Here is the timetable I’ve worked out in my own mind. The press of events will have had an impact on the general character of America. If we measure the development of the American mind by the tumult it has experienced, we can witness our own progress, or lack thereof, as a society.
1 – Covid: in two years, 2022, therapeutics, vaccines, masks, social distancing will have won the day, but at far too great a price. By 2022, over 400,000 people will have lost their lives. Eventually the six points of contact will have reached everyone in America.
If you have lost a loved one before they have lived out the full measure of their lives, you never forget it. Believe me, you mark time by the premature death of one you have been close to. Most anything in everyday life can trigger your memory of them. It can be a smell, a changing color of the sky, a song. When a nation experiences it together, a collective consciousness is born. A divided nation becomes united by a common experience.
The question then becomes, what will we become as a people? For one, we will subconsciously become a more wary people. As a culture we’re known throughout the world as a laid back society, confident in ourselves, maybe even a bit arrogant in our accomplishments. We will have realized by this time we’re not as strong as we’ve been told we are. Our natural optimism will have dialed back a bit to an appropriate hesitation. Finally, caution will be more present in Americans as a whole.
2 – Economy: In 2022, a history making infrastructure bill, stimulus package, and guaranteed basic income will be starting to kick in. Demand in goods and services will be at an all time high, causing some inflation, while supply catches up.
Infrastructure makeover with cost over fifteen trillion dollars over ten years. It will produce thirty trillion dollars in economic growth over that same period, or a 100% return on your investment. Plus that investment in tax dollars continues to be collected far after the initial ten years. This time we are building for an environmental assault in temperature rise, hurricanes, forest fires, flooding, and disease control. As we begin to control those acts of nature, our ability to carry on a normal schedule of work increases.
New economic categories will emerge such as plant and tree growth that will take two to three times more carbon dioxide out of the air. Particle or aerosol sprays covering portions of the earth will have a cooling effect on the earth’s ground temperature. This will begin to nudge downward the increased temperatures we will be facing.
Smoke stacks will be turned upside down, in the most dramatic example, belching smoke filled with carbon dioxide into the ground as opposed to into the air. Fossil fueled gasoline cars will become a thing of the past. Battery fueled cars will be all we have.
Cities around the world will follow the city of Venice’s example. For the first time in recent history Venice has not flooded during its high ester period due to climate change. They have installed electronically controlled sea walls that have been used for the first time and have kept almost the entire city dry. That will take place all up and down the east and west coasts of America.
This will cause an entrepreneurial bonanza over the next twenty years that in itself will cause a full employment explosion.
I could go on, but for now, we can now see a bit more clearly where we are headed.
I plan on being here twenty more years to see us through Covid and climate change, so I can say to my grandchildren and great grandchildren that I began to fix the problems I helped to create. I’m seventy five. My life is now dedicated to the future well being of our sacred planet and the humans who inhabit it. I am very happy these days. I feel energized. The company I own with my son is creating products that are healthy for the body and leave a reduced amount of carbon footprint. I am a lucky man (oops, person).