Hi everyone,

I have been doing some research and writing in recent days to try and figure out how to best proceed and I'll be frank that the answers are not coming easy. 

I believe that in order to make headway, humanity is going to have to pull off something which is FAR outside the bounds of our evolutionary programming. 

Let's face it. We are all motivated to survive and have been historically rewarded for exploiting whatever advantage we can. Human survival has always depended upon membership in successful social groups and in modern society, there is obviously a survival advantage associated with accumulation of money and influence. 

No one wants to be at the bottom of the hierarchy because that is where the survival risks are greatest ..... so the competitive survival pressure to maintain our position in the pecking order is much more intense than we may appreciate. In order to maintain our membership position, we must conform to the lifestyle that the group expects of us. 

As a former corporate finance professional and member of the Jewish community, I dwelled in a social culture that was much more affluent than the global norm. When I became an outspoken critic of the high carbon lifestyle of the affluent, I was completely excommunicated from the social group which I formerly inhabited. 

Boomers like me grew up in a world without concern for our carbon footprints and we are trapped in social circles that require us to be silent about our carbon pollution or risk social expulsion. We want to believe that we are virtuous and care for our children's future so we allow ourselves to succumb to nonsensical claims that the fault lies elsewhere. We tell ourselves that individual action isn't important and that the villains are corporations or politicians or fossil fuel companies. 

But corporations are just a metaphor for wealthy shareholders and Boomers own most of the nation's private wealth. Politicians need money for their campaigns and must do what wealthy Boomers want and we aren't asking politicians to put a limit on our carbon footprints nor are we asking the fossil fuel companies to stop supplying what we consume. 

We have to face into the fact that we have a conflict of interest between TODAY and the FUTURE. And humans have almost no experience walking away from a resource which gives us such a survival advantage today. 

Humans generally also have a disdain for math so almost none of my fellow citizens is acquainted with the atmospheric carbon dioxide related math that tells a dark story. 

Insurance company actuaries don't suffer from this aversion to math and their analysis is resulting in a homeowners insurance crisis which is a leading domino in the collapse of a financial system that has been dependent upon stable weather patterns that we took for granted. 

It's been a long time since we experienced any genuine hardship in the US and we have a tendency to forget painful lessons over time and allow ourselves to imagine that we are immune to a genuine life and death crisis. 

The world is changing quicker than you think and there is going to be some major regret for our allowing ourselves to do so much damage the only habitable planet we have. We are entering a global game of musical chairs. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are just the beginning of a negative spiral. The US political system is unable to produce an articulate and inspiring candidate below the age of 75 for the presidency and neither of the major party candidates has participated in a single debate. 

I confess that I don't have a lot of friends these days. I've never been good at telling people what they prefer to hear. My loyalty is to a conscience that guides me to tell the truth. My interpretation of God is the other end of the conversation in my head in which I wrestle with what is the right thing to do. So that connection provides some comfort. 

I need to go out and find the peeps I fit in with. I know that I can't do this alone. 

If you have any suggestions or want to share a word of encouragement, feel free to reach out at the buckstopswithus@gmail.com

Peace,

Rich