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climate change
Electing Trump as an Act of Collective Suicide
He promised to "drill, baby, drill," which really means "burn, baby, burn." And we said... okay.
Jan 30, 2025
Let’s face it: Electing Donald Trump was nothing short of a suicidal act.
And that’s something we humans seem to have a genuine knack for these days. If you don’t believe me, just consider those record-setting burned-out areas around Los Angeles. Admittedly, that was Nature (with a capital N), but given a grim helping hand by You Know Who. You can thank big oil, big coal, and big natural gas for that (and, in the future, add President Donald Trump to that list in a big-time way). Yes, things do turn out to burn far more fiercely on an overheating planet. And they get wetter faster, too (though not in Los Angeles when rain was truly needed). The phrase now is “climate whiplash,” and if you think it’s fun living under a lashing weather whip, think again.
Mind you, despite what at least some of us now know, the human crew (that’s us) is continuing to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in a distinctly record fashion. And as if things weren’t bad enough when it comes to ultimate destruction on this planet of ours, just under 50% of the American voting public only recently elected You Know Who again as president to lend a helping hand. In his inaugural address, Donald Trump promised to do just that. As he put it, all too bluntly:
“We will drill, baby, drill. America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth. And we are going to use it. We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again, right to the top, and export American energy all over the world. We will be a rich nation again. And it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it. With my actions today, we will end the Green New Deal and we will revoke the electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry and keeping my sacred pledge to our great American autoworkers.”
As he summed it up, “America’s decline is over.” But the planet’s is already deeply underway and he’s clearly about to lend it a remarkably helping hand. As a matter of fact, his pick for Energy Secretary, oil executive Chris Wright, has denied that climate change is even linked to greater and more deadly fires on this planet. Of course, to put all this in perspective, even before Donald Trump returned to the White House, the U.S. was already producing more oil and natural gas than any other country now or in history. And that was under a president actually trying to take some steps to mitigate climate change. Well, so long to that!
Donald Trump? Really? Twice? What a loony crew we are!
Mind you, last year, for the first time in recorded history, this planet’s annual temperature hit 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average — and it was also the hottest year ever, beating 2023, the previous record-holder, while every year in the last decade has been record-setting compared to any of the years of the previous decade or, for that matter, the rest of human history. And if that’s not an accomplishment (of a grim sort), I don’t know what is. Worse yet, given the rising levels of carbon dioxide in this planet’s atmosphere, thanks in part to a global fire season from hell, expect more and far grimmer to come (and come and come and come).
“Investing” in Nuclear Devastation
Historically speaking, we humans have had a knack for many things, including exploring and settling just about every inch of this planet, successfully raising vast crops to feed enormous numbers of us, and inventing endless things from the fountain pen and telephone to the car and computer. However, among our many skills, perhaps the greatest when it comes to our future has been our eerie ability to discover ways to do ourselves and this planet, partially, or completely, or at least as we’ve known it all these endless thousands of years… yes, in.
Of course, human history has been anything but lacking in ways of doing ourselves, or others we’ve come to loathe, in. Since the clubs of the Stone Age, humans have come up with endlessly more devastating weaponry: the spear, the sword, the rifle, the machine gun, artillery, planes with bombs… you know the litany as well as I do.
And then, as World War II ended, there were those nuclear weapons. I don’t have to bore you with a substantive description of them, right? They were, after a fashion, a remarkable wartime invention and, of course, were used twice on August 6th and 9th, 1945, to totally devastate the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Almost 80 years later — and consider this a distinct accomplishment — knowing what such weaponry could potentially do, no more of them have ever been used in wartime. Not a single one.
Still, explain it as you will, there are now an estimated 12,000 (no, that is not a misprint) nuclear warheads on Planet Earth, many of them staggeringly more powerful than the bombs that destroyed those two Japanese cities. In the 80 years since Nagasaki was nearly obliterated, eight countries have joined the United States in going nuclear and undoubtedly, given time, more will follow. And such weapons — initially just bombs — are now deployable on planes, ships, or via land-based missiles (also known as our “nuclear triad“). And I wouldn’t be surprised if someday such weapons were also placed in space. It’s now generally believed that a major nuclear war on this planet would not only cause unimaginable levels of immediate death and destruction but potentially create a “nuclear winter“ that could, in the end, kill billions of us.
