The Climate Crisis Needs Complex Solutions — But America Can Barely Read the Instructions
How functional illiteracy will speed the demise of the US empire.
In the United States, where reading is optional and science is suspect, a terrifying trend is quietly sealing the nation’s fate. Functional illiteracy, global crises piling up faster than a Costco shelf after a supply chain breakdown, and a warming planet are entangling in ways that we seem too preoccupied — or just too ignorant — to comprehend. As the U.S. watches helplessly from the sidelines, its citizens are floundering with fundamental misunderstandings of the very systems keeping our society from collapsing entirely. In a climate polycrisis, ignorance is the final nail in our collective coffin.
America’s Problem with Reading… and Reality
First, let’s take a quick look at our ability to read — or more accurately, our inability. Functional illiteracy, or the inability to comprehend complex reading material, is a silent epidemic in the U.S. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, around 54% of U.S. adults aged 16 to 74 lack the literacy skills required for full societal participation.
