Global Tipping Point
Allow me to be so bold as to declare that we have just hit a global tipping point of world-changing proportions. How’s that for a sentence to hook readers? Let’s start by agreeing what we are tipping from. The world has gone awry in the past five years and has moved decidedly away from liberal democracy. People around the world had gone to a place of fear for their lifestyles. These are signs of an aging world which has gotten hooked on prosperity. I wrote six years ago about the Global Pension Crisis and proved that we were in a place where growth was no longer possible given the aging population and the drastically reduced birthrate in developed countries. That scenario necessitates reliance on immigration for growth and that need, while tolerable by most in modest terms, soon overwhelmed the cultural norms and fears of people who worry about their diminishing power in a world shifting away from “their kind”. This all gives rise to a strong push-back that takes the form of nationalism and the autocracy needed (or perhaps just enabled) to enforce severe isolationist thinking. People were wanting to preserve their lives and in so doing, halting the wheels of progress by civilization to both improve itself and embrace others for a “good life”. We have seen it unfold before our eyes and those of us who do not feel that fear, but rather fear the injustices it breeds, have been shocked and appalled. We dislike the racial injustice, the inhumanity towards those of lesser means, and the blind eye being turned towards the real problems of the future habitability of our world.
OK, we all sort of get the state of play and are even somewhat less shocked by it at this point, but generally no less impassioned to resist these trends and actively seek to turn ourselves back towards justice and serious problem-solving of the very real problems faced by a world that has gotten to its scale limits. That itself defines what I am suggesting is on the other side of this teeter totter. I feel we can simply call it liberal democracy, but the biggest tenets of it are a focus on social justice and ecological justice. Social justice is the broader of those two since it ranges from more care and acceptance of immigration, more acceptance of differing lifestyles and personal freedoms, less dogma (defined as mostly religious fervor aimed at the lives of others unlike us) and generally more sharing of the wealth of the world. Ecological justice is really a generational equity issue. We all enjoy the same earthly things; clean air, clean water, mild temperatures and fresh natural surroundings. The question is less about what we want (some like deserts, some like mountains, some like seashores) and more about who we want it for. Those focused on their own existence want it for themselves. Others want if for their progeny. Those two need not be mutually exclusive but are if not taken now in some version of balance.
So, now we have established the to and the fro. What is the global tipping point of these opposing realities? Tipping points are subtle things. They tend not to stand up and declare themselves as such. They just happen and then when we look back, we say, “Wow, that was a real tipping point!” At this moment we have the benefit of multiple events to look at. To begin with, the Ukraine “Quid Pro Quo” coercion by Donald Trump may finally be the straw that breaks the camel’s back with Nancy Pelosi. It took Donald pressuring the leader of the Ukraine eight times to make this a crystal-clear case of abuse of power. She is meeting in caucus with the other congressional committee chairs today to reconsider the impeachment action against Trump that has long been justifiable on factual grounds but has been held at bay for political shrewdness reasons. I know we feel like we have been here before only to see passions fade and the Trump Teflon magic hold up, but this time it feels different and more serious.
The news this morning is that the British Supreme Court has ruled that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament was illegal. Boom. Boris may have to relinquish his Prime Minister post over this one (though I doubt he will). But what this really does is to virtually eliminate the possibility of an October 31 no-deal Brexit as Boris has sworn to accomplish rather than risk Brexit altogether by pushing it off yet again. This is a major and unanimous judicial action by a usually quiet yet critical institution in democracy. It creates a beachhead for the rest of the world in the battle for the rule of law over the bullying underway by the autocrats at the helm like Boris.
Meanwhile back in Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu, a bully’s bully, has finally been handed his walking papers by the people of Israel. The culmination of corruption scandals and his unflinching strongman tactics have finally worn thin and Netanyahu is forced to concede that he needs to find compromise with Benny Gantz, the moderate candidate. To put an exclamation point on this, the Arab members of the Knesset even decided to vote with Gantz, coming out of their normal boycotting folded-arms stance. All of this, just to put an end to the autocracy of Netanyahu.
So, while all that great stuff is going on in the political realm, the real tipping point occurred yesterday at the UN Climate Change conference. This was attended for ten minutes by Donald Trump and he did not stay for the tipping point moment. That moment came when 16-year-old (looks more like thirteen) Swedish Greta Thunberg waited to enter the room and just glared at Trump as he left. She went on to address the conference of the remaining world leaders with a strong castigation of their lack of leadership in the all-important area of stemming the effects of climate change and ecological extinction. She gave a scathing rebuke to our generation for abusing the planet at the expense of her and future generations. Fox News may choose to call her Asperger’s tendency to be mental illness, but she has captivated the world as few 16-year-olds could. Between her vocal stand and the stands by the Parkland students over gun control, the next generation is coming on strong in ways that are more reminiscent of the anti-war protests of the 60’s than the normally apathetic millennial reactions we are used to. These, my friends are clear tipping point moments. The kings are dead, long live the queens.