I was born into a family shortly after World War II ended that had gone through the Depression and World War I. We had all the money. England gave or leased America’s islands and bases around the world for loans. England and France were losing colonies by politics or revolt. China was going Communist while Nationalists went to Taiwan.

We were the only super power with Joseph Stalin clamping down on the Eastern Europe they had captured during World War I. The USSR was developing nuclear weapons making them a military competitor. To increase the fear and polarization children were taught in school to hide under their desks when USSR missiles exploded nearby. People on my block built bomb shelters in their back yards during the Cuban Crisis.

China was a minor player so every country and local war fell into either of the two camps with few being independent and playing one pole against the other.

In the 1980s the USSR came apart, China was being boosted by globalization of manufacturing, and the fervor of World War III was gone. The economies of most countries skyrocketed. The World Leaders started to see the danger of climate change in the early 2000s.

Now we have Russia invading former Soviet States, Iran’s religious Nationalism creating conflicts in the Middle East, China’s rise in military expansion in the South China Sea and threats to Taiwan, as well as the rise of Authoritarianism and Dictatorships. Ethnic and Religious distrust in many countries exacerbated by migration creates instability. Geopolitics has not been this unstable in at least sixty years.

Where does “working to cut emissions” rank in this environment?