Today is National Coming Out Day, which I remember going back to my college days of the mid 1970s.
Since then, it seems like gay rights is one of the only social movements to make significant progress in USA. From coming out of the closet to legalized gay marriage. Meanwhile, other ideals haven't made such progress. Our carbon footprint is higher, income inequality is worse.
Unfortunately gay rights is still scorned in some Third World nations, yet it's one thing we have done right, here in USA.
We've done good, though admittedly not as good in all parts of USA.
Basically Western Nations have made lots of progress on LGBTQA rights yet those rights are still scorned in much of the world. That is kind of ironic and unfortunate.
As for social justice, we in the west; especially in USA, have not done so good in reducing greed, resource consumption and carbon emissions. Things that I had also hoped for during my college years. Income inequality continues to grow and homelessness persists.
Seems like much of the Third World aspires to be more like us, materialistically, but not necessarily in terms of our human rights.
Our greed and materialism has lead to the consequences of climate change and income inequality. It's like Third World nations want the bad without the good.
As for things that reduce global warming, one of western nation's greatest contributions is reducing our birthrates. Human rights plays a role here.
Other things, such as reducing our consumption, have not been as significant.
We have great technological innovations that hold promise, but they haven't been gaining traction as significantly as needed.
Meanwhile, energy prices are going up, worldwide, as the economy picks up speed. To put this in context, energy prices have been even higher, before; especially compared to other prices in the economy.
Still, green energy is not taking the load quick enough and / or our consumption habits are still too pervasive.
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