Follow the trend lines, not the headlines.
Bill Clinton
Advice as applicable to communities as to Presidents. Following the headlines tells us of disasters that have happened; following a trend – a trajectory – can alert us to disasters – and opportunities – to come.
Almost every community has some sort of plan for its future. Too often, those plans are predicated on a hoped-for future, and formulated without following the trend lines. It is far better to start with “What will our world look like in X or Y years?” Far better to acknowledge the trends, to consider a variety of scenarios reflecting their interplay, and then to aim for a future that mitigates the downside and maximizes the chances to thrive.
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote a piece about our current decade – the Roaring Twenties. I highlighted trends that I thought would profoundly impact the evolution of communities this decade (and a bit beyond).
• The continuing culture clash;
• The dwindling influence of the Baby Boomers;
• Low interest rates punishing savers (esp. the elderly) and exacerbating the rich-poor divide;
• Business consolidation;
• Youth unemployment; and
• The accelerating pace of change itself.
The pandemic was a disaster most of us lived through. It was a shock wave that reinforced almost all of the trends I cited. The culture clash between individualists and collectivists has gotten worse. Baby Boomers have left the workforce in increasing numbers. While interest rates have risen, they are still less than the rate of inflation – the value of savings continues to fall and it is still more difficult for the poor to accumulate wealth. Youth unemployment has not been solved (and, as I discuss below, there are other trends affecting our kids). And the pace of change continues its dizzying acceleration.
However, the pandemic shock wave – the compound of the pandemic itself and our responses to it – has also brought to the fore other trends that will shape our communities’ futures. An especially concerning trend is the increasing social isolation across society. According to a recent Pew Foundation study, on average the time we spend with friends dropped by about half a day compared with 2012, as did the time we spend with acquaintances. On average we spend the equivalent of a day more a week alone. Who will we turn to in times of crisis?
There have been several articles pointing out how few of us have sufficient savings to meet a crisis. It is just as true for social as financial capital – other people are crucial resources in times of trouble. Fewer resources imply slower [or no] recovery. And less resilient people mean less resilient communities relying on resources they may not have.
And whether alone or even when out with friends and family, too many of us have our noses buried in our phones. We tune into the echo chambers fostered by social media, telling us that the Reds [or the Blues, depending on the hue of our personal echo chambers] are evil degenerates beneath contempt. This reinforces a lack of trust in our institutions and ourselves.
Sadly, too many of our community leaders seem bewildered by parents who want to have a say in what’s being taught their kids. Bewildered by parents who believe that parents must have a say in life-altering “transitions” of their kids. Bewildered by a public who believe that denying opportunities to Asians is really racism. Bewildered by a public who bemoan the growth of a “culture” that seems to have turned its back on accountability. Bewildered by a public that believes crimes should be punished, and that the police are all that stands between them and the barbarism of the mean streets.
Many of our youth are the unfortunate victims of these trends. Over the last ten years, emergency room visits for acts of self-harm by young women have gone up almost a factor of five; the rate for young men has almost doubled. Kids with “Progressive” parents – esp. young women – have fared even worse. Our kids are living in our houses longer and marrying later than in previous decades. There really aren’t any jobs in our inner cities for kids who can’t read or write.
And we know that our poor response to the pandemic only made things worse. Too many kids in public schools not only lost learning time, but some, I fear, will have to learn how to learn again. We know that the masking of young kids slowed the development of their social skills. While we have poured money into our inner city schools, we also find that in Chicago, for example, not one student – not one – in 55 schools (about 10% of the total) can read or do arithmetic at grade level. In Baltimore, Philadelphia and DC less than one in four students can read or do math at grade level. And way too many are functionally illiterate.
And it’s not only the mega-cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia or DC. In Schenectady, NY, only 4% of black students passed the state’s math test this year. Overwhelmingly this hits boys – esp. African-American boys – the hardest. Much more than girls, they fall by the wayside on their way through school. As a result, young men make up only 40% of incoming college classes (with disproportionately fewer blacks), and even fewer make it through to a degree. Too many of our kids are the real losers of the political games being played around our schools. Our often dysfunctional education system’s recovery from this loss of learning will be a true measure of its resilience. I fear that communities will be dealing with the aftershocks of this for decades.
