Unintended Consequences

                                                                                       written 29 March, 2026

                                                                                       published 5 April, 2026

 

            I became aware of the climate crisis 30 years ago.  Science has blind spots, but I believe it is a relevant portrayal of physical reality.  The computer I use to write this and the electricity I take for granted, validate the scientific perspective.  Science says we are cooking our planet.  Our president says the climate crisis is a hoax.  In my opinion, he is a liar and/or a fool.  

            But to give him credit, he is a charming huckster, telling people what they want to hear, unrestrained by reality.  This extends well past his core MAGA minority.  One evening, stumped by Iran's continued resistance, the president threated to destroy their civilian infrastructure (a war crime), if they didn't open the Straits to shipping within 48 hours.  The price of oil jumped and the stock market dropped, because people believed he would escalate the war.  

            A few hours before the deadline expired, the president relented, extending his ultimatum for five more days, stating that Iran had begun negotiations and "reached significant agreements".  The price of oil dropped and stocks went up, because people believed him.  It is important to note that millions of dollars were made on this swing, indicating insider trading.  However, within a few minutes of the president's "agreement" announcement, Iran said there were no such talks.  

            For the moment, the US plans to hold off attacking for another 10 days.  This is probably true, not because negotiations are happening, but perhaps because the additional troops moving into the area are still in transit.  

            Speculation about what, where, and the duration of a US ground attack are all over the place.  But history and experienced voices suggest it won't be quick or bloodless, and could expand the war uncontrollably.  Meanwhile, now into the second month, shipping through the Straits is just a fraction of the former volume.

            Much like the boy who cried "wolf", people are finally beginning to distrust the president.  Once a person is recognized as a liar, they begin to lose power.  The stock market has now continued to drop, the price of oil has begun to climb again, and retail gasoline and diesel prices keep inching higher every week.  

            One relatively unmentioned consequence of this war is the impact on the AI building frenzy.  Manufacture of the advanced microchips essential for this boom involve over 1,000 different companies, in 70 different countries.  Critical materials are now blocked, and shipping cost for everything are now greater, making the delivery and economics much more uncertain.  

            Even before the war, the AI investment boom was getting shacky because investors want more immediate financial return on their massive investments.  To support the AI fantasy, data centers need to be built more rapidly than construction of energy systems can supply.  The concerns about the enormous energy AI centers require will increase now that fossil fuels are more expensive.  

            The AI economic frenzy is an elaborate house of cards, carefully balanced on assumptions of stability and predictability, which has just been hit by the reality shock of war.  When the AI financial bubble pops, the stock market will react much like when the 2007 housing bubble popped.  This could happen before the November elections.

            Another consequence of this war is the shift away from oil trades denominated in US dollars, which has been the industry standard for over 50 years, an enormous economic advantage for the US.  However, our risky debt structure, our recent erratic political actions, and the slow change in global power dynamics, make the dollar less attractive, and it is being replaced by the Chinese yuan.  This probably won't be a complete shift, but the US monopoly may have already been broken. 

            While the war has captivated the news cycle the climate crisis hasn't gone away just because the president said so.  Atmospheric CO2 content is now 431ppm, a more than 50 percent increase from preindustrial times.  This size shift moved us from the last ice age to the present interglacial period when human civilization developed.  But the current shift is happening 10 time faster.

            We had June heat in March, melting the snow, drying the land, setting the stage for a busy fire summer.  Hawaii has been flooded.  The mid-west is on fire.  The northeast is buried in snow.  Corpus Christi, Texas is running out of water, and Phoenix, Arizona is getting close.

            The climate crisis is not a hoax, but our stable genius president is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Becoming Aware Of Ego

                                                                                       written 22 March, 2026

                                                                                   published 29 March, 2026

 

            Rene' Descartes declared centuries ago: "I think, therefore I am," supporting the idea that thinking is the foundation of "self".  In "A New Earth", Eckhart Tolle describes this thinking self as our "ego", residing in the left brain, where differences are determined.  Ego lives by defining itself relative to "other".  It claims credit for everything, good or bad, to increase its own sense of value.  A healthy, appropriate ego, is an asset in everyday living.  However, being completely identified with ego is pathological, thriving on suffering.

