Killing The Economy For Profit

                                                                                                 written 9 July 2023

                                                                                           published 16 July 2023

  

            Over the last few decades, several questions have arisen about the climate crisis.  Is it real?  When will it arrive?  Is it man made?  Can it be fixed?  Will we fix it?

            While some people believe Earth is flat, and the climate crisis is a hoax, the hottest day ever recorded on Earth was July 3rd, 2023, immediately broken on July 4th, 2023, and yet again on July 6th, 2023.  This record is expected to be broken repeatedly.  Since May, half of the US has faced extreme weather events.  NOAA estimates infrastructure damages from climate extremes cost the US more than $850 billion in the last five years, with more impact unaccounted.  Most of the US agrees the climate crisis is real, and already here.   

            Scientific consensus is the climate crisis is man-made.  In the few hundred years since the beginning of the industrial revolution, atmospheric CO2 increased 10 times faster than in the geologic record.  Additionally, isotopic analysis confirms fossil fuels are the source.

            For weeks, I have been presenting information from "Climate Restoration", by Fiekowsky and Douglis, detailing how humanity can respond, and even reverse the climate threat to humanity.  By completely decarbonization the global economy within the next 20 years, and removing 30 percent of the existing atmospheric carbon dioxide, returning to 300ppm by 2050, we would insure leaving a habitable planet to our children.  

            The technology to decarbonize the economy is already proven, already being manufactured, and beginning the rapid growth and price decrease that comes with increased mass production.  The change is being driven by growing climate concerns around the world, the inflationary and political unpredictability of diminishing finite fossil fuels, and the economic advantages of the more energy efficient renewable technologies.   

            Increasing climate impact expenses include not only replacing damaged infrastructure, but also the accelerating insurance costs on all infrastructure.  The financial world is beginning to see that a toasted planet is bad for business, and risks human extinction.  While there is still a long way to go, some feel the decarbonization transformation is now inevitable.

            We can also remove significant quantities of existing atmospheric carbon dioxide.  With sufficient funding, known systems can be scaled up in the next few years to begin returning to levels proven to be habitable for humanity within two decades.

            However, all this hinges on the last question, WILL we fix it?  Many reasonable people feel the answer is NO.  There is still too much well-funded institutional resistance.  We know that ExxonMobil researchers affirmed the climate problem 45 years ago, but the company chose short-term profits, despite risking killing the economy, and began funding climate denial.  ExxonMobil even funded think tanks to draft legislation cracking down on climate protests.  Utility companies like Florida Power & Light use their political power to slow down clean energy solutions like rooftop solar panels.  A recent article in the Ukiah Daily Journal detailed the resistance to divesting California public employee pension funds from fossil fuels, because "fossil fuel stocks make more money in the short term", without even considering the long-term costs of cooking the economy.

            Think about that for a moment.  Rather than work to make the planet habitable for our children, the goal is to maximize short term profits: killing the economy for profit.  Bring it down to personal terms.  Would you want to make more money knowing that somebody else would die young as a result?  Would you want more money if it caused you, or your children, to die young?  How would you feel if somebody else made more money by causing your kids to die young?  How important is a habitable planet for your future?  How about your kid's future?

            Our economy has been coopted by the idea that making money is the ONLY important issue.  Corporations are pressured to maximize short term profits for shareholders and executives, above all else.  B corporations, a special form of corporation, had to be created to allow for consideration of worker safety, customer safety, and environmental safety, in the face of shareholders lawsuits.

            This becomes especially ludicrous with the climate crisis, where there are no long-term economic winners, only losers.  Everywhere. 

            Some resistance is ignorance, some is political partisanship, and some is grotesque greed.  Each of us needs to decide: is a habitable planet worthwhile?  Then make sure that our elected leaders know our choice, and elect new ones if necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Methane Oxidation

                                                                                               written 2 July 2023

                                                                                           published 9 July 2023

    

            Last week, another round of Canadian wildfire smoke poured southward into Midwestern US and then moved east, affecting 1/3 of the country with unhealthy air quality.  Record heat attacked the southern US like a blowtorch, bringing temperatures comparable to the Sahara or the Persian Gulf.  Northern Mexico experienced 122°F, with 10 Mexican states reporting power shortages, leaving tourists and locals without air conditioning or fresh water.  For the first time, there have already been two tropical storms in the Atlantic in June.  

