Gradually, Then Suddenly

Despite conservatism’s dream of denial, we clearly live in the Buddhist world of impermanence. In addition, Darwinian evolution emphasizes the ability of almost all creatures to adapt to gradual change. Sudden change presents far more difficulty. We have seen slow but steady changes in our world over the last few decades, and especially in the first quarter century of this century — the increasing impacts of climate change; the erosion of democracy both here in the US and elsewhere abroad; the increasing power of transnational oligarchs; and the fragmentation of the media and decline in trusted sources due to rapid technological change. As we enter the second Trump presidency, it seems pretty clear that all these trends are reaching the “then suddenly” stage of rapid change and are increasingly interrelated. And it is clear that most people and the institutions that support them are woefully unprepared for what lies ahead.

The warnings about anthropogenic climate change have been with us for nearly half a century. Even the early climate models proved to be fairly accurate predictors of where we are now with around a 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in global temperatures, a potential climate tipping point. It is readily apparent that the pace of climate change impacts is increasing both in frequency and ferocity. The record average temperatures in both air and sea temperatures are driving higher winds, massive flooding from moisture-laden atmospheric rivers, stronger and more frequent hurricanes, especially those arising from the boiling Gulf of…