Prepare for Change

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/2/e1500323 "We find that two-thirds of the global population (4.0 billion people) live under conditions of severe water scarcity at least 1 month of the year. Nearly half of those people live in India and China. Half a billion people in the world face severe water scarcity all year round. Putting caps to water consumption by river basin, increasing water-use efficiencies, and better sharing of the limited freshwater resources will be key in reducing the threat posed by water scarcity on biodiversity and human welfare." This is scare. And it's another reason to worry about anything that might hurt the fresh water supply, like fracking.

http://tinyhousebuild.com/

http://qz.com/611644/we-talked-to-five-experts-about-what-it-would-take-to-actually-institute-universal-basic-income/ "My favored model is an unconditional basic income, high enough to cover a person’s basic needs and given to every man, woman, and child as a right of citizenship. There are many good ways to finance it. I favor taxes on resources and rents. Start charging the market rate for the broadcast spectrum instead of giving it away; the Fed should make money off the banks instead of vice versa; land value should be taxed; all forms of pollution should be taxed; and so on. But there are other ways to raise revenue. A wealth tax is a great idea, but you could also finance a basic income with an income tax—even a flat income tax. All of those are workable, good ways to do it, and all of them will effect redistribution from the very wealthy to the middle and lower classes." "I approach UBI by dividing people into three age groups: You have children, yo...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/opinion/social-media-destroyer-or-creator.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0 "Here is what [Ghonim] concluded about social media today: 'First, we don’t know how to deal with rumors. Rumors that confirm people’s biases are now believed and spread among millions of people.' Second, 'We tend to only communicate with people that we agree with, and thanks to social media, we can mute, un-follow and block everybody else. Third, online discussions quickly descend into angry mobs. … It’s as if we forget that the people behind screens are actually real people and not just avatars.' 'And fourth, it became really hard to change our opinions. Because of the speed and brevity of social media, we are forced to jump to conclusions and write sharp opinions in 140 characters about complex world affairs. And once we do that, it lives forever on the Internet.' Fifth, and most crucial, he s...

http://www.mobilisationlab.org/blooming-digital-democracy-taiwan-sunflower-movement/#.VqpWVtDGBo1 "Taiwan has been at the forefront of digital democratization for some time. In 2012, Taiwanese netizens created alternative, crowdsourced .g0v (a number 0 where an O would otherwise be) versions of Government websites where they released data in formats that helped people more easily understand what government ministries were doing. Audrey Tang (Isis Kang/CC BY-NC-ND) 'Most of the technologies we have deployed in Taiwan were neutral; they were intended to encourage people to talk, that’s all. We had a very strong code of neutrality,' said Audrey Tang , a self-professed 'conservative anarchist,' and member of g0v.tw , now a civic movement aiming for true, participatory self-government. Youth leaders, g0v.tw, and other hacktivists all came together last year when the Government’s move to limit public debate on a trade deal with China angered citizens ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/global-wealth-inequality_56991defe4b0ce4964242e09? "The wealth of the richest 62 has increased an astonishing 44 percent since 2010, to $1.76 trillion. Meanwhile, the wealth of the bottom half of the world dropped by 41 percent. 'This is terrible,' Gawain Kripke, Oxfam's Policy Director, told The Huffington Post. 'No one credible will say this is good for the world or good for the economy.' While the wealthy might argue that their rising wealth is just a fabulous sign of economic prosperity (the "you're just jealous" rationale), the disproportionate growth at the top is keeping those on the bottom from climbing out of poverty, Oxfam notes in its report." There will be no middle class soon. This is going back to the Middle Ages, where the lords in their castles held all the wealth, and the serfs outside the wall toiled in the fields just to survive.  Progress?

http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/12/news/economy/solar-energy-job-growth-us-economy/index.html?sr=twmoney011816solar-energy-job-growth-us-economy0311AMStoryLink&linkId=20439341 "The number of solar jobs in the U.S. has more than doubled in five years. In fact, there are more people working in solar now than at oil rigs and in gas fields. The solar industry added 35,000 jobs in 2015, up 20% from the previous year, according to the Solar Foundation, a nonprofit in Washington D.C.. The group is not funded by solar companies. In contrast, oil and gas firms slashed nearly 17,000 extraction jobs in 2015 as energy prices continue to plummet. Oil prices are down a stunning 70% in the last 18 months and hovering just over $30 a barrel, a 12-year low." Wind energy is also growing fast.  Maintenance people are needed as well in this area; http://energy.gov/eere/education/explore-careers-wind-power