            The book "Climate Restoration" makes the case that, for a habitable planet, we must not only completely decarbonize the economy, but also aggressively sequester much of the carbon already in the atmosphere.  Synthetic limestone, kelp cultivation, and fertilized ocean phytoplankton are all systems that use natural living systems to bring us back to historically proven habitable levels.  However, there is another significant greenhouse gas that must also be addressed: methane.

            Methane is 40 times more potent than carbon dioxide, but naturally breaks down within a decade.  Atmospheric methane concentration, now two and a half times preindustrial levels, increased 0.1ppm in the last decade, the warming equivalent of 4ppm of CO2.  Since CO2 grew 25ppm last decade, this addition is another 16 percent increase.

            Methane comes from melting permafrost, natural wetlands, rice paddies, landfills (1/4 of Ukiah's greenhouse gas contribution), cow burps, and the production and transportation of oil and natural gas.  Such diversity makes reducing methane at the source difficult. 

            Climate Restoration reports on a process that accelerates the natural methane oxidation rate: Enhanced Atmospheric Methane Oxidation (EAMO).  A fine aerosol mist of iron-chloride is added to the air.  Wind mixes it with methane, and sunlight powers the oxidization reaction.  This is 100,000 times more efficient than any other oxidation technology.  EAMO could restore pre-industrial methane levels by 2028 by doubling the rate of natural methane oxidation, addressing both natural and human-made methane.

            While current methane production rates are problematic, a more serious concern is methane stored in the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean.  The East Siberian Arctic Shelf (ESAS), with an average depth of 120 feet, is estimated to hold at least 1,400 billion tons of frozen methane hydrate, kept solid by the cold temperature of the Arctic sea floor.  

            Frozen methane is like dry ice (frozen CO2), in that it changes directly from solid to gas.  As climate change warms the Artic, summer sea ice has diminished, allowing the dark ocean water to warm.  This area is now "violently boiling", as methane begins reaching the surface.  The concern is that at some point large amounts of frozen methane will warm into gas, and burst to the surface.

            Geologic record indicates this happened about 56 million years ago, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.  Carbon dioxide level were rapidly rising, melting seafloor permafrost, and a methane burst produced a severe and rapid temperature spike, leading to the extinction of about 30 percent of life forms alive at the time.  Carbon dioxide levels are rising 10 faster today.

            If just 50 billion tons of methane, less than 4 percent of that estimated in the shallow ESAS, were to burst into the atmosphere, global temperatures would rapidly spike by another 50 percent.  Bursts could be 2 or 3 times this size.  Like predicting an earthquake, timing is anyone's guess, with expert opinion ranging from within the next decade to beyond our lifetime.  But given the magnitude of impact, it is worth humanity considering what can be done to prepare.  By developing an EAMO system now, building the capacity to cut existing methane in half, we would be in a better position to ramp up to respond to an Arctic seafloor burst, preventing methane from building to extinction levels.

            Development is underway to build simple ship born systems, injecting iron-chloride into the exhaust stacks to facilitate mixing.  There is good reason to think EAMO is safe, as it mimics natural processes, and the same method is used to purify drinking water.  Funding is estimated at $1 billion a year, which is modest enough to appeal to the insurance industry, which has an economic stake in preventing climate disasters.