            Tolle writes, "the ego cannot distinguish between a situation and its interpretation of and reaction to that situation.  A person in the grip of ego doesn't recognize suffering as suffering, but looks on it as the only appropriate response in any given situation.  The ego in its blindness is incapable of seeing the suffering it inflicts on itself and on others.  Negative states such as anger, hatred, and jealousy, are not recognized as negative but as totally justified and misperceived not as self-created but as caused by someone else or some exterior factor.  This strengthens the ego, increases the sense of "otherness", and builds a fortress like position of "rightness".  Unhappiness is an ego-created mental emotional disease that has reached epidemic proportions."

            Our president is an example of the devastation wrought by total identification with ego.  He takes credit for everything and responsibility for nothing.  He acts on his own whims, without regard for consequences, repeatedly telling us he is the only one who can save us from the disasters he creates.  The most recent being the war he started in Iran, claiming it is "already over, but we need to continue to finish the job", which the Pentagon thinks will cost at least an additional $200 billion.  

            Last June, the president stated Iran's nuclear capacity was "totally obliterated", yet now claims Iran was a few weeks away from launching nuclear tipped missiles at the US.  This assessment was denied by his own Director of National Intelligence as she testified before Congress.

            The president says "nobody knew" the Iranians would close the Straits of Hormuz, so had no plan in place when they did.  He wants help from other countries, while saying the US needs no help, and insults them in the same speech.

            Now four weeks in, oil costs $112/barrel today, gasoline prices in Ukiah are edging above $6/gallon, with diesel moving toward $7/gallon.  The stock market has dropped 10 percent, and interest rates are up.  

            The longer the Straits are blocked, the worse everything will get.  The president originally said this will be quick, 2-4 weeks.  Now the word is it might only last another month, or into the fall, and thousands more Marines are headed to the war zone.

            Damage has already been done to fuel facilities that will take 3-5 years to begin operation again.  Middle East production is being reduced because there is no way to ship the product, and restarting may take months.  Reduction in fertilizer will impact fall harvests.  Insurance rates for ships transiting the Straits have jumped by a factor of 100, and may not drop back before the end of the year.  Supply chains have been massively disrupted.  As inflation and prices rise, the entire Republican political structure gets weaker.

            This is ego run amuck.  

            What can a person do?  In addition to any political or social actions one might take, there is a great deal of inner work possible.  While Descartes believed his thoughts defined him, Jean-Paul Sartre pointed out we can be aware of the thoughts in our head, and are therefore more than our thoughts.  That awareness comes from experiencing "being alive".  

            Tolle says that the moment we become aware of our egoic thinking, we begin to loosen our identification with it.  This is the process of taming our own ego.  At every moment, we have the possibility to notice our thinking.  With practice, this shift becomes easier.  We become more at peace in the moment, open to more intelligent way to respond to what is happening, rather than acting out of old, and perhaps, inappropriate egoic patterns.

            The ego is very clever, living on negativity and differences, but any gains are short lived, and eventually self-defeating.  Cleverness divides, intelligence includes.  Despite the egoic insanity we see in our president, we can use that to become aware of our own egoic imbalance, using his dysfunction to improve our own reality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Such A Leader

                                                                                       written 15 March, 2026

                                                                                    published 22 March, 2026

 

            On Friday, March 13th, the Ukiah Daily Journal included a column by Marc Thiessen, a loyal presidential supporter, defining victory in Iran.  He assumes this will be quick, a historic end to terrorism in the Middle East, the beginning of a new age of harmony.  Iran's military will be destroyed, the government will collapse, and the Iranian people will install a government answerable to American.  Maybe Thiessen's wishful thinking will come to pass, but it reads like a first draft for a badly scripted reality TV show.

            In actual reality, the president began the war (not an excursion) without building support from Congress, the American people, or any of our allies, other than Israel.  There was no planning for removing endangered Americans from the region.  There was no planning for the Iranian response to close the Straits of Hormuz to shipping.  He acted as though the Iranians would just fold up because he hit them hard.  These are not the actions of a planner, but of a petulant toddler.

             No matter how it unfolds, we have broken the Middle East, again, and will have to live with the consequences.  We use $6M missiles to destroy $20K drones.  Tanker traffic has been halted, more from lack of shipping insurance than actual damage to ships so far.  This abruptly cuts the flow of crude oil, natural gas, and fertilizer out of the region and food into the region.  Some regional refineries are being attacked by Iran, hindering production, and others are shutting down because there is no place to send their product.  Restarting such complex systems can take months. Benchmark crude oil is now solidly above $100/barrel, up from $60 a month ago, creating increased global economic chaos.  The longer the conflict last, the worse it is for Republicans, as their leader started this with no end in mind.