In short, there are now enough nukes on Earth to destroy any number of planets and, though one hasn’t been used in so many decades, don’t count on us when it comes to not, sooner or later, using some of them to engage in potentially world-ending behavior.
And worse yet, 12,000 such weapons turn out to be not faintly enough. Everyone always wants more, including my country, which is planning to pour a fortune into the “modernization” (I’m not kidding, that’s the word for it!) of the U.S. nuclear arsenal in the decades to come. That “investment” will be to the tune of $1.7 to $2 trillion dollars (no, that is not a misprint) to create, among other things, new Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, a new stealth bomber, and new Columbia-class nuclear submarines.
Oh, and here’s a bit of cheery news about the second Trump administration: the remarkably unqualified fellow that President Trump has picked to run the National Nuclear Security Administration within the Department of Energy, former one-term congressman and (of course!) multimillionaire Brandon Williams, is expected to restart the explosive testing of American nuclear weapons, something that hasn’t happened since President Bill Clinton signed a nuclear test ban treaty (that Congress later refused to ratify). So the world could once again see nuclear weapons going off, even if at test sites.
Call us bizarre. Call us crazy. But up to two trillion dollars “invested” in the future utter devastation of this planet — and that’s only one country — who calls that good sense? And add to that a potential return to global open testing of such weaponry. How cheery! How delightfully end-of-the-world-y of us!
It’s Getting Hotter!
And worse yet, it seems that we humans weren’t satisfied with just one way to do in Planet Earth. However inadvertently, we’ve managed, as I indicated earlier, to come up with a second way to completely devastate this planet, at least as a habitable place for us and just about any other living thing. Admittedly, unlike nukes, climate change will take place in the global equivalent of slow motion and won’t have the ability to wipe out so many of us in a matter of hours, days, weeks, or even months. But in the long run, it distinctly may have the ability to turn ever more of this planet into a set of unlivable spaces.
And here’s a bizarre footnote to all of this. The idea that, sooner or later, burning fossil fuels a mile a minute will thoroughly devastate Planet Earth has hardly been missing in action. In fact, all too many Americans have already begun experiencing it in an ever more up close and personal fashion — as with Helene and Milton, those two devastating hurricanes last fall that gained such strength from passing across the wildly climate-change-overheated waters of the Gulf of Mexico. And who doesn’t remember the vast clouds of smoke that poured down on us from a wildly burning Canada back in the spring and early summer of 2023 in a historically unprecedented fashion?
It’s hardly a secret that the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas is at the heart of this phenomenon. And yet in this country in election 2024, almost 50% of Americans cast their votes for a man (and what a man he is!) whose key election line was the very one he repeated in his inaugural address: “drill, baby, drill.” (Of course, it might as well have been “burn, baby, burn.”) We’re talking about a guy who has called climate change “a big hoax” or, in the wake of Hurricane Helene, “one of the greatest scams of all time.”
And, of course, he walks into the White House determined to put significant (yes!) energy into producing yet more oil and natural gas, while reversing any of the Biden administration’s efforts to deal directly with climate change. (Mind you, to keep things in perspective, though Joe Biden did sink significant sums into dealing with the climate and developing alternate sources of energy, in his years in the White House the U.S. also produced more oil and exported more natural gas than any other country on Earth.) And, as promised, on Day One of his second term in office, Donald Trump, among so many other things, joined only three other countries — Iran, Libya, and Yemen — in withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate accords.
We humans, especially in the wake of Donald Trump’s recent electoral victory, seem distinctly like death-wish creatures and, at some future moment, humanity could truly find itself in a ditch.
Donald Trump? Really? Twice? What a loony crew we are!
To speak personally for a moment. I can’t even imagine spending my years from age 80 to 84 with President Heat Bomb actively working to do in our planet. To my mind, in fact, electing a long-term climate denier as president again might even be thought of as the ultimate suicidal act.
