Hi Christine,



I couldn't agree more with your points.



What's lacking in the world these days is a grand overriding vision -- one that large numbers of people can buy-into.



The entire world bought-into Perestroika and Glasnost, culminating in the end of the Cold War.



The only reason the Cold War ended is because those policies appealed to very large and disparate groups of people worldwide.



The imagination of the global public was captured *and only thereby* did the Cold War end. (Voters put the people into office who shared the dream of ending the Cold War)



Similarly, did South African apartheid end.



Someone created a vision (that was fine-tuned along the way) to which many millions of global citizens could buy-into.



People voted into office, those who would carry out their wishes on the matter.



So many other examples exist; 'The New Deal (FDR), Victory in WWII (Churchill), the Moon Shot (JFK), civil rights (MLK), Playing the China card (Kissinger), the PC (Steve Jobs / Bill Gates), I could go on at length. But you get my point.



Stifling individual visionaries is non-productive -- yet, it seems to be the new norm.



Not all visionaries are perfect, not all visions are inspired, but it was a visionary who created the wheel -- not an incrementalist. Yet, look how profound that vision was.



He, or she, may not have created the best wheel at the time, but the manifestation of that vision has moved our civilization by orders of magnitude.



Under the umbrella of a grand and popular vision, the will of millions (perhaps billions) of citizens are galvanized toward a common cause. (The Moon shot is a great example of this)



In the absence of a grand overriding vision, civilization eventually falters.



Presently, the grand overriding vision is to attack suspected terrorists and to degrade the status of Muslims in our own, and their own, countries.



That's not a vision. Nor is it wise. Everyone on the planet is 'part of the solution' -- unless we bungle it, that is...



And slamming Vlad Putin in the media is not visionary.



'Defaming Vlad Putin is not a policy.' In fact, it's counter-productive.



What we need now is a real vision, by real leaders, that most everyone can buy-into. We need 'Larger than Life' stuff -- not this B-movie script stuff.



One script that millions and perhaps billions of people could buy-into, would be an accelerated change-up to renewable energy / high fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks.



Say, 50% of all electricity produced in the world by 2020 should be sourced from renewable energy. And a 95 MPGe standard for new vehicle fleets.



NOT as difficult as the Moon shot. NOT as difficult as ending the Cold War in only a matter of months. NOT as difficult as ending South African apartheid within a handful of years.



Still, it would be a grand enough and difficult enough vision (and yet, reachable) to capture the world's attention and get people galvanizing towards a unifying and noble cause.



Reaching 50% of our energy needs with renewable energy is a vision and a goal that everyone could feel good about and want to buy-into.



A simple, but profound step towards this worthy goal, is to either;

a) remove the $600 billion dollars of annual fossil fuel subsidies over a 10 year period, or;

b) dramatically ramp-up renewable energy subsidies to match fossil fuel subsidies.



Either plan would work. I actually favour the (b) option, but no matter, whichever way we get there has it's own merit.



We'd be leaving a cleaner world to our future generations and saving our economies trillions of dollars in environmental costs and healthcare costs.



All that is stopping us from that goal is a lack of vision and will.



Best regards, JBS

http://johnbrianshannon.com/2015/01/11/how-new-energy-policy-save-eu/