Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
The Melting of America: The Story of a Can’t-Do Nation
Lately, I've been studying the climate-change induced melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet's most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. Spending time considering the deleterious downstream effects on the two billion people (from the North China Plain to Afghanistan) who depend on the river systems -- the Yellow, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, Amu Darya and Tarim -- that arise in these mountains isn't much of an antidote to malaise either.
If you focus on those Himalayan highlands, a deep sense of loss creeps over you -- the kind that comes from contemplating the possible end of something once imagined as immovable, immutable, eternal, something that has unexpectedly become vulnerable and perishable as it has slipped into irreversible decline. Those magnificent glaciers, known as the Third Pole because they contain the most ice in the world short of the two polar regions, are now wasting away on an overheated planet and no one knows what to do about it.
To stand next to one of those leviathans of ice, those Moby Dicks of the mountains, is to feel in the most poignant form the magnificence of the creator's work. It's also to regain an ancient sense, largely lost to us, of our relative smallness on this planet and to be forcibly reminded that we have passed a tipping point. The days when the natural world was demonstrably ascendant over even the quite modest collective strength of humankind are over. The power -- largely to set an agenda of destruction -- has irrevocably shifted from nature to us.
Another tipping point has also been on my mind lately and it's left me no less melancholy. In this case, the Moby Dick in question is my own country, the United States of America. We Americans, too, seem to have passed a tipping point. Like the glaciers of the high Himalaya, long familiar aspects of our nation are beginning to feel as if they were, in a sense, melting away.
The eight years of George W. Bush's wrecking ball undeniably helped set our descent in motion. Then came the dawning realization that President Barack Obama, who strode into office billed as a catalyst of sure-fire change, would no more stop the melting down of the planet's former "sole superpower" than the Copenhagen summit would stop the melting of those glaciers. After all, a predatory and dysfunctional Washington reminds us constantly that we may be approaching the end of the era of American possibility. For Obama's beguiling aura of promise to be stripped away so unceremoniously has left me feeling as if we, as a country, might have missed the last flight out.
And speaking of last flights out, I've been on a lot of those lately. It's difficult enough to contemplate the decline of one's country from within, but from abroad? That -- take my word for it -- is an even more painful prospect. Because out there you can't escape an awareness that what's working and being built elsewhere is failing and being torn apart here. To travel is to be forced to make endless comparisons which, when it comes to our country, is like being disturbed by unnerving dreams.
In the past few months, as I've roamed the world from San Francisco to Copenhagen to Beijing to Dubai, I've taken to keeping a double-entry list of what works and what doesn't, country by country. Unfortunately, it's largely a list of what works "there" and doesn't work here. It's in places like China, South Korea, Sweden, Holland, Switzerland, and (until recently) the United Arab Emirates -- some not even open societies -- that you find people hard at work on the challenges of education, transport, energy, and the environment. It's there that one feels the sense of possibility, of hopefulness, of can-do optimism so long associated with the U.S.
China, a country I've visited more than 100 times since 1975, elicits an especially complicated set of feelings in me. After all, it's got a Leninist government which was not supposed to succeed; and yet, despite all predictions, it managed to conjure up an economic miracle that, whatever you may think about political transparency, the rule of law, human rights, or democracy, delivers big time. When you're there, you can feel an unmistakable sense of energy and optimism in the air (along with the often stinging pollution), which, believe me, is bittersweet for an American pondering the missing-in-action regenerative powers of his own country.
As I've been traveling from China's gleamingly efficient airports to our chaotic and all-too-often broken-down versions of the same, or Europe's high-speed trains to our clunky railroads, I keep that expanding list of mine on hand, my own little version of what works and what doesn't. Over time, its entries have fallen into one of three categories that I imagine something like this:
1. Robust, full of energy, growing, replete with promise and strength, the envy of the world.
2. Alive and kicking, but in a delicate balance between growth and decline.
3. Irredeemably broken, with little chance of restored health anytime soon.
And here then, as I imagine it, is the shape of America today in terms of what works and what doesn't, what's growing and what's failing:
1. Bio-technology, developing dynamically and delivering much of the world's most innovative technological research, thinking, and ideas; Silicon Valley, which still has enormous inventiveness, energy, and capital at its disposal; civil society which, despite the collapse of the economy, still seems to be expanding, still luring the best and brightest young people, and still superbly performing the ever more crucial function of being a goad to government and other established institutions; American philanthropy, which is the most evolved, well-funded, and innovative in the world; the U.S. military, the best led, trained, equipped, and maintained on the planet, despite the way it has been repeatedly thrust into hopeless wars by stupid politicians; the fabric of much of small-town American life with its still extant sense of cohesiveness and community spirit; the arts, both high-culture and pop, boasting a still vibrant film industry that remains the globe's "sole superpower" of visual entertainment, and the requisite networks of symphony orchestras, ballets, theaters, pop music groups, and world-class museums.
2. Higher and secondary-school education, in which America still boasts some of the globe's preeminent institutions, though the best are increasingly private as jewel-in-the-crown public systems like California's are driven into the ground thanks to devastating, repeated budget cuts; a national energy system which still delivers, but is terminally strung out on oil and coal, and depends on a grid badly in need of some new "smartness"; environmental protection, which compares favorably with that in other countries, though always under-funded and so, like our extraordinary national park system, ever teetering above the abyss; the court system, overburdened and under-funded, but struggling to deliver justice.
3. The federal government, essentially busted; Congress, increasingly paralyzed and largely incapable of delivering solutions to the country's most pressing problems; state government, largely broke; the Interstate highway system and our infrastructure of bridges and tunnels, melting away like a block of ice in the sun because maintenance and upgrading is so poor; dikes, water systems, and many other aspects of the national infrastructure which keeps the country going, similarly old and deteriorating; airlines, some of the sorriest in the world with the oldest, dirtiest, and least up-to-date planes and the requisite run-down airports to go with them; ports that are falling behind world standards; a railroad passenger system which, unlike countries from Spain to China, has not one mile of truly high-speed rail; the country's financial system whose over-paid executives not only ran us off an economic cliff in 2008, but also managed to compromise the whole system itself in the eyes of the world; a broadcast media which -- public broadcasting and aspects of a vital and growing Internet excepted -- is a grossly overly-commercialized, broken-down mess that has gravely let down the country in terms of keeping us informed; newspapers, in a state of free-fall; book publishing, heading in the same direction; elementary education (that is, our future), especially public K-12 schools in big cities, desperately under-funded and near broke in many communities; a food industry which subsidizes sugar and starch, stuffs people with fast-food, and leaves 60% of the population overweight; basic manufacturing, like the automobile industry, evidently headed for oblivion, or China, whichever comes first; the American city, hollowing out and breaking down; the prison system, one of America's few growth industries but a pit of hopelessness.
As you may have noted, category one is close to a full list, category two, close enough, while category three is just a gesture in the direction of larger-scale decline. Unfortunately, it seems ever expandable. You'll undoubtedly be tempted to add to it yourself. (I have the same impulse every time I'm elsewhere and see some shiny new industrial or designer toy we don't make or even have.) When I told a friend about this tallying obsession of mine, he suggested that it might turn out to be a great website. (See the vigorous world of the Internet in category one above.) And so it might -- a kind of electronic stock market Big Board where the world could weigh in and help track all those things people find encouraging or discouraging about the U.S. and other countries.
The initial impulse for my list, however, was self-protective. I was searching for "things that work" here, the better to banish that dispiriting sense of an American decline into the sort of can't-do-itive-ness that Congress has come to exemplify. Consider my exercise some kind of incantatory ritual -- a talisman -- meant to hold off the bad spirits just as, when I arrive in Beijing in winter and find the mercury near zero (an increasing rarity these last years) or stumble into a snowstorm in New York City, I'm relieved. For me, such manifestations of real winter are signs that nature may not yet have totally surrendered to us, that global warming is still being challenged, and that things may not be as far gone as I sometimes fear.