            Beyond the professed war on terrorism, there are darker reasons behind why this war may be happening now.  

            As more Epstein files are finally being released, and new information arrives, such as the recent testimony by Richard Kahn, Epstein's accountant, those chickens are coming home to roost.  Since even the president's most diehard supporters don't like shielding pedophiles, this war creates a distraction.  

            The president avoids prosecution by virtue of being in office, which gives him incentive to become ruler for life.  However, Republican policies are increasingly unpopular, and they may lose control of the House, and perhaps the Senate, in midterms this fall, if a fair election is held.  The FBI fired the people working to control domestic actions by foreign terrorists.  Perhaps the president is hoping Iranian sleeper cells will create havoc.  Or possibly popular protests will become violent.  Either event would be an excuse for him to declare martial law, and cancel elections, already on his wish list.  These are possibilities serving the needs of a desperate corrupt incompetent.  

            But the world doesn't revolve around just this president.  Now that America has demonstrated that it is OK to ignore international laws, and destroy anyone who offends us, other countries may act in kind.  China has stated for decades that Taiwan is part of China, and it is only a matter of time before they reabsorb that island the way they took back Hong Cong.  

            The US has committed much of our military to the Persian Gulf, and is busy blowing up our finite stock of missiles, and bombs.  Imagine if next Monday we read China has invaded Taiwan.  What could the US do?  Do you think our president would be capable of dealing with an adversary that is more of a match than the light weight adversaries we have invaded recently?  Taiwan produces 95 percent of the advanced semiconductors in the world.  War there would halt that immediately.  Added to the current energy chaos, this would immediately crash the global economy.  

            I don't believe the president is a Chinese agent, even though he is acting like one.  His war on domestic renewable power systems enriches his friends in the short term, but abandons the entire future to China, which is the world leader in solar, batteries, and EV's.  But I do believe he is such an incompetent fool that he has disrupted international cooperation, created chaos in the Middle East, and spiked energy prices at record levels, all for personal aggrandizement.  China may just take advantage of that gift, without even having to recruit him.  Such a leader.

How The Story Begins

                                                                                         written 8 March, 2026

                                                                                             for 15 March, 2026

 

            As I write, we are now into the second week of the latest Republican initiated war in the Middle East, this time focused on Iran.  The president originally stated this would only take a few weeks (much like Putin invading Ukraine), but they are now suggesting it might last into the fall.  The impact is already being felt.  With the Persian Gulf closed to tankers, global oil and natural gas prices jumped 50 percent, estimated to perhaps double again, and the stock market is declining.  The administration is still struggling to state why this war started, with numerous excuses floated, and sometimes reversed within a day. 

            Republicans have normally been good at presenting a unified party line.  Remember the relentless drum beat a few decades ago, stating the reason to invade Iraq was the "weapons of mass destruction"?  Of course, there weren't any.  It was about oil.  But we spent a decade, $1.6 trillion dollars, and almost 4,500 dead US soldiers.  This time around, the story slowly emerging is that we needed to "destroy the terrorist threat".

            Iran has, in fact, spent decades funding attacks all over the world, in order to achieve their national goals, and the US has been a primary target.  But any story can be spun depending on where you begin the story and what gets included in the narrative.

            For example, if we start the story a few weeks ago, the country of Iran experienced a surprise attack (like Pearl Harbor), by the US, with the world's largest military, and Israel, the only nuclear power in the region, which killed their national leaders and destroyed their defensive capacity, even though they were in the process of working out diplomatic solutions to their problems.  That story makes the US less of a hero, and more like a blood thirsty imperial bully.

            In contrast, for decades, the Republican story of Iran starts in 1979, when the established government of Iran was overthrown by a fanatical Islamic regime, which immediately oppressed their citizens and enforced strict religious purity laws.  Since then, Iran has built the largest military in the region, developed missile, and now drone, capabilities, and spent billions funding "national liberation movements", fighting a holy war in the Middle East, as well as targeted attacks and assassinations all over the world.  Western nations designated all these groups as terrorist organizations.  This story makes Iran look like a rouge nation assaulting the stability of western nations.

