I honestly don't know if Obama is going to solve the issues confronting America (and thus the planet). I think it's too late, but I don't think we should do nothing. It's never too late to at least try something.
But I don't think people realize the full scope of the problem. If they did, judges would be halting foreclosures and let Wall St. go bankrupt because where are people going to go? And what jobs are they going to work?
I think for the time being we can focus on needs: water, food, shelter, clothing, and education. Anything beyond that is the same old, same old unsustainable way of life. Who do you think you're fooling?
Not many.
All industrial countries will be forced to rapidly deindustrialize on this time scale, but the one that has spent the last century building an infrastructure that has no future -- based on little houses interconnected by cars, with all of its associated moribund, unmaintainable systems -- is virtually guaranteed to fall the hardest. An American's two greatest enemies are his house and his car. But try telling that to most Americans, and you will get ridicule, consternation, and disbelief. Thus, the problem has no political solution. Tragically, Obama happens to be a politician.
And this. Ouch!
When it comes to collapse mitigation, there is no one who will undertake an organized effort to make the collapse survivable, to save what can be saved and to avert the catastrophes that can still be averted. We will all do our best to delay or avert the collapse, possibly bringing it on sooner and making it worse. Constitutionally incapable of conceiving of a future that does not include the system that sustains our public personae, we will prattle on about a bright future for the country for as long as there is enough electricity to power the video camera that is pointed at us.