And yet that list of can-do's remains so unbearably short and the cant-do's grows by the trip. I'd love to be convinced otherwise, but like the ice fields of the Greater Himalaya melting before our eyes, American prowess and promise, once seemingly as much a permanent part of the global landscape as glaciers, mountains, and oceans, seems to be melting away by the day.
47 Comments so far
Show AllYeah, at least their fascists run the planes on time!
All this globe trekking contributes to the problem. Planes are the least efficient form of transportation.
>>we may be approaching the end of the era of American possibility.<<
I don't think this is quite true quite yet. Small businesses are still starting up and innovating despite the Great Recession. Universities still do ground-breaking research. People are still largely getting by and raising their children well. The sky is not yet falling despite some cracks.
Still, as so well documented, we are behind the curve. And we have a faux leadership that does not promise to lead us out of that losing place. So it's up to us folks.
Roll up the sleeves and let's roll.
Gary
I think that things as they are happening don't necessarily mean the USA will "lose" those listed things -- such as "lose innovation"....etc...
what will be or is happening is that the USA simply will no LONGER be "leading" in many of even all of those things. except perhaps in the capacity to make war...whichever comes first: the destruction of the US Military industry or its diminishment or some other country surpasses the USA (which is unlikely).
People are people -- people innovate for one or another reason.
the difference is that the USA will simply no longer be held in "awe" by many..and to many it never was held in awe...
and equally important -- americans will become more AWARE outside of their own national , habitual ignorance - that they USA
IS -- no longer held in awe in things the americans like to feel "proud" about -- such as "innovation" - as if it was some kind of American "birthright" that others DON'T have..UNTRUE as that american Myth is.
I am practically laughing out loud at his Category 1 items.
Innovation? The USA is innovative only in things that at best, we don't need - and less charitably, are destroying us - environmentally, culturally, and intellectually. I shudder when I see the firghtening crack-like PDA/cell phone/I-Pod addiction of today's young people. and even those things mostly come from outside the country. In my engineering field - physical infrastructure - a field sorely in need of innovation, all innovation comes from Europe or East Asia. In my avocational tinkering with electric vehicles, all the innovations come from China.
Civil society? What civil society???
Philanthropy? That we rely on miraculously converted Scrooges is something to brag about?
The murderous military industrial complex is something to brag about? The wars are merely the result of "stupid politicians"? Oh, my dear naive rich-Nepal-trekking liberal, the politicialns are owned by that war industry, and they know exactly what they are doing!
Small-Town America? You mean the Wal-Mart and chain-eateries by the bypass, and an empty downtown (or at best, some of it turned into a disneylandish "old towne" tourist attraction)? You mean the all the small town prople who can only find employment at the end of a 100 mile drive into the suburban sprawl around a dead and blighted urban core?
The arts? The utterly idiotic, puerile, intellegence-insulting violent crap from the US film industry?
The increasingly dumbed-down, corporate-run things the US calls "museums"?
Thank you for that! I was thinking much the same thing.
“The arts? The utterly idiotic, puerile, intelligence-insulting violent crap from the US film industry?”
Last weekend “The Starving Artists” graced South Bend Indiana with an appearance. In case you’re not familiar with “The Starving Artists” it’s an importer that hires third world “artists” to paint cheesie oil/acrylic/lead based paintings that are then sold in the convention rooms of third rate motels near the Interstate exits.
From their TV commercial; “SATURDAY ONLY!! FROM 11:00AM TILL 6:00PM THE STARVING ARTISTS WILL PRESENT OUTSTANDING PAINTINGS AT THE DAY’S INN CONFRENCE CENTER, JUST OFF I-80 AT ROUTE 36. SOFA SIZED PAINTINGS $39.95 PAINTINGS STARTING AT $7.99. NO PAINTING ABOVE $59.99 SATURDAY ONLY FROM 11:00AM till 6:00PM
For what it’s worth “The Starving Artists” are pretty good at ripping off Thomas Kinkade.
Did I mention that an American artist can not buy the materials needed to paint one of these paintings for what The Starving Artists’ paintings sell for.
>>For what it’s worth “The Starving Artists” are pretty good at ripping off Thomas Kinkade.<<
So is Thomas Kinkade.