            As the climate crisis builds, people are beginning to see this is real, despite Republican and industry obstructionism.  The good news is, working with natural systems, we can restore the planet to insure human habitability.  Are we intelligent enough, with sufficient political will, to make the effort?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Restoring The Oceans

                                                                                            written 25 June 2023

                                                                                          published 2 July 2023

                                                                                                 

            It's hot!  Much of Texas was over 110°F, with Corpus Christi enduring 125°F heat index after nine consecutive day of heat index above 115°F.  Oklahoma experienced 3" hail, and an EF-3, 150mph, tornado hit Mississippi.  NOAA declared a Category 5 marine heatwave, with sea temperatures as high as 9°F above normal, affecting 40 percent of the ocean, threatening to disrupt not only all sea life, but global wind and sea currents as well. 

            In the last 50 years humans have added as much atmospheric CO2 as the change from the last ice age to the current period when civilization thrived.  A habitable climate for our children requires we decarbonize the economy and sequester 1,000 billion tons of CO2, as soon as possible.  This is the thesis of the book "Climate Restoration", by Fiekowsky and Douglis, which suggests 4 paths to achieve this sequestration goal.

            The third plausible method of returning to 300ppm by 2050 is Ocean Iron Fertilization (OIF): cultivating ocean phytoplankton with iron fertilization.  Phytoplankton, which can photosynthesize carbon 40 times faster than trees, are the foundation of the entire ocean food chain.  In the open ocean, growth can be limited by lack of critical nutrients, specifically iron.  But when iron is added naturally, from volcanos or wind-blown terrestrial dust, these "desolate zones" bloom.  What is not eaten falls to the sea floor, sequestering the carbon for centuries.

            Dr. John Martin, former director of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, first seriously promoted intentional OIF decades ago, and small-scale testing demonstrated the process works, showing best results in natural ocean eddies, which kept the iron from rapidly dispersing, and areas where iron was the only limiting nutrient.

            In 2012, Russ George, working with the Haida First Nation in British Columbia, completed a larger OIF experiment 200 miles off shore, with the goal of helping restore the native salmon run.  They spread 110 tons of iron over 10,000 square kilometers.  Within hours the ocean turned green, and within days, thousands of seabirds were diving, whales beyond count arrived, and massive schools of albacore tuna showed up, fattening from emaciated to sashimi grade within two weeks.  The bloom lasted for months, eventually expanding to 35,000 square kilometers.  The following year, the returning salmon run was the largest on record, and the next year the local orca population enjoyed a "baby boom".

            Ocean life had flourished and megatons of carbon had been removed from the atmosphere.  Applying OIF to just one percent of the ocean, funded by licensing the fishing industry, could enhance ocean life and sequester 50 billion tons of carbon each year.

            However, the 2012 experiment stirred great controversy, with concerns of unintended consequences.  Some feared the success of OIF would give the fossil fuel industry no reason to curtail their toxic industry.  However, rapidly depleting fossil reserves, economic advantages of EV transportation, reduction of air pollution health issues, and reduction of geopolitical stress, will support sustained public pressure for decarbonization.

            Some fear OIF would "turn the ocean into a pea soup with toxic algae blooms".  Yet toxic algae blooms are a product of near shore human nutrient runoff, and deep ocean blooms are already a natural occurrence.  Further, the OIF blooms would dissipate in a few months, as the eddies dissolves.

            There is concern that "dumping vast amounts of iron into the ocean is reckless".  But the amount of iron needed, 10 pounds per square mile, is 1/10,000 the amount in coastal waters.  Commercial farming adds 90,000 times as much on corn crops.  To sequester enough carbon to get to 300ppm by 2050 would affect about one percent of the ocean, while agriculture uses 37 percent of the land.

            Important issues are still unclear.  Much of the phytoplankton is eaten, so how much carbon is actually sequestered, and for how long?  Will large blooms critically deplete other essential nutrients, creating "dead zones"?  Will this change distribution of fish and whale populations?  How will results be verified?  

            However, the climate crisis, a consequence of a perspective that assumes only humans are important and money is all that "counts", is already adversely impacting the planet, threatening all life.  A habitable future is worth taking a risk.  This process nourishes life, with a goal of returning to a condition we know has supported humans: atmospheric CO2 at 300ppm.  We have to make a start, understanding we must carefully monitor the process, and adjust over time.  