The restructuring of the global economy is another trend accelerated by the pandemic. Companies are edging away form indiscriminate off-shoring; they’re looking to locate facilities in more stable environments and to shorten supply chains. There is a much greater emphasis on resilience over efficiency. More future-fit communities will find ways take advantage of this and seize the opportunities inherent in this restructuring.
The pandemic also led to a wave of early retirements which revealed another facet of this restructuring. Prior to the pandemic, there were five people unemployed for every job opening. Last year, there were two job openings for every person unemployed. This opens the door to greater automation and to the use of AI techniques to augment the workforce.
For most of my life, the economy could be characterized as goods looking for buyers, i.e., excess supply. We’re now in a position of buyers looking for goods, i.e., excess demand. This drives inflation. We also have excessive spending and a political tug of war that is likely to lead to recession and significant economic volatility. Really hard on those with fixed incomes!
Finally, we are at the leading edge of an energy crisis in many parts of our country, caused by our ill-considered rush to renewables and unreasoneing refusal to use fossil fuels. This crisis has already hit Europe in the form of “energy poverty,” where many can’t afford the electricity we take for granted. Or, some of us take for granted. As is true for so many trends, California is at the “forefront,” with brownouts and rolling blackouts periodically occurring.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not against renewables. But our governments’ approach to integrating them into our power systems is something like
- Mandate a date when all our electricity comes from renewables (ignoring the coupling of these mandates to economics, power system reliability, …);
- Shut down other sources of electric power – nuclear, and fossil fuels;
- Further mandate that we won’t build any more cars fueled by petroleum, thus increasing our demand for electricity (ignoring the need to develop a charging infrastructure); and then,
- Expect three miracles to occur:
(1) We will somehow find the materials necessary for all of the electric vehicles and wind turbines and photovoltaic systems;
(2) We will somehow find the engineers and scientists to make this transition work; and
(3) Our power engineers will find ways to reliably provide electricity from all of these inherently intermittent energy sources.
Good intentions are not a plan. If we are going to shift to renewables we need to lay out a realistic path toward that aim. One that recognizes that we need stable baseload power. If that means batteries to store power from solar and wind, then we shouldn’t shut down our nuclear plants nor our fossil plants until affordable storage systems are available (as California has done). We must also recognize that we likely will need to install something like 20,000% more battery storage than we currently have. Just in California!
Elon Musk installed a single 100MW/128MWh battery for $100,000,000. The city of San Francisco would require seven of those to provide power for a week. Where would that money come from?
In developing that path, we also need to consider the destination. Renewables require large amounts of metals. The world’s known reserves of copper are only 20% of what’s needed to make renewables work. The known reserves of lithium and nickel (e.g., for batteries) are only 10% of what’s needed. The known reserves of cobalt and vanadium are only about 3.5% of what’s needed. Where are the minerals and the mines for all of these metals? Is it even realistic to think we can completely “go electric?”
Future-fit communities will carefully plan this transition, while keeping a sharp eye on the evolution of technology. Right now, the capital cost of battery storage for New York City is 200X greater than the cost of a comparable diesel system. I fully expect that to change, but no one can predict when. It is foolish to expect that the relative cost will decline enough to satisfy some politically-motivated mandate.
Sadly, many communities will be swamped by these trends, but future-fit communities will take purposeful action to transcend their tyranny. They will carefully set reachable goals, and develop practical plans to reach them. They will maintain keen situational awareness, so that they can alter those plans as the future unfolds. They will follow the trend lines, not the headlines, to a better Future.
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I blundered across this essay over the weekend. It effectively identifies an important destination; but purposeful action is needed to get there.
https://blog.joelonsdale.com/p/to-save-america-restore-our-frontier
Community Resilience 