Gary
A while back I went to a concert by Jewel at the Embassy Theater in Fort Wayne, during the concert her performance was digitally recorded and after the show the CD of her performance was available for $15 or 20 dollars. It’s my estimate that well more than half* of the audience stood in line and bought a CD.
During the concert she commented that she was bootlegging her own show. The CD was an instant classic of mine. Jewel performed solo with just her acoustic guitar.
*I include most couples as a single economic unit in that estimate. If both you and your date bought a copy of the CD it’s likely that was your last date together.
Hear, hear!
And if the writer thought in terms of 'climate change', ie greater extremes, rather than 'global warming', he might not feel so comfortable being in a freeze.
Yes, I was thinking that as well. One of outstanding things about the internet and modern communication is that one does's need to physically travel to develop an underatanding of other lands and poeple. I can see the glaciers of the Himzaaya, the streets of Lhasa and marvel at the Potala Palace on Google maps.
Reading the works of people in other lands, Like Arundhati Roy's semi-autobiographical "The God of Small Things" is a fine way to connect too.
With experience, an enormous amout of both geographical and cultural information can be obtained from a high-resolution aerial photos on the internet. One can tour the West Bank - see the lavish Jewish suburban so-called settlements and the run-down Palestinian villages, their entire road network cut-off and blocked by the Jew-only highways, follow the apartheid wall, the checkpoints, see the long lines - all visible from space on Google Maps or Google Earth. Augmenting it with the writings of Palestinians, and conversatons with actual Palestinian emigre's and I've practically been there, without emitting hardly any CO2 at all.
I cannot argue with the carbon footprint of travel. I admit there is undeniable truth in this. But there is a bit more to it. I can say that watching TV or the internet is not the same as the cultural experience of higher levels of tourism.
There is tourism and the tourist industry, and then there is tourism. Explaining my concept of levels of tourism, on a scale of 1 to 5:-
Level 1 of tourism: Flying to the 5 star hotels at your destination, and staying for a week, eating at their restaurants. This level of tourism is often not that much better than watching TV, and yet it is the most expensive. A 5 star hotel is the same anywhere in the world. But in the case of visiting a country demonised in our media, such as Iran, it would still be much better than than you can get through the media. Someone like Obama could at best, experience this level of tourism.
Level 5 of tourism: Living amongst the locals as they do, working or studying in the country, learning their language and making an effort to understand their religion and their traditions. If you are open, you not only get to view a different way of life, but you get to see our life and theirs through a different set of lens. This is unbeatable, as an experience, and you become something of an authority on their ways, and the more open locals will also want to learn about our ways from you.
This is why most of our politicians are given free all expenses payed trips to Israel. They get to see life through the Israeli lens (which is a big part of our problem). George Galloway's experiences in Lebanon, on the other hand allowed him to see life through the lens of a country trampled on by Israel. He got to experience some of their pain, and it changed him. If the Iranian's had any sense, they would have welcomed John Kerry's visit to Iran with both arms, and treated him to the best Iran had to offer. Sadly, they refused his visit.
P.S. Traveling between England, USA, and Canada reveals how alike we are. It is essentially not much more of an experience than traveling around the USA (Traveling around the USA is an experience, still). The cultural differences are so minor, but still notable. In any case, you get almost the same media and propaganda.
PPS. Level 0 of tourism. I can truthfully say that I have been to Singapore, bur really I only experienced the inside of their airport.
That's the problem with travelling: you come to realize that your sacred and amazing homeland is just another country on the map.
I think one can come to the same relization without traveling, and vice-versa, many will travel all their lives and still be hopelessly infected with USAn exceptionalism.
Such ponderous thoughts on the absolutely obvious.
A visit to Niagara Falls to compare the American side with the Canadian side is instructive.
Here is a video of some CIA and Homeland Security people during their time off.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/07/best-fails-of-2009-video_n_414549.html
We have been "American'ts" for quite some time now. If we're not rapidly becoming the laughing stock of the world, then I'd say those other countries don't have a good sense of humor.
