The New Year is supposed to be a time for optimism but the only optimistic thing I can hope for is for people to get out of their silos, open their eyes, and work together on solving problems facing humanity. People in office only want to stay in office so they only do things that will keep them in office. Changing that will require courage.

Here is a list of problems that need solving. The world’s population is nearing eight billion and will be over ten billion by 2050. We are currently adding a billion each decade but the time in between each billion is growing shorter so eighteen billion is probable by 2100 unless we have a massive destructive war, world epidemic, or we suddenly decide one child or no children is required.

Think about how much trash we bury or dump in the oceans each day. Much of it will be there forever because it doesn’t break down. Think of all the chemicals we make which are dumped into the environment. A few decades ago we fixed things and now we just throw them away and buy new, creating more mountains of waste.

Think about how we narrowly avoided a complete financial meltdown twelve years ago when debt was found worthless. Now the world including America is drowning in debt. Soon nobody will buy any debt private, corporate or national debt.

America’s new nationalism policies are in line with many other countries. Some are supposedly allies and others are enemies. Nationalism has spawned hundreds of wars. World Wars I and II, Korea, Viet Nam, and the first Iraq are just the few we were involved in.

I can’t see any real hope of stopping global warming and its effects.

No, I don’t see anything to be optimistic about.