 

 

 

 

 

Forests Of The Sea

                                                                                            written 18 June 2023

                                                                                        published 25 June 2023

                                                                                                 

            As Fox News informs their viewers that the opaque, orange air poses "no threat to health", and Republican "leadership" sinks deeper into performance drama rather than actual policy making, the real world continues to heat up.  

            Just this week, temperatures across Siberia were over 100° F with intense wildfires, and all of central Asia had triple digit heat.  Extreme heat in Bangladesh harmed workers and depressed tourism.  Antarctic winter sea-ice is at record lows as the Weddell Sea warmed five times faster than the rest of the ocean.

            Texas experienced softball sized hail, tornados, and 110° F with a potentially lethal heat index of 120°F, pushing electrical power to capacity, while high water temperatures and low oxygen are killing fish in the Gulf of Mexico.  In Florida, 17 inches of rain caused flash floods and Louisiana sustained 100 mph winds.  AIG joined State Farm and Allstate in refusing to sell new homeowners' insurance policies in certain areas around the country.  A habitable planet for our children requires we not only decarbonize the economy as soon as possible, but begin removing 1,000 billion tons of CO2 already in the atmosphere.  

            I have been discussing "Climate Restoration", by Fiekowsky and Douglis, which describes 4 systems which can get us back to 300 ppm by 2050.  Timely, effective solutions must sequester carbon for more than a century, already exist as demonstration projects capable of being scaled up to removing at least 25 billion tons annually, and be funded within current economic structures by providing marketable materials.  Last week I described the first system, synthetic limestone, which uses processes inspired by natural geochemistry.  The second system engages living systems, specifically seaweed.

             While 97 percent of oil is burned almost immediately, the rest provides valuable feed stock to manufacture textiles, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, fertilizers, lotions, cosmetics, plastics, and dyes, to name a few.  Seaweed is a viable alternative, without the problems of pollution, atmospheric carbon dioxide, drilling, mining, planting, fertilizers, or even clearing the land.  Seaweed can pull carbon out of the air 10 times faster than trees.  Trees use carbon slowly and release it back when they rot, or burn.  Dead seaweed sequesters carbon for centuries when it falls to the ocean floor.

            Until recently, most global coastlines had extensive kelp forests, the fastest growing plants on Earth.  Anchored on the coastal seabed, thriving on nutrient rich oceanic upwellings, they nourish and shelter a rich biodiversity of species.  Sometimes called the rainforest of the ocean, they support massive schools of fish, crustaceans, mollusks, sea birds, seals, otters, and other mammals: the most productive fisheries on the planet.  However, oceanic warming and acidification have disturbed ecological balances, wind patterns, and upwelling currents, devastating 95 percent of kelp forests.

            In 2008, Dr. Brian von Herzen founded Climate Foundation to investigate and promote Marine Permaculture, sustainable marine cultivation, needing no reseeding, fertilization, or even much tending.  A permaculture kelp forests needs only a structure for stalks to attach to and a pump to bring up deep water to simulate a natural upwelling.  A Marine Permaculture Array is a light lattice of tubing which can drop 15 feet below the surface to avoid hurricanes, confirmed by surviving a category 5 hurricane off the Philippines in 2021.  A pump brings water up from several hundred feet, using energy that is solar, wind, or wave generated.  These arrays can be anchored near land to help revive a trouble kelp forest within easy access of a local community.  They can also be towed to the open ocean, anchored deep enough to avoid ship traffic, where they can scale in size without limit.

            Climate Foundation's first demonstration projects have been about 100 square yards, constructed in the Philippines, successfully generating a healthy marine ecosystem.  The next near-term goals are 1,000 square yards, and then 10,000 square yards, at which point the array becomes economically sustainable.  This size will cost about $4M, and generate about $1M per year from sale of sea food and seaweed resource for the diverse products mentioned above.  Half the kelp would be sunk to the ocean floor as sequestered carbon. 