             However, if we start the story in 1944, it changes again.  Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected by popular vote to the Majles, the Iranian parliament.  He was a vocal advocate for nationalizing the Iranian oil reserves, which had been controlled by the British Petroleum Company for decades, to the economic detriment of Iran.  In March, 1951, the elected parliament nationalized the oil resources, and Mosaddegh was appointed prime minister.

            This action offended British interests, which, in August, 1953, supported the Shah's attempt to remove Mosaddegh.  But popular support was behind Mosaddegh, and the Shah was forced to flee the country.  A few days later, with US support this time, a coup overthrew the elected government, restored the Shah, and Mosaddegh was imprisoned, spending the rest of his life under house arrest.

            Control of Iranian oil was returned to the British, and now American, oil companies.  The Shah became the US agent in the Middle East.  With US funding, he built the largest military in the region, and established a repressive, US trained, security police, killing and torturing anyone who disagreed with the Shah.

            In early 1978, after decades of repression, popular uprisings began.  The Shah was eventually forced to flee the country once again.  As all the moderate politician had been killed or left the country, what remained were Islamic fundamentalists, which formed the Islamic Republic of Iran in April, 1979.  A few months later, the US allowed the ailing Shah into America for medical help.  An outraged Iranian populous stormed the US embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans captive, which is where the Republican story starts.

            The US was responsible for creating the Islamic state of Iran, complete with terrorist inclinations, because we wanted the oil resources.  We taught the Shah repressive tactics, and, with our support, he oppressed the larger Iranian population.  Oil, money, power, and ego were the coin of the realm then, as they are today.  We don't seem to learn.  But the story isn't over yet.

 

 

 

Age Of Disaster

                                                                                         written 1 March, 2026

                                                                                     published 8 March, 2026

 

             In physics, a shock wave results when forces change the world faster than is can respond smoothly.  The January, 2025 Los Angeles fires created a cultural shock wave.  

            In the new book "Firestorm", Jake Soboroff describes his live news reporting on those fires.  The winds were so intense, and the land so dry, a fire hurricane engulfed the city, overwhelming all efforts to stop it until the winds died down.  The numbers are grim.  Five fires, 40,000 acres burned, 12,300 structures destroyed, 32 dead, more than 200,000 people displaced, with cost estimates over $21B and counting, the most expensive in California history.  

            Soboroff interviewed Captain Jonathan White, of the Health and Human Services Strategic Preparedness and Response.  Based on his years of disaster investigation experience he believes we are in an age of disasters.  "This is the result of four powerful forces coming together: the global climate emergency, aging infrastructure disintegration, changes in how we live, and politics of blame and disinformation".

            Over decades, human actions have changed the climate, amplifying normal conditions, enhancing the extreme drought and high winds that drove these fires.  Infrastructures, such as fire equipment and personnel, water reservoirs and urban water mains, are decades old with massive deferred maintenance and sometimes stressed under normal conditions.  This was no match for the magnitude of the fires.  As cities expand into new wildlands, fire impact increases.  Even as the fires burned, and resources were focused on saving lives, the president elect spewed out his trade mark invectives and lies.

            White said "Democrats are wrong that what we are facing is a future threat.  Republicans are wrong in saying there is no threat.  The threat is here."  Unfortunately, shock inducing changes are not limited to climate issues.

            The Artificial Intelligence (AI) explosion, already disrupting the economy, is rapidly accelerating.  Perhaps half the 70 million mid-level office workers could be fired in the next year or two.  These are mostly good paying jobs, so personal bankruptcies will spike.  The impact will spread as businesses servicing these people will also be affected.  Recent college graduates will face increased unemployment.  College loan defaults will grow.  Office parks will become vacant, depressing real estate values.

            That is the result of AI working, but the entire AI bubble may burst before such extensive damage can be done.  Investors are growing concerned there is little to no return on their massive investment, and the rising value of the stock market is dependent on AI investment.  The frenetic pace of AI data center development demands an equally rapid spike in electrical power production and water for cooling, however, in the real world, these resources can't grow nearly as fast as expected.  The resulting "correction" could crash the economy like the bursting of the housing bubble in 2007.

