The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere by a combination of forces that can be summarized by the acronym HIPPO, the animal hippo.

The HIPPO juggernaut we have created, if unabated, is destined according to the best estimates of ongoing biodiversity research to reduce half of Earth's still surviving animal and plant species to extinction or critical endangerment by the end of the century.

The era of growth rates above 8 is over, at least for the foreseeable future. After three decades of breakneck growth, the Chinese economic juggernaut needs to slow down somewhat so that the machine can be fixed only then can it return to the fast lane and accelerate anew.

After the Communists seized power in China in 1949, the US openly viewed Chinese Communism as benign, and thus distinct from Soviet Communism. And it was after the Communists crushed the pro democracy movement in 1989 that the US helped to turn China into an export juggernaut that has accumulated massive trade surpluses and become the principal source of capital flows to the US.