            The annual global sea food market is $200B, and the annual seaweed market is $15B.  Seaweed based animal food supplements can eliminate the methane in cow burps and reduce the use of antibiotics in chickens.  When Marine Permaculture Arrays are scaled up, gigatons of carbon can be sequestered each year.

 

Rocking The Climate

                                                                                            written 11 June 2023

                                                                                        published 18 June 2023

                                                                                                  

            What a week!  The leading Republican presidential candidate whined about harassment as he was indicted again, this time in Federal court on 37 counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice.  Fox News stated the climate crisis is a hoax while MAGA faithful want to ban teaching about the climate crisis because "it scares children".

            In the real world, where the rest of us live, 430 fires burning in Canada have created Martian like air quality in the New York city area, cancelling 600 flights because the toxic, smoky air was too opaque for safe landings.  Killing heat is affecting Puerto Rico, torrential flooding savaged Italy, and the drought in Panama has reduced shipping through the Canal.    

            While complete economic decarbonization is essential, "Climate Restoration", by Fiekowsky and Douglis, says the only real possibility for a habitable planet is to also aggressively remove 1,000 billion tons of atmospheric CO2, returning to 300 ppm by 2050.  Timely, effective solutions must sequester carbon for more than a century, already exist as demonstration projects capable of being scaled up to removing at least 25 billion tons annually, and be funded within current economic structures by providing marketable materials.  The book identifies four possible candidates, all using natural geological or biological methods.  The first creates synthetic limestone.  

            Dr. Brent Constantz, has been working for decades to use biological and geological systems to address the climate impact of the concrete industry, the second most widely consumed material, which uses cement to bind crushed rock aggregate.  Manufacture of Portland cement is third largest source of atmospheric CO2, as ground limestone is heated to 2,700°F in a kiln.  In 2007, he started Calera Corporation, which produces pure, powdered calcium carbonate (CaCO3) as a substitute for Portland cement, using a process based on that of clams and corals.  Calera's main site uses carbon dioxide captured for the large power plant at Moss Landing.  

            He then turned his attention to the larger issue of concrete aggregate.  Annual global concrete consumption is about 40 billion cubic yards, using 55 billion tons of rock, usually limestone, costing over $1 trillion, shipped an average of 200 miles from quarry to construction site.  Limestone is mostly calcium carbonate, 44 percent carbon dioxide by weight, which is formed by living systems, drawing carbon dioxide out of the ocean over millions of years.  This is one of the ways nature sequesters carbon dioxide, storing 50,000 times more carbon than we have in the atmosphere today.

            Dr. Constantz developed a process for synthesizing high quality limestone using dilute CO2 from any source, including directly from the air.  In 2012, he founded Blue Planet Systems, locate near Los Gatos, to commercialize and scale this process, to encourage the world to build with carbon-negative concrete.  A cubic yard of concrete contains 3,000 pounds of aggregate.  If Blue Planet Systems limestone is used, 1,320 pounds of carbon is sequestered in each cubic yard.  If the CO2 is captured from the cement kiln, that adds another 600 pounds, or nearly a ton per cubic yard.  Any CO2 source can be used.  

            Blue Planet Systems currently uses CO2 captured from fossil fuel plants.  As we shift to renewables, other industrial sources can be used.  Even direct capture for the air will add only 1 percent to the cost of Blue Planet limestone, and will allow limestone synthesis to be placed near to where concrete is consumed, further reducing emissions that would have been used in transportation, while avoiding the environmental destruction of quarry sites.

            If all the annual aggregate use was all carbon-negative Blue Planet limestone, we could sequester about 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year.  The more carbon negative concrete we use, the more we will sequester.  Blue Planet expects to scale up to 5,000 plants by 2030, with the help of major industrial partners.  This will require expanding capacity by 5 billion tons per year, with an annual investment of $250 billion.  This will probably not need governmental subsidies, as the synthetic limestone market appears ready to take off on its own financial and green merits.  But the government can help.  In 2022, the US government required low-carbon concrete in all major federal projects.