No, it's just that our bombs tend to be joke-killers.
one thing that should be mentioned in the US's favor is that this one of the best countries I know of for allowing difference, immigrants, etc. Yes, I know I know, we are a full on xenophobic bunch of immigrant hypocrits, but all that being said, the structure of this country allows difference in a way that most other countries do not, despite the best efforts of our populace to stop this. Its really the only real value added that this country has.
"One thing that should be mentioned in the US's favor is that this one of the best countries I know of for allowing difference, immigrants, etc."
Ever been to Toronto, or London?
Everything in Schells category three depends on public funding with public advocacy. But in an America where the wealthiest 1% own half the country (up from 20% in 1980), even the paltry public funding left is hijacked to support the causes of corporations and their wealthy owners, which explains our $1 trillion a year military (oil conquest), biotechnology ('fountain of youth' drugs), healthcare system (need I explain), Globalization and WallStreet bailouts (keep America's wealthy invested in Chinese expansion), and media (Faux News reprogramming the poor to support the wealthy).
Our government is owned by money, not people. This is generally true of ANY government. Redestribute the money through progressive taxation, and you make the government responsive to the people again. And then, eventually, everything in Schells category three returns to the much better state it was in before Reagan cut taxes in '82, including governance itself. Some trivial things in his category one will take a hit, however, like the military.
And redistibute some of that money to pay for elections so we don't have them bought and sold.
Gary
After all, a predatory and dysfunctional Washington reminds us constantly that we may be approaching the end of the era of American possibility.
The era has already long passed. The only thing possible now is speculation on exactly how we are going to continue to be ripped off over the next three years by the present Democrat incaranation of The Wrecking Crew.
"...the U.S. military, the best led, trained, equipped, and maintained on the planet...."
Seems to me that Schell has fallen into his own jingoistic trap. While his statement about the US military may be mostly true, he fails to point out that it is also one of the most dysfunctional and lame militaries on the planet, shamed in joint exercises with other militaries such as Australia, Norway, and even tiny Nepal.
The reason for this is that the US armed forces is a military without a mission. The GWOT is not a military mission. "Bringing democracy" to another country is not a military mission. The US military is single-minded, and not broad thinking. Like the steroid-filled wrestler, it is unable to think or move quickly, unable to adapt to changing strategies and tactics. Despite the enormous funding available to it, the US military is an abject failure, and clandestinely the laughing stock of many armed forces around the world.
World Briefing | Asia
Pakistan: U.S. Embassy Complains that Its Staff Is Being Harassed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 7, 2010
The United States Embassy in Pakistan complained publicly Thursday that its staff members were being harassed and detained as they traveled around the country, a rare public protest reflecting the tensions between the allies as America expanded its presence here. American officials say they need to expand the embassy staff to help disburse $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan. But many Pakistanis believe that the United States is bringing in spies to destabilize the country and to take over its nuclear program. American diplomats have faced lengthy delays in approvals for visas and visa extensions. Some have also been stopped at checkpoints.
Writing as an atypical American citizen in that I have lived and worked abroad, and continue to travel extensively for professional and family reasons -- the decline of the USA was fairly obvious to see for those quite a time ago (my late father said in the beginning of the prior decade that America's time in the sun had passed). It began somewhat unnoticed when Grandpa Caligula (Reagan) began "The Great Lurch Backwards" to a redux of the Robber Baron era without the industrial base, was abetted by Bubba Clinton's corporatist policies, and the unmitigated disaster that was the Bush error. Now, for all intents and purposes, the USA is rapidly sliding out of the club of first world nations while Obama caters to the banksters and Wall Street. Unless a substantial progressive change occurs, America will become a failed state with nukes like Pakistan.
Well Nate you nailed with that post. Unfortunately I don't see how a progressive change can occur now, I think our destiny will be what you described with no chance of evading it.
This article is so terribly trapped in a "1950's" state of mind with its nearly orgasmic worship of seemingly any "new" technology that it strikes me as one of the most pathetically typical and misguided assessments of where we are and what we need.
Nowhere did the author dare suggest that we need to simplify our lifestyles. Instead we get "the new, the new, the new....technology, technology, technology..."
