We Are Called to Meet this Moment with Courage

The good news is that in the face of overwhelming injustice—at home and abroad—we're seeing a new kind of courage and moral clarity begin to rise in people, some quiet, some loud but unmistakably present, day by day.

The bad news is that authoritarianism is accelerating faster than at any point in modern history—and most people still don’t fully grasp the scale of what’s coming.

If you’ve ever respected my intelligence or perspective, I’m asking you to take this seriously.

• I have a background in science, engineering, and public policy—including environmental, energy, and climate work.
• I’ve never been a conspiracy theorist. And apart from some teenage rebellion, I’ve always respected institutions and facts.

So if I’m raising the alarm now about the state of the U.S., and where this is all heading, it's a signal to stop and listen.

The Threat is Real, and it's Here, Now.

A UK actuary report suggests that if we stay on our current emissions path, half of the global population could die from climate-related change in decades, not centuries. 

Yes — 1 in 2 people

This will begin at scale in our lifetimes - in 20 years, we could see 1/3 of the population gone, displaced or starving. It will impact the Global South first — but no region is immune. The U.S. and Europe will see death from heat, crop failure, and drought at scales that overwhelm entire systems.

And that’s just the climate death toll.

Add to that:

• The gutting of safety nets, healthcare, women's rights, emergency services in the US as the collapse deepens.
  
• The erasure of labor rights in the face of mass AI replacement.
  
• The genocides now underway in the U.S., India, and Israel.
  
• The rise of digital surveillance fortress states.
  

This is not about politics anymore. 

This is About the Future of Humanity

This isn't a policy debate that we have time to go back and forth on to avoid some outcome in the distant future. Action on climate change must be taken now.  What the U.S. administration is doing right now - rolling back climate regulations, cancelling science, defunding NASA CO2 monitors, and more - is an assault on the American and Global citizens of the world and we need to start acting accordingly.

There is still hope. If we rapidly change course now, we can avoid some of the worst case catastrophic climate and brutal authoritarian scenarios. But:

• We must be willing to make sacrifices.
• We must be willing to be the change we wish to see.
• We must be willing to get uncomfortable — because the alternative is mass extinction (or if we manage to survive, mass enslavement).

We are not just at a crossroads.
 We are at the convergence of:

• the French Revolution — with tech billionaires that control the media.
  
• the Fall of Rome — with a climate crisis looming
  
• 1930s Nazi Germany — with AI surveillance and drones
  

And line is being drawn. There is no moral grey zone anymore.
 Neutrality is complicity. Silence is collaboration.

This is real:

• Concentration camps are being built — in the U.S.
• Innocent people are being taken —including legal residents, and there's at least one instance of a U.S. citizen with a Hispanic surnames having his records vanished from DMV databases. 
• Ethnic cleansing is underway — in the U.S., India, and Israel, with tech billionaires funding it or looking away.

And here’s the heart-wrenching truth: Many of those fleeing the Global South coming to the US are escaping harm caused in large part by the U.S.—through proxy wars, exploitative policies, and climate destruction. We are all complicit, and it’s up to us to help make it right.

It's Time to Choose A Side

As far as I can see, if want truly want to bring about a system that treats people with humanity, care, and compassion, grey area thinking needs to be a thing of the past. There are really only two sides. 

Side 1: The Death Machine - Sauron, F@sc1sm, Axis of Evil
Besides the obvious traits like racism, sexism, violence , that I know none of you embody or I wouldn't be writing you, there are other insidious characteristics that unfortunately support Sauron.

• Silence
• Withdrawing, turning away
• Hoarding
• Blaming the poor for being poor as if it's a moral failing, instead of acknowledging the system actually rewards those willing to harm and exploit others, and that many people are poor precisely because they have chosen not to hurt others. To rise to this moment we must decouple the false connection between wealth and moral superiority. The only thing wealth does is protect us. There's nothing inherently moral or immoral in any of it. I discuss the importance of this mindset shift more on Linkedin.
• Voting GOP - there are some otherwise kind-hearted people still voting GOP but please know this - the current form is not the Republican family values party of old. It has been hijacked by an extremist Christian Jihad group threatening women and children's rights among other atrocities. Voting GOP for financial greed is not acceptable anymore on the moral spectrum of humanity. No amount of tax savings can be worth the mass murder of the vulnerable and the children. This holds true for war mongering centrist Democrats. They too are a threat to human rights abroad. The only politicians that are going to come out on the right side of history right now are the ones who break rank with this fascist slide. 

Side 2: Reverence for Life - Hobbits, Democracy, Peaceful Allies

• Divesting from fossil fuels and Big Tech (Literally, pick up your phone on Monday and call your Fidelity or Merrill Lynch or other investment advisor and tell them you no longer want to support the Death March of Fascism and you want out of Fossil Fuels and BigTech)
• Reduce all nonessential consumption and travel
  
• Shop and dine local, support mutual aid, fund the people — not the machine.
  
• Join your local 50501 or Indivisible Chapter - get involved, urge them to organize a sustained economic resistance movement.
  
• Move off Big Tech companies backing Sauron - Meta, X, Google, Amazon, Apple - even 70-80% reduction is great

The amazing things about all these actions is they not only help shift the balance of power back into the hands of the people, but they directly reduce carbon emissions and help shift our planet's climate trajectory.

Joy and peace are of course part of the side of good too. But we cannot put our heads in the sand. We must start fighting for the rights of all the people from the Global South that the US has exploited for the last 100 years. 

Because if we don't fight for them now, by the time they come for us it will be too late.

It's that simple.