2025 offers an intriguing mix of the certain and the uncertain.

Here’s what is certain: Democratic institutions will continue to crumble, witness the erosion of the rule of law in the U.S. and elsewhere; long-standing norms governing public affairs, such as a bar to prosecuting political opponents, will loosen their grip on behavior; countless species, especially among birds and insects, will go extinct; a host of “unnatural” disasters attributable to climate change, like wild fires and floods, will devastate wondrous landscapes and settled communities; politically or environmentally-induced mass migration, as experienced now in the various parts of the world, will become more pervasive; income inequality between the top 0.01% and the lowest 50% will increase; economic stability, as in the world-wide acceptance of the U.S. Dollar, will wane.

While not a certainty there’s reason to give added credibility to the risks of nuclear warfare, catastrophic climate tipping points, metastatic ethnic cleansing, and a world-wide pandemic, with mass extinction the result.

Within our own narrower, national context, certainties include the highest ever figures for extraction of natural gas and oil, continued increases in chronic diseases such as Type-2 diabetes and cancer, ballooning healthcare costs per capita, upward swings in gun sales and school shootings, dramatically increased levels of homelessness, and more intrusion of microplastics into the oceans and into our bodies.

An unfettered grasp of our situation can offer up considerable light, hope, even optimism; and it can strengthen our resolve and solidify our resilience.

Uncertain are the targets, timing, locales, extent of severity, and designation of victims related to these eminently predicable developments in the world and in our country. Unclear is what will constitute right and effective action in the face of this inevitable political, social, and environmental unravelling. Finally, the grounding for individual and collective action—spiritual moorings, moral anchors, forms of........

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