The climate problem is cumulative, so I'd say it's worse than 50 years ago even though we are generating less pollution than we were 50 years ago.
The danger of a global catastrophe due to warring nations has gotten worse in the last 10 years, but is still not as likely as it was 50-60 years ago.
The real danger is in the rise of corporate conglomerates and their ability to subjugate whole governments to further redistribute the world's wealth (and power) into the hands of a small number of the most greedy and unscrupulous among us. Because that course of action cannot lead humanity in any direction that will not result in horrific abuse and disaster.
Corporate conglomerates can only appear with the help of government, interfering in the free market. In the free markets, competition keeps things honest. An overprice product, like green energy, would not do very well in a free market. But when government interferes, such as artificially with driving up the price of oil to make green look better, then all types of problems begin. This has led to inflation since the price to ship everything increased.
Energy is now a world wide problem under the current US government energy policy. The USA was on the road to becoming an energy exporter which was good for the world economy. It would have make it harder for Russia to create its share of world instability; another government causing problems. The Ukraine war had little to do with the free market, but now it hurts both the energy and food markets.
A good example of how US government made conglomerates was forcing business to give health insurance. This had a much larger impact on small businesses who do not benefit by economies of scale. Big business was better able to handle this leading to elimination of their smaller competition.
The Covid bogeyman allowed government to interfered too much in the free market. In the USA, the Democrat run states shut down their economies, way more than needed, leading to bottlenecks in the economy, that are still causing world wide problems. China also over did it with the shut down still leading to supply problems. The real problem is the Left does not like free market Capitalism and appears to do the things needed to mess it up.
The housing crisis in 2008, which had a world wide impact, was due to the Democrats in government messing with the free market. For many years previous, they tried to force and shame banks to make insecure home loans to bad debtors. This was against free market common sense and was resisted. They then came up with a different approach which was to use the government to back up unsecured loans with tax payer money. This predictably led to predatory loan behavior and lots of bad loans, since the free market was tweaked in the wrong way. The result over extension of debt and the collapse of the housing market.
The Democrats did the same thing with student loans. Instead of letting the free market set University prices, like it always had been, they interfered by underwriting even bad students loans with tax payer money. This led to predatory over pricing by most of the universities, that escalated the debt of students. Like the housing market, this could have been avoided, by letting the free market work.
Now the same group is trying to do this again with green energy. They originally wanted to put the tax payer under $3 plus Trillion in debt, up front; add to national debt, to interfere in the free market. The goal was to force everyone to buy green lemons. This latest scam is making everyone nervous, since these same people have a poor record of success. What I would do with the green energy debt is anyone who signs off on this next disaster needs to put all their personal assets on the chopping block, so when it screws up, they are not still sitting pretty, with everyone else taking the hit. Did Pelosi or Kerry lose anything from the housing and student loan disaster they helped to create? This time they both need to put their assets up on the chopping block. If this is good policy there is nothing to worry about. If it is a skim scam then it will hurt them too.
Anyone who signed off on the student loan debacle should also have their assets seized and given to the students to decrease some of the debt they created. Their needs to be consequences for the pain they have created when they adversely tamper with the free market in predictable ways.
America used to be the ship with a steady economic keel, but now it has become source of world wide anxiety. This got worse starting at the Swamp and Democrats led Coup against former President Trump. It showed that a corrupt element had gained too much power in Washington and it has rigged the system in such as way to get away with crimes, without punishment. They have doubled down and the world does not feel safer, especially since this element pander to their own kind; criminals.
The USA is no longer the light on the hill, but a fire in the pit. This can change in November but elections are only the first step. Step two is to weed out the weeds in government, and apply the justice due. Then we can cover the pit and get back up the hill. We should lead by positive example and not by disasters created.
