It is interesting to notice how this horse race has an all or nothing air to it. HORSE #1 has democracy at stake. Intensely focused social and political resources must be expended, to borrow an abused phrase, to make America great again.
HORSE #2 has economic survivability at stake. As the 21st century moves forward, civilization will become more extreme in its relationship between have and have-not nations. Already 793 million humans are starving to the point of death, severe malnutrition and stunted bodies. Already out of 43,000 multi-national corporations, 40% of the wealth rests in the hands of only 147 of those corporations.
Human society has hidden much of its economic imbalance by over indulging in the consumption of Earth’s resources – fossil fuel, over-fishing the oceans, destroying forests to plant crops, leveraging limited elements on the Periodic Table, etc. The resources have become scant enough to threaten national stability around the world. HORSE #2 has the difficult task of redistributing wealth in an oligarchic, grow or die world.
Taking a look now at HORSE #3, the planet has no judgment with which to modify or improve its condition. The planet, from an unusual perspective, is just another orphan in the Milky Way not allowed opinion or input into how the orphanage is run.
What tools might humanity use to counter such huge, automatic, astronomic rules?
Probably the most important tool is to realize that humans live in the same orphanage. (Suddenly, a new metaphor emerges; mariner can’t help it!) In other words, planet Earth responds only with cause and effect options. Humans have given HORSE #3 Carbon Dioxide, which amounts to Furosemide (Lasix), also called “doping”, in horses. Now the Earth is running a lot faster than it usually does. So, not being too intellectual, humans should stop doping Planet Earth with Carbon Dioxide. But humans have a flaw: humans can make decisions without facts.
Today, it is the fossil fuel industry, the logging industry, the computer industry (computers are in the same class as automobiles when it comes to releasing CO2), the plastics industry, et al who make decisions about Carbon Dioxide. Asking these industries to stop releasing Carbon Dioxide is like asking the reader to stop urinating.
In this respect, all three horses are using the same equipment to win the race: Politics and money. Planet Earth, however, has an unmeasurably large bankroll with which to raise the stakes (another metaphor: poker).
To win or at least tie in this race, the US stable must expend unknowable amounts of money, must overcome the fleabites of prejudice and greed in society, and must acknowledge from the heart that they do not own or control the biosphere.
Ancient Mariner