Longer Step: Ideas for Justice and Sustainability

  From an 'environmental stability' perspective, we'd like to see fossil fuel usage declining, while renewable energy use increases. Well, we have the 2nd part, but not the first one: Fossil fuel use continues to grow, as overall energy demand keeps increasing worldwide. Buckle up, everybody--the world will keep getting warmer and the storms worse. (Photo credit: The Guardian.com)

  HW Bush (the father) had honorable military and CIA service, and was the last Republican who was intelligent, honorable, and competent, though I disagreed with many of his positions. Romney comes to mind as an intelligent, honorable man, though he lost. Then there were a pair of unsatisfactory Republicans: one an idiot and the other both an idiot and dishonest: younger Bush (who tormented us when we lived in TX; his greatest failure was starting unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which cost trillions and permanent brain injuries in thousands of American soldiers), and Trump, a narcissistic Facist who understands almost nothing except how to berate and antagonize others for personal gain. Most of the less-educated citizens now follow that party. The Democrats fare a little better. Clinton was a moral scuz but most of his positions were good for the country (except his excessive support of Big Business), and Clinton has the distinction of being the last President who oversaw...

  I try to think like a Futurist. (That isn't to say that I ever do it well.) But the question churning in my mind is: At what point do we need to de-populate the coastal areas of Florida? I could imagine giving everything below, say, 50' elevation in Florida back to nature, and people would simply be moved to higher ground. Let Nature take over the coasts. People could go there for the day to play on the beach or marvel at the crumbling post-modern buildings as they rusted back to ground. That's short term thinking, however, as yet another hurricane forms to slam into Florida's west coast. Long-term thinking would be to anticipate 50' sea level rise, or even 200', when/if all the land ice melts. Might as well get started now in our preparations, instead of just rebuilding over and over in places where the new construction will only be destroyed again. That feels futile and misguided. And if Governor Desantis finds himself king of a smaller and smaller land, th...