            According to Dr. Constantz, "Synthetic limestone takes concrete from an environmentally harmful material, with a large carbon footprint, to where we are sequestering the CO2.  We are doing it profitably, not disposing it as a waste."

 

 

Change Is Already Here

                                                                                              written 4 June 2023

                                                                                        published 11 June 2023

                                                                                                 

            Watching only late breaking news, it is easy to get depressed, and conclude that the sooner humanity exits the planet, the better all life will be.  I understand the perspective, but believe it is based on limited information.

            Yes, the Republicans did threaten to crash the global economy, screaming "fiscal responsibility", in order to protect their tax cuts for billionaires, Trump era legislation that added $7.5 trillion to the deficit.  Yes, Republicans are waging war on women, immigrants, poor people, health care, and the climate, pushing a repressive, hateful agenda backed by self-righteous white "Christian" nationalist, ignoring that Christ preached Love of God, and Love of Others.  

            However, Republicans are losing demographically.  Younger voter increasingly trend toward the Democrats and older Republicans are dying.  In response, Republican "leadership" acts more desperate, passing ideological laws that hurt people, accelerating the change.  It's time for emphasizing the importance of discerning facts from beliefs, truth from fabrication, and meaningful activity from diversions.  Outside the siloed bubble mentality of politics, fundamental changes are happening. 

            To avoid even more destructive climate impact, the emerging consensus is a need to completely decarbonize the global economy within the next 20 years.  Since 2015, solar energy, even without subsidies, is the cheapest power that can be installed.  Canary Media reports the world is projected to invest around $1.7 trillion in clean energy this year, substantially more than the $1 trillion expected to pour into fossil fuel development.  Associated Press says this will add 440 gigawatts of renewable capacity, a third again over last year's increase, taking the global total to 4,500 gigawatts, about the total power output of the US and China combined.  Even Oilprice.com, a fossil fuel mouthpiece, acknowledges that "solar energy is the cheapest to install".

            "Climate Restoration", by Fiekowsky and Douglis, a hopeful and well researched book, states that decarbonization is well under way and appears unstoppable.  Since 2013, wind and solar production has tripled every three years.  ESG funds (Environmental, Social, and Governance) are expected to exceed $50 trillion by 2025, while the global energy transition is projected to cost on the order of $30 trillion.  Solar and wind projects cost about $0.04/KWh (kilowatt hour), compared to natural gas at $0.06/KWh, coal at $0.09/KWh, and nuclear at $0.20/KWh.  In addition, all renewable power is free once the hardware is installed, while everything else is subject to inflation, pollution, depletion, and political upheaval.

            While some complain that solar and wind take up "too much space", London based Carbon Tracker estimated that enough solar arrays to supply the entire planet would take up about 0.3 percent of the land mass.  In the US alone, the fossil fuel industry already occupies four times as much land, leaving a toxic mess, while solar arrays are being combined with agricultural activities.

            It is likely that most vehicles will be electric by 2030, and most auto makers are phasing out internal combustion vehicles within the next decade.  The car transitioned from 1 percent to over 90 percent of the transportation in a little over a decade in the early 1900's.  We are experiencing a similar transformation now.  

            "Climate Restoration" suggests that while the decarbonization project is essential, it is not sufficient.  Atmospheric carbon dioxide was stable at about 280 ppm (parts per million) for 10,000 years, as humanity thrived and developed civilization as we know it.  In the last few hundred years, we have added 50 percent more, and now sits at 425 ppm.  Earth last experienced this level over 4 million years ago, long before humans began using stone tools.  We currently add another 2.5 ppm each year, so even if we reach net zero in 20 years, we will likely be living with 450 ppm.  It isn't clear that civilization can continue to exist at that level.  The solution is not only decarbonizing the economy as fast as possible, but to begin aggressively removing carbon, with a goal of returning to a level of 300 ppm by 2050, a level we know will allow humanity to thrive.  This requires removing 1,000 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

            Any real solutions must be permanent (sequestered for at least a century), scalable (already functional at demonstration levels and able to scale up to removing 25 billion tons per year), and affordable (producing economic products that will help fund the process).  Such systems already exist.  Stay tuned.

