CHILL, THEY'VE GOT US SURROUNDED

MARSHALL MCLUHAN'S ANOINTED SUCCESSOR P ENS A PAEAN TO FAMED  R&D  FINANCE GURU DONALD TRUMP  

Climate Change Needs an 
Operation Warp Speed

If the Covid vaccine push has proved anything, it’s that big government works.

CLIVE THOMPSON               DEAS  01.17.2021 07:00 AM

IN THE DISMAL early days of the pandemic, a vaccine seemed depressingly far off. Historically, the average time to develop a new vaccine was 10 years—far too long for our current emergency. But then something happened to shift things into overdrive: serious government action.

The White House and Congress created Operation Warp Speed... it was the critical push from governments (the US and others) that propelled the fastest vaccine mobilization in history.

It’s also an object lesson for our troubled time: When you’re facing a world-threatening crisis, there’s no substitute for government leadership.

This is worth reflecting on, because we’re surrounded by existential threats. 

SAME  AUTHOR, SAME MAGAZINE  2007:

How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds

Australia is suffering... But what really intrigues Glenn Albrecht — a philosopher by training — is how his fellow Australians are reacting.

They're getting sad...

Albrecht has given this syndrome an evocative name: solastalgia. It's a mashup of the roots solacium (comfort) and algia (pain), which together aptly conjure the word nostalgia. In essence, it's pining for a lost environment. "Solastalgia," as he wrote in a scientific paper describing his theory, "is a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home...'"

Everyone's worrying about resource management and the spooky, unpredictable changes in the ecosystem. We fret over which areas will get flooded as sea levels rise. We estimate the odds of wars over clean water, and we tally up the species — polar bears, whales, wading birds — that'll go extinct.