Also, in his assessment of China he says they deliver "big time" "whatever you may think about political transparency, the rule of law, human rights, or democracy" --AS IF these things really matter to most of the people in this United States of a corrupt, self-absorbed nation.
I would argue that the problem with the United States of Global Domination (which, I strongly suspect Mr. Schell supports) is that there is no shortage of a "can do" attitude - as in "We can do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, and to whomever we want."
All of those hundred trips to China and his personally observing environmental degradation did NOT seem to have any significant effect on his rose-colored glasses.
Think of the world as the NFL.
We've won lots of Super Bowls in a row, but it was just a matter of time until a new champ was crowned.
The questions now are: A) Can we adjust to being No. 2? 3? 4? and B) is this a slump, or are we on the way to Detroit Lion territory?
The country is set up to be dependent on vehicular travel and we GOTTA have that oil. Is their another country that has this dilemma? I doubt it.
The Melting of AMERICA? How about the melting of the UNITED STATES OF America. The name of the country is the UNITED STATES not America. Although they do believe that they are the only country on this side of the world. I hate being dragged along their nefarious war mongering. Now we are tarred with the same brush as the BUSHIES.
Orville Schell says.... "The eight years of George W. Bush's wrecking ball undeniably helped set our descent in motion."
No. America's descent didn't start with 8 long years of GW Bush. GW simply put the "wrecking ball" into hyper-drive. The wrecking ball has a name... NEOLIBERALISM... and it was set into motion when the Reaganites implemented their neoliberal economic policies.
But isn't neoliberalism merely conservatism "with a human face?"
Gary
I'm not sure about the "tone" of your comment... joking? serious? confused about what neo-liberalism is?
But, neo-liberalism is an economic ideology and has nothing to do with the political term liberal.
>>Neo-liberalism" is a set of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years or so. Although the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of neo-liberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.
"Liberalism" can refer to political, economic, or even religious ideas. In the U.S. political liberalism has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive compared to conservative or Right-wing. Economic liberalism is different. Conservative politicians who say they hate "liberals" -- meaning the political type -- have no real problem with economic liberalism, including neo-liberalism.<< [GLOBAL ECONOMY 101 -- What is "Neo-Liberalism"? A Brief Definition -- http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/econ101
/neoliberalDefined.html ]
The last sentence makes my point. Conservatives love neo-liberalism.
Gary
"The last sentence makes my point. Conservatives love neo-liberalism."
Indeed, they do. (I never disagreed with that, btw)
But let's not forget to add that the political "liberals" of the last 25 years also love neo-liberalism.
And that was my point... that Neo-liberalism (supported by both conservatives AND liberals) is the wrecking ball, and NOT eight long years of GW Bush. Neo-liberalism was set into motion by the Reaganites and continued to swing with Bush Sr, then was sent into over-drive by Clinton, went into hyper-drive with GW, and now Obama has pledged allegiance to this ideology as well.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
This article is filled with glaring omissions and dumbed-down assumptions. I detect a gradual increase in the numbers of "reform the Democrats" articles being chosen for re-posting by CommonDreams editors. We deserve smarter articles than this and more Leftist, independent critiques of our decaying society that also include some well thought-out prescriptions for positive transformation that don't involve running back to the same old cancerous Democratic Leadership Council destroyed DNC tit.
tired old 'america WAS great'.....the reason we got so rich (the white workers anyway) for a reasonably short period of time ( 1945 to 1970) was not due to some 'can do' culture. IT was due to a country with a VAST amount of resources....and peoples' fighting.
People fighting against the 'liberal' notion of pick yourself up and do good by yourself.
it took people fighting as groups, as anti capitalists ...and it took politicians scared enough to give the whites and under LBJ some to african americans...the goods.