            Another impending shock is called the "Kessler syndrome".  In 1978, NASA scientist Donald Kessler said "the more stuff we put in orbit, the higher the risk that some of that collides, creating a cascade of collisions, distributing the debris around the entire planet."  Such a runaway cascade could make productive space orbits unusable for generations.  This kind of event is portrayed in the 2013 movie "Gravity", starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. 

            Material orbiting below 320 miles altitude is slowed by atmospheric drag and soon falls to Earth and burns up on re-entry.  Satellites with commercial and military utility must last longer, and orbit between 320-600 miles altitude.  About 14,000 satellites are now in orbit at those altitudes, 2/3 of which are the Starlink fleet.  This is where a cascade could start even if we stop adding anything else.

            As of March, 2025, the debris density at that altitude already exceeds the runaway threshold, with more than 50,000 objects larger than 2.5" and more than 1.2 million larger than .25", all of which can cause damage, given the relative speeds involved.

            Starlink reports currently making 800 course correction every day to avoid debris.  If satellites lose the capacity to correct, perhaps due to a large solar flare, the first collision would happen within 5 days, up from 5 months 8 years ago.

            The climate, AI, and space debris problems have a common root: domination by exclusive gain strategies while ignoring impacts on the whole system.  In a unity reality, any solution that doesn't include everything, isn't really a solution, but just part of the problem.  Case in point, another Republican president starting another middle east war.

            

  

 

 

 

When The Leader Lies

                                                                                   written 22 February, 2026

                                                                                     published 1 March, 2026

 

            When our current president was elected the first time, it was documented that he lied over 30,000 times in those four years, one every 45 minutes he was awake.  Lying is a form of cheating on reality.  Chronic liars and cheaters believe everyone else lies and cheats as well, reflecting their poor view of humanity.  

            The president may know he is lying, or is just so disconnected from reality that he actually believes everything he says.  In either case, anyone expecting constancy, or honesty, from the man will be disappointed sooner or later.  This is difficult to bear in anyone, but a complete disaster when the leader of our country is a liar and a cheat.  His small lies, such as being a stable genius, or being our only savior, can be ignored as simple bloated egotism.  But his big lies have costly consequences.

            The lie that the 2020 election was stolen rises from his egoic assumptions that he can never be a loser and everyone else cheats.  This resonated with enough of his followers that they stormed the Capital to change the results of the election.  A few people died, many were injured, and the global image of the US took a hit.  This lie is still active today, even though 70 lawsuits, and multiple ballot recounts, have shown Biden won in fact.

            The tariff issue is a collection of lies.  The president lied that other countries rip off the US, yet we consume 6 time our share of global resources.  Our trade imbalances, the supposed proof of the rip off, come from US companies investing overseas to maximize profits from cheaper labor, combined with our voracious consumer economy. 

            The president lied that other nations would pay the costs, yet tariffs are a tax paid by US consumers, a reality known to economists of all political orientation, and recently affirmed by a report from the New York Federal Reserve.  But this administration is undeterred by reality, preferring "alternative facts" whenever the truth is too inconvenient.  In his first administration, surrounded by a few competent people, the president was hindered in his freedom of action.  This time loyalty is preferred over competence.  Rather than discuss the facts, White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett quickly condemned the recent Fed report and called for the authors to be prosecuted.

            The president lied that he could unilaterally apply tariffs anywhere he wanted, yet the Constitution gives Congress the power to make tariffs, not the president, a point recently affirmed by the Republican majority Supreme Court.  In response, the president berated two Justices he appointed, and they immediately began receiving death threats.

            The president's tariffs have cost Americans over $200B, disrupted global trade, alienated long term allies, and thrown uncertainty into the entire business community because tariffs change on presidential whim.  The Supreme Court decision means all that money has to be refunded, a complicated process on its own, and there is no guarantee the president will even abide by the ruling.

            While the tariff lie is expensive, the big lie, that the climate crisis is a hoax, risks killing us all, because we have no more time to waste.  With the power of the president pushing this lie, the US has halted all efforts to address the issue, stopped all research on the issue, and even banned all mention of the issue.  He has also pressured other nation to stop responding to the issue.  Instead, hundreds of billions of dollars are being redirected to investments in obsolete, expensive, inefficient, and polluting energy sources.  He wants the Pentagon to run on coal.

