I’m going to try picking the three most frightening posts, three most hopeful posts, and three most interesting posts (that are not particularly frightening or hopeful) from January.

3 most frightening posts

• Paul Ehrlich is still worried about population. 82% of scientists agree.
• Thomas Picketty (paraphrased by J. Bradford Delong) says inequality and slow growth are the norm for a capitalist society. Joseph Stiglitz has some politically difficult solutions: “Far-reaching redistribution of income would help, as would deep reform of our financial system – not just to prevent it from imposing harm on the rest of us, but also to get banks and other financial institutions to do what they are supposed to do: match long-term savings to long-term investment needs.”
• Meanwhile, government for and by big business means the “Deep State” is really in control of the U.S. In our big cities, the enormous and enormously dysfunctional police-court-prison system holds sway over the poor.

3 most hopeful posts

• The new Michael Moore visits other countries and collects their best ideas on policies that work well and we just don’t know about.
• Urban transportation is evolving. Self-driving vehicles might travel slower, and we might be okay with that. The economics of commuting and parking also seem to be favoring denser urban living.
• The science of wildlife corridors is progressing, potentially allowing us to preserve/restore more ecological function in less space amid human disturbance. Eric Toensmeier has articulated nicely a vision that human-altered landscapes could be positive rather than negative.

3 most interesting posts

• There are some arguments in favor of genetically modified food – they have increased yields of some grains, and there is promise they could increase fish yields. 88% of scientists responding to a Pew survey said they think genetically modified food is safe, but only 37% of the U.S. public thinks so. In other biotech news, Obama’s State of the Union announced a new initiative to try to cure cancer. In other food news, red meat is out.
• Not only is cash becoming obsolete, any physical form of payment at all may become obsolete.
• The World Economic Forum focused on technology: “The possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, are unlimited. And these possibilities will be multiplied by emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.”