While I can’t speak too well to all there is to learn from Star Trek, one episode contains an essential lesson for our time.
Spock and others are left behind on a planet while the Enterprise is, for some reason, ordered to leave the area and give up the search for their crewmates. After escaping the atmosphere of the planet in a shuttle, and much to the shock and outrage of the whoever is with him (Scotty, I think), Spock suddenly dumps all of the shuttle’s limited fuel into space.
Spock’s move is logical. He makes the fuel a flare for the Enterprise to see if it is close enough, which of course it is. Rather than conserving fuel to die after a few hours of flying time, Spock’s giant risk makes it possible for the Enterprise to come to the rescue.
Our major players are that shuttle.
Harvard? McKinsey? Billionaires at large? They conserve and preserve themselves for a few more hours rather than risking it all to send a flare across the sky, one to tell the world, “we gotta do something” or we are all gonna die.
Elite education is too polarizing so from now on we only educate girls from Kabul.
The planet is burning up so from now on we will only consult with you if you cut in half your ngreenhouse gasses.
We have way too much so from now on we will only keep a middle-class wage anduse the rest to pay people to do their thing and to give.
Not rhetoric and not minor change, but visible and dramatic change by the major players we all watch, a big enough flare so that the future can turn around and save us.