            This abrupt change in direction costs the economy for all the investments now stalled, as well as all the investments needed to retool.  The fact that his decisions are out of step with popular sentiment, and the direction of the rest of the world, confuses the business community.  Does it make sense to manufacture internal combustion cars that the rest of the world is moving away from?  Can any domestic company survive without export trade?

            Just because the president believes a fantasy, are we all required to live within that fantasy as well?  The Republican party leadership has deferred to the almost all the president's whims, and don't seem to be willing to address the truth: the president is not fit to lead.  But Americans seem to be waking up from the dream being sold to them.  

Becoming Obsolete

                                                                                   written 15 February, 2026

                                                                               published 22 February, 2026

 

            One of the traditional guidelines for long term financial stability is to live within your income and avoid consuming your savings.  But modern human civilization has disregarded such wisdom when it comes to energy.

            For as long as life has existed on Earth, it has overwhelmingly been solar powered.  Plants live directly on solar energy, and everything else lives on plants, or eats things that live on plants.  

            When humans learned how to create fire about one million years ago, we began using the solar energy relatively recently saved in the form of trees, allowing our civilization and population to slowly increase.  Use of fossil fuels (ancient stored sunlight) began with coal about 25,000 years ago, oil about 5,000 years ago, and natural gas about 2,500 years ago.  These energy dense materials further increased growth rate, and the last two centuries of industrial revolution pushed it into hyperdrive.  Like foolhardy kids, discovering a rich inheritance, we are mindlessly squandering a finite resource, literally burning it up.  

            That is coming to an end.  The entire planet has been explored, and annual consumption has outpaced new discoveries for over half a century.  The easy reserves have been developed and depleted, leaving only the less accessible, and therefore more expensive.  The affordable energy savings account is heading toward empty.  The fossil fuel industry knows this truth, but it still generates $8 trillion annually, so those in control are reluctant to admit they are heavily invested in a dead end.

            However, Oilprice.com, an industry mouthpiece, recently posted an article stating "renewables are the long-term winners and will inevitably replace fossil fuels and nuclear".  This is not because of the climate issue (which the industry still denies), but is being driven by basic economics.  

            Life time operating costs of renewable systems are cheaper because the energy is free.  Hardware costs are declining as manufacturing scale and technology improves.  Energy capacities per unit are increasing, and equipment lasts longer.  In the last 50 years, solar panel prices declined by a factor of 1,000, and batteries are getting cheaper almost as fast.  

            In contrast, fossil fuels are not free, and because they are finite, prices continue to rise.  In the last 50 years, gasoline prices have increased a factor of 25.  Nuclear fuel is also expensive, finite, and inefficiently used, consuming only 5 percent before the fuel rod is no longer economically useful.  This radioactive "spent fuel" must then be sequestered for thousands of years, or reprocessed to recover the remaining useful fuel, an expensive procedure that creates even more radioactive waste material.  Nuclear power is already the most expensive on the grid, without including the cost of nuclear waste disposal (which don't exist in the US), fuel reprocessing (which has ended in bankruptcy the two times it has been tried in the US), or reactor decommissioning (which has yet to happen for a large commercial reactor).   

            Renewable systems can be built and deployed more rapidly: with 2 year construction times, versus 5-6 years for natural gas and more than 10 years for nuclear.  Combined with adequate battery storage, renewables are better at meeting real time demand changes.  They are modular, with the same equipment scalable from kilowatt sized household systems to gigawatt sized utility systems.

            These economic realities are driving an accelerating global switch from burning saved energy to collecting income energy.  Just last year, more than 600 gigawatts of solar were installed.  While the sun only shines part of the day, this is still about the same energy capacity as installing 100 large nuclear reactors in a single year.  China is the only country that brought a new reactor online in 2025, after 7 years of construction.  That means solar installation is happening 700 times faster than nuclear.

            "R" stands for reverse, and this Republican administration is going backward, shutting down renewable projects and invested heavily in coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, working to corner the buggy whip market in an age of automobiles.  This is insane, and self-destructive.  Meanwhile, China is producing the energy systems of the future, manufacturing 80 percent of the solar panels, 80 percent of the batteries, and 70 percent of the EV's produced in the last year.  

            The US could be a player.  A majority of citizens are concerned about the climate crisis, and support taking action.  But our current political system doesn't represent the people, only short-term monetary return.   The result will be irrelevance, and long-term monetary bankruptcy.