This whole 'american culture' thing is gross. We had a land mass for 200 years that was so rich in every EVERY resource you can imagine. After getting rid of the indians, and using millions of slaves....you would actually think that the white workers SHOULD have been living like the 'middle class' from 1800 onto 1970.
what goddamn planet are american liberals and 'progressives' from?
reform capitalism and imperialism. YEAH!!!!! SOMEHOW!!!! no doubt.
or vote for a THIRD PARTY! ....wow what a NEW idea!!! christ.
being radical is fighting against power structures. Being for the planet, and the people is fighting against all economic and political hierarchies that destroy nature, and deny people justice.
anarchism.
or 'libertarian socialism'....if you don't want to scare your liberal friends.
More simple put, being 'real', means you really have to fight the systems that are the enemy. Not vote a pastel version.
Well said.
Schell's most telling inconsistency in his ratings travelogue is his placement of the US military in the top #1 "envy of the world" category--"replete with promise and strength"--while the US federal gov't is cast in the lowest, #3 category ("irredeemably broken"). News flash for Orville: Sentient beings long ago recognized a dominant USA phenomenon called the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex--a vast and violent apparatus of corruption, an appurtenance of empire, with its home office in . . . the federal government. --Travel is supposed to be "broadening," but Schell's thinking only exemplifies the decadence that he pretends to judge. And it is evident that Schell knows very little of the "small-town American life" that he also puts in the top #1 category. I suggest that he contact Thomas Frank for travel suggestions in western Kansas; I doubt that Schell would return with his list intact.
I had expected much better from America after President Gore was elected.
Dont feel bad for nature, it's been glorious in the past, and can be glorious again once we're gone, or more likely, reduced back to some sort of weird post-tech status with a 75% die-off. Nature can't be controlled. If we had started restricting greenhouse gasses 15 years ago, or could actually put the severe brakes on now, MAYBE we would fix the problem but prob not. Natural systems take a good kick to get going, and don't reverse easily or quickly. That said, we are a set distance from the sun, so while glaciers melt, other areas may get colder. We might trigger another ice age, or rampant ocean rise. We'll see, but yeah, glaciers melting means lots of angry people.
I have zero patience for China - I find them as foul as us, worse in many ways - they are awful to all wildlife and the oceans. They still support idiotic medieval beliefs about eating valuable animal parts from endangered species. They support genocidal govts in Sudan, myanmar, Nepal, and in their own country. They are perfecting surveillance and dead-end jobs to a nazi-like science. They used the debt they owe the USA as an excuse to spurn Obama and his climate negotiators in Copenhagen. They are a foul country, end of story. They'll pay just like we have. If anything, certain small localities in this world that can sustain themselves and not get irradiated in coming nuclear explosions can be survivable.
There is no tech that will make up for either the decline in supply or inability to use fossil fuels, except fusion which we dont have. Oil has built the major nations of the world, which have squandered that progress. People are still having children while their lives get worse.
Billions of people are living in mud and dirt and bacteria.
People are still killing each other over god fantasies.
I have no fear for nature nor man. Humans are going to get slapped upside the head in a major way, in fact they already have. The question is when does the richer first world and the elites really get it. The end of 2008 was close, but no cigar, but odds are it won't be long. When the elites lose their wealth and their ability to control these large nations and systems, then serious game over begins, and it will be really, really ugly. Unless people can somehow form smaller regional countres and not war with each other, which, judging from history, is impossible. Oh yeah, and the nukes will come out somewhere, or maybe govts will have the sense to wreck them before they shut down.
>>Humans are going to get slapped upside the head in a major way, in fact they already have. The question is when does the richer first world and the elites really get it.<<
They get it, they just don't care as they figure the loot they've skimmed off the middle class will protect them from ill effects. Lord knows they might even BELIEVE the climate change doubters despite the overwhelming science, just as most Americans still believe in Genesis over evolution despite the clear evidence.
As long as they think their hill up on top of the hill will protect them from the floods the elite will not give a damn for what happens below.
Gary
Disheartening, but on the money. In the US, the laisez-faire libertarian "economic" and social theory have made a mockery of what a free society should look like. Its a poison that has made it commonplace to look at things done for the comon good as threats to our freedom. The tragic part is how we stand silent as our real civil liberties are eroded while "libertarians" squawk about diminishing rights whenever someone proposes a real solution to fix the environment or hold robber bankers acountable. As a nation, we are truly fucked.