Despite dramatic new NASA studies finding that the world is running out of water and the historic drought now ravaging California, irritated rich people are having none of this alarmist nonsense, defending their innate right to use obscene amounts of our natural resources because, as one aggrieved woman actually put it, "What are we supposed to do, just have dirt around our houses?"It appears that the drought in California is causing some class conflicts.
in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up