If things feel grim out there, it’s because they are. We’re entering a new Dark Age, and we need a series of Enlightenments to fight our way out of it. Or else it’s lights out for our civilization. If you doubt me, take a hard look at the world’s richest country, America — which is essentially a poor country descending into ignorance, hate, and fascism, all over again. America teaches us where we might all end up, if we’re not careful: caught in a cycle of economic despair, the fascist hate it breeds, and the denial that allows it to flourish.
How did we get here, to this grim and strange juncture in history? There’s a certain person in the world whom I’ve come to have a great deal of respect for, in the midst of this crisis. Listen to what he had to say about our current era:
“For the first time in 30 years, poverty is rising. Human development indicators are declining.”
“Huh?” You might say, baffled. “So what?” But to an economist like me, that spells deep, deep trouble. It tells me that our global economy no longer works, in the most profound ways possible. Think about what the above really means with me for a moment — let me put in context.
You might think, like some Americans still do: “well, at least destroying the planet and letting billionaires duck taxes made us rich!” The truth is that it didn’t even do that. In fact, now we are getting poorer. That is what “poverty is rising” means.



[link:https://eand.co/were-going-to-have-a-new-dark-age-unless-we-have-a-new-enlightenment-7bb2f6bd6097|]

Something I found and thought I'd share.

Just 10 miles off the coast of Los Angeles lurks an environmental disaster over 70 years in the making, which few have ever heard about. That is, until now, thanks to the research of a University of California marine scientist named David Valentine.

Working with little more than rumors and a hunch, curiosity guided him 3,000 feet below the ocean's surface. A few hours of research time and an autonomous robotic submersible unearthed what had been hidden since the 1940s: countless barrels of toxic waste, laced with DDT, littering the ocean floor in between Long Beach and Catalina Island.