We have been here before. A progressive president named Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House and boldly called for a transition to clean energy. The result was a full court press by the right to elect Ronald Reagan and thirty seven years and counting of continued enslavement by fossil fuels.
Understanding history will help us to not repeat it. Never have Bucky’s social philosophies and political ideas been so profoundly relevant. He predicted much of what is happening now, and if he continues to 
be right, America is on its way to failure. But, as he said, this is not necessarily a bad thing. As a matter of fact, America’s breakup may be essential to the future of Spaceship Earth.
“America is finding it difficult to integrate with the rest of the planet,” Bucky said. “Our extreme nationalism could be our undoing.” He predicted we would break up into a series of nation states, and suggested that California merge with Mexico, Alaska, Oregon and Washington to create a new Pacific Crescent from which to lead the world effectively.
He also knew the fossil fuel industry would grasp desperately onto its last profits with dying fingers, since corporations are not wired for either compassion or altruism, as our culture must become if we are to survive. Greed is built into the present system. The fossil fuel industry has been working to obstruct clean energy development for several decades, since they could not find a way to put a meter on the sun. He said this in 1982. They’ve been doing it ever since, and are still doing it, because we, the people, are still letting them. But scientists say we are running out of time.
But technology would prevail in the end, he said, and a transition to 1oo% clean energy would happen. The big question is whether it would happen quickly enough to successfully secure the balance and health of our ecosystem. Time is of the essence. It is essential, he said, that humans realign with nature, and work within nature’s design principles to prove ourselves worthy of continuance.
Bucky ALSO predicted THAT women would take over the leadership of Spaceship Earth, another necessity, because only women, he said, are hardwired for compassion. Only women are continuous, he said, and have the sense of cooperation and community to bring the world together. Men, he said, should give up the specious notion that they are superior to women. Man evolved as a hunter. He dropped the animal at woman’s feet, and she figured out what to do with it. She is the natural born manager.
And most profoundly relevant for today in America was Buckminster Fuller’s simple statement about the need to create something new: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
The more you read what Bucky had to say about the future back in the 20th Century, the more you’ll understand about what’s happening and why.
Bucky’s parting thought for today: “If the future of the world depended on you, how would you be, and what would you do? Because it does.”
Please share Bucky Ideas.
ur new president has terminated aid to important health orgs all over the world, and indicated he will also be rolling back important environmental decisions. His cabinet picks make it clear this is just the beginning of vast changes planned. Americans need the help of the whole world at this time.
Firstly, a world led by women,
He knew the fossil fuel industry was at work to dismantle the renewable energy revolution, which had begun under president Jimmy Carter, whose brave solar panels were taken off the White House by Reagan in 1986, as he said a tree was just a tree, and cut the EPA in half. Over the next three decades, our government/corporate energy alliance has solidified its commitment to a fossil fuel future so much, that we are about to have Exxon’s CEO as our Secretary of State.
Bucky would be spinning in his grave to know that even now — thirty plus years after his death — we have still not managed to gain control of the industry seemingly hellbent on killing the planet. Which is why I call them #fossilfools. They are apparently not smart enough to realize their futures are also connected to that of the planet. Do they really think they can escape to Mars?
BUCKYIDEAS 