 

 

Fundamentally Unbalanced

                                                                                              written 28 May 2023

                                                                                            published 4 June 2023

 

            Life is a dynamic balance between apparently opposing elements.  Some examples are: being/doing, self/society, or yin/yang.  These are relative aspects of an inclusive unity, not is conflict at all.  This unity is acknowledged within the yin/yang symbol as a small expression of each part within the major expression of the other part.  While eastern religions tend to be more tolerant of these relative dualities, western religious doctrines can degenerate into extremist self-righteous dogma that exalts one part and demonizes the other.  This attitude has prevailed for centuries, building a core imbalance into everything. 

            We see this expressed in US society today.  America is a land of individualists, structured by the "Protestant" work ethic, dominated by corporate consumer capitalism.  We are the richest country on the planet, with 4 percent of the global population taking 24 percent of the world's energy and resources, a ratio preserved by our military spending more than the next 10 countries combined.  

            Our culture praises the self-sufficient individual, and the business class denigrates welfare as a "moral hazard", yet rushes to get bailed out by the government whenever their economic model fails.  The recent bank collapses cost the government, with no economic consequences for the bankers who crashed their banks using poor judgement. 

            The work ethic prioritizes "doing" and devalues "being".  Consequently, we are so busy making things happen that we have little time to consider what is worth making in the first place.  The rise of disruptive artificial intelligence, and driverless cars may make big bucks for a few investors, but risk massive unemployment.  Even the designers of AI admit they have no idea if their product could decide to destroy humans as a cost/benefit solution.

            Corporate capitalism used to consider the needs of customers, workers, suppliers, and the public good, but has now devolved down to only maximizing short-term profit for the shareholders.  As a result, income in the "richest" country is so skewed that 3 men own as much as the poorest 170,000,000 Americans, and 2/3 of which are one paycheck away from bankruptcy, living a precarious social reality.

            Focus on narrow short-term return makes it seem profitable to kill people and the planet.  The tobacco industry funded disinformation about the health hazards of their lucrative, addictive product, long after proof of the toxic legacy was validated.  Exxon-Mobile researchers knew 50 years ago their product could kill the economy, but the company chose denial, fired the researchers, and hired the same PR companies used by the tobacco industry to spread disinformation.  Modest efforts to limit social damage caused by economic short-term thinking have led to regulations, which corporations loudly described as "job killers" because they cut into profits.

            This economic model of exclusive gain makes the biggest bucks on essential needs.  For those who can afford it, American health care costs twice the average for developed countries, while leaving over 40 percent with inadequate access.  The US pays 2.5 times more than other nations for prescription drugs.  Most of the developed world has universal health coverage, but the US health care corporations demonize the idea as "socialist".

            But thinking about the good of society is necessary to balance the relationship between self and society.  It is obvious to most people that a healthy environment and society are necessary to be a healthy individual, in the same way, it is necessary to have a healthy body for a quality life.  The self needn't war with society, any more than "I" benefit being at war with "my" body.  We all live is a collective reality, which must be in harmony for any part to be at peace or healthy.  Unfortunately, we are not in harmony, and some of these disruptive patterns go back thousands of years.  Consider how deeply misogyny is ingrained in our culture.  

            The Republican party, traditionally dominated by short term business interests, has now cultivated narrow minded "Christian" nationalists, becoming even more unbalanced.  Their war on women, public health, and the climate all stem from exclusive gain economics combined with religious intolerance.  These raw power policies have no real social consideration.  

            But the collective reality cannot be ignored forever.  It has taken hundreds of years for the climate crisis to get to the point where civilization on the entire planet is now being threatened.  We can restore harmony, but everything must be re-examined, and our time for action is shrinking rapidly.