across decades has softened the expected blow considerably.  Is there a 'black swan' event in our future?  :)  National debt?  Wall Street greed?  Healthcare?  Recession?  Free vs fair trade?  We'll adjust, of course.

Perhaps the bigger question for us in the western world is whether we’ll do our adjusting at the expense of others or for their benefit.  Wealthy folks (and wealthy countries) adapt (1) because they must and (2) because they can afford the cost.  The poor are often left behind. 

  

 

It's most painfully evident perhaps when minor disturbances provoked in the marketplace of the wealthy cause massive upheaval on the far side of the world.

So, Republicans and Democrats ... how have we done so far?  

Which of the two leadership groups and philosophies do you think might understand the impact of their choices on the world’s poor?  Either of them?  Trickle down didn't, every child wasn't, we couldn't, Wall Street stole it with government assistance, and the gap widens, nationally and internationally.

The power contest between the two parties seems to have but little to do with the good of the nation's citizens as a whole, IMHO, and even less the citizens of the world.

Free to speak!

Free to ...  TWEET !?!

Shared ideas, shared thinking,

... shared vision! 
Jump in?

A few days ago, a student in India posted a mildly critical comment about a public figure who had died. Within hours, he was arrested along with a friend who had 'liked' the comment. Keep in mind, India is one of the stronger democracies.

In China, a mother was sentenced to 'reeducation through labor' for protesting her daughter's mistreatment by local police. The social media uproar by millions brought worldwide attention and her release. And vindication in the public and national forum.

The 2500 year old battle for free speech continues. Today, more than NATO or the UN, tyrants now fear the social media. :)


Exercise and enjoy the freedom you have to speak, to tweet, to blog what's on your mind! What an extraordinary benefit; what a powerful lever in a changing world!

 

Digital Weaponry, part 2 

Bloggers now out-produce all the world's publishing houses combined.

Commuters use mobile devices.
Can China’s Social Media Break
the Chains of Censorship?

In China, it's Weibo.com, among others.  Today it’s the top platform for social discourse and a big driver for consumer activity. It’s also a celebrity hub. Just as American celebrities communicate with their fans via Twitter, Chinese celebrities depend on Weibo as a way to connect with their fans and drive popularity. Interestingly enough, Bill Gates easily has twice as many followers as Tom Cruise on Twitter (Gates with 7,215,994 and Cruise with 3,077,444), but Cruise has 4,231,919 followers on Weibo, one million more than Gates.

China's Weibo.com, the social media of current note, has badly

shaken the status quo of corrupt community governments ...

Bloggers now out-produce all the world's publishing houses combined, and Pew data suggests that 80 percent of bloggers have started publishing only in the last few years; it's still a new and growing crowd of writers.  While most writers are lighthearted about their blogs, many are thoughtfully hoping to ... well, to change the way people think.

So thanks to bloggers (and tweeters), welcome to Egypt and the Arab Spring, welcome to murderous Syria, to Wall Street's back rooms, to Mombasa from inside the government circles, to Nigerian oil-sodden wastelands, to China's corrupt local governments, to the mass media as seen through the eyes of someone whose vision is larger.

Slammed by the overwhelming will of the people
expressed worldwide and instantly!

 Regarding bloggers and social media publishers, "... be prepared to see the world around you change more rapidly than usual, thanks to their influence, story telling, discoveries, and open sharing of ideas.  Nothing beats the potential that sharing information can have on humans: this is the real digital weapon of our future."  John Blossom

We can change the world after all!