Progress or Extinction
"Our economic systems were formed when the planet and its air, rivers, oceans, lands, all seemed infinite. They evolved long before we first saw the Earth as the tiny organism that it actually is. They're all alike in one respect they're profit-driven, and therefore, focused on short-term gain. The prevailing economic systems, no matter what their ideologies, have no built-in mechanisms for protecting our descendants of even 100 years from now, let alone, 100,000. In one respect, we're ahead of the people of Ancient Mesopotamia. Unlike them, we understand what's happening to our world. For example, we're pumping greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere at a rate not seen on Earth for a million years. And the scientific consensus that we're destabilizing our climate. Yet our civilization seems to be in the grip of denial; a kind of paralysis. There's a disconnect between what we know and what we do. Being able to adapt our behavior to challenges is