Now it’s time to review December 2015, before we get on to reviewing 2015 as a whole.

Negative stories (-10):

• Some car dealers are deliberately talking customers out of buying electric cars that they want, because the car dealer will make less money on oil changes. (-1)
• Breaking news: we can’t believe everything we hear on the internet. Some of it is deliberate government and corporate propaganda, and some is “online filter bubbles” or marketing algorithms telling each of us only what we want to hear. Data used by all these algorithms is becoming more and more valuable. (-1)
• Cyberattacks or superflares could destroy the U.S. electric grid. (-1)
• Guns cause gut-wrenching, accidental deaths of children quite frequently in the U.S. The U.S. has a rate of violent assault 5-10 times higher than our close Anglo-American cousins, which in turn have higher rates than most of Europe and developed Asia. (-1)
• I mused about whether it is really possible the U.S. could go down a fascist path. I reviewed Robert Paxton’s five stages of fascism. I am a little worried, but some knowledgeable people say not to worry. After reading Alice Goffman’s book On the Run though, one could conclude that a certain segment of our population is living in a fascist police state right now. There is some fairly strong evidence that financial crises have tended to favor the rise of the right wing in Europe. (-2)
• After more than a decade of drought, there may not be enough water to sustain both Lake Powell and Lake Mead in the U.S. desert southwest. Some are suggesting draining Lake Powell. (-1)
• This year’s “super El Nino” might have happened with or without climate change, but climate change made it more likely. I have to admit though I enjoyed sitting on my front porch in shorts on Christmas here in Philadelphia. (-1)
• Jeffrey Sachs makes a pretty good case that the rise of violent religious fanaticism in the Middle East is largely the CIA’s fault. (-2)

Positive stories (+13):

• Las Vegas is planning to go all renewable by 2017, mostly centralized solar. (+1)
• Children have a natural aptitude for learning to recognize patterns. Now all we have to do is figure out which patterns we should be teaching them to recognize. (+1)
• Some U.S. Presidential candidates want to invest in infrastructure, which is good. A national infrastructure plan might also be good. (+1)
• Ericcson released some technology predictions for 2016 and beyond: Artificial intelligence will start to assist us without the need for smartphone screens. Virtual reality will start to come into its own for tech support, sports, dating, and shopping. And we will start to see more sensors embedded in our homes and eventually our bodies. (+1)
• Trends in Ecology and Evolution made some technology predictions too: “managed bees as transporters of biological control agents, artificial superintelligence, electric pulse trawling, testosterone in the aquatic environment, building artificial oceanic islands, and the incorporation of ecological civilization principles into government policies in China”. (+1)
• A serious but treatable infection can destroy a tumor. (+1)
• Self-driving cars could drastically reduce the amount of land required for parking in cities. There are some moves toward car-free central cities around the world. (+3)
• We had the Paris agreement. It is possible to be cynical about this agreement but it is the best agreement we have had so far. (+2)
• New York City recently finished planting a million trees. (+2)

So we end the year on a positive note!