I’m dropping my “Hope for the Future Index” this year. If anyone out there is particularly attached to it, you can let me know.

Negative trends and predictions:

• According to Mikhail Gorbachev, “Today’s key global problems – terrorism and extremism, poverty and inequality, climate change, migration, and epidemics – are worsening daily.”
• Exxon predicts the rate of greenhouse gas emissions will stop growing…by 2030…at a level that will still cause atmospheric concentrations to continue rising. They try to present this as good news, but it is clearly a pathway to collapse if you think about it just a little bit.
• Johan Rockstrom and company have updated their 2009 planetary boundaries work. The news is not getting any better. 4 of the 9 boundaries are not in the “safe operating space”: climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen).
• By several measures, 2014 was the hottest year on record.
• The Doomsday Clock has moved from 5 minutes to 3 minutes from midnight due to “climate change and efforts to modernize nuclear weapons stockpiles”.

Positive trends and predictions:

• Taxi medallions have been called the “best investment in America”, but now ride-sharing services may destroy them. I put this in the positive column because I think the new services are better and this is a good example of creative destruction.
• Remote controlled, robot-assisted surgery is here.
• The ongoing tumble in oil prices was of course a big story throughout the month. We won’t really be able to say until we look back years from now whether this was just a short-term fluctuation or the reversal of the decades-long trend toward higher energy prices. My guess is the former.
• It is starting to seem politically possible for the U.S. to strengthen regulation of risk-taking by huge financial firms.
• Robots can learn to perform physical tasks by watching videos.
• Howard T. Odum was a genius who invented a “system language” that, if widely understood and applied, might give humanity the tools to solve its problems. Unfortunately, so far it is not widely understood or applied.
• There may be a realistic chance for a de-escalation of the Middle East nuclear arms race.