First, the bad news: GDP is slowing all over the world because productivity has been in decline for two decades...In addition to this unprecedented inequality, we face climate change that’s taken us into the sixth extinction wave in the history of the planet, and the last time that happened was 65 million years ago.

To turn things around before it’s too late, we need a plan that’s both compelling and doable. Economic theorist Jeremy Rifkin thinks he has just that plan: creating what he calls the third industrial revolution, which will be sparked by harnessing renewable energy and enabling automation and the internet of things to result in a prosperous new economy powered by clean energy.

While his plans are in the works in Europe and Asia, The Third Industrial Revolution, a new film about Rifkin and his work, that recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, aims to explain his framework for a plan for the U.S. While President Trump and Republican and Democratic lawmakers have made some attempts toward putting together a massive $1 trillion infrastructure plan, any details remain murky. Rifkin wants a plan that instead would take power from the bickering tug-of-war of federal politics, and give it to the people, businesses, and local officials who can affect change on the ground.

“This is not entertainment, we see this as a start of a conversation that will lead them to roll up their sleeves and actually deploy economic plans like we’re doing in Europe and China,” says Rifkin...They think these little projects are it, but it’s the infrastructure that will drive the paradigm shift. That’s what we’re really going to focus on as a counter-narrative to Trump’s plan.”

Read the source article at fastcompany.com