And Yet More?
In short (or long), humanity has so far come up with two ways to utterly devastate Planet Earth, one held in reserve and regularly “modernized,” the other actually underway in a reasonably slow-motion (and still stoppable) fashion. And when it comes to us, that — if I do say so myself — represents no small accomplishment (even if that hardly seems the right word for it). But don’t sell us short. Don’t for a second imagine that those two ways to destroy this planet as a livable place for, yes, us, represent the beginning and the end of the phenomenon.
I wouldn’t count on that, not for a second. I mean, don’t sell us short! (And yes, I’m repeating that phrase, but for good reason.) In truth, there are things that, at my age, I would rather not understand. But I would hardly be shocked if it turned out, for example, that artificial intelligence (AI) might prove to be — I won’t say “the” but only “a” (because I don’t want to sell humanity short) — third possible ultimate way we could do ourselves, if not this planet, in.
Can I tell you how AI could do such a thing? No, I’m too old to truly understand it. So let me instead quote Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist and physicist Geoffrey Hinton, sometimes called “the godfather of AI,” who said this about the phenomenon: “I am worried that the overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent than us that eventually take control.” In other words, we humans, especially in the wake of Donald Trump’s recent electoral victory, seem distinctly like death-wish creatures and, at some future moment, humanity could truly find itself in a ditch.
In the meantime, it’s no small act to have voted Apocalyptic Donald back into power, a man ready, above all, to — yes! — drill, baby, drill (and burn, baby, burn)!
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Nobel Laureates Join Call for Ramped Up Food Production to Avert Global Hunger Catastrophe
"Today's challenges of access to food will be exacerbated by production challenges tomorrow. We are not on track to meet future food needs. Not even close," according to a letter published Tuesday.
Jan 14, 2025
A group of some of the world's foremost thinkers is sounding the alarm on the globe's looming "hunger catastrophe" and are calling for "moonshot" efforts to stave off the crisis, according to an open letter published Tuesday that was signed by 153 winners of the Nobel Prize and World Food Prize.
The luminaries who signed the letter include the economist Joseph Stiglitz; the spiritual leader the 14th Dalai Lama; the Nigerian playwright and political activist Wole Soyinka; and Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, who discovered the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors.
The letter notes that there are 700 million people worldwide who are currently food insecure and "desperately poor"—and about 50% of them don't know where they can expect their next meal. Some 60 million children under five are cognitively and physically impaired for life from nutritional deficiencies.
As hard as those numbers are to fathom, it's about to get worse, according to the letter. Due to climate change, the world is expected to experience a decrease in the productivity of most major food staples, even though the planet is projected to add another 1.5 billion people to its population by 2050. "For maize, the major staple for much of Africa, the picture is particularly dire with decreasing yields projected for virtually its entire growing area," according to the letter.
Extreme weather and weather events linked to climate change will threaten crop productions, as will additional factors like "soil erosion and land degradation, biodiversity loss, water shortages, conflict, and policies that restrict innovation."
In sum, according to the letter, "today's challenges of access to food will be exacerbated by production challenges tomorrow. We are not on track to meet future food needs. Not even close. While much can and needs to be done to improve the flow of food to those in need, food production and accessibility must rise sharply and sustainably by mid-century, particularly where hunger and malnutrition are most severe."
The appeal was coordinated by Cary Fowler, joint 2024 World Food Prize Laureate, who is also the outgoing U.S. special envoy for global food security at the State Department. He is also known as the "father" of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.
"We know that agricultural research and innovation can be a powerful lever, not only for food and nutrition security, but also improved health, livelihoods and economic development. We need to channel our best scientific efforts into reversing our current trajectory, or today's crisis will become tomorrow's catastrophe," Fowler said in a statement Tuesday.
The efforts the group is calling for include investment and prioritization in agricultural research and development, as well as other potential moonshot initiatives such as enhancing photosynthesis in crops such as wheat and rice, transforming annual to perennial crops, creating nutrient-rich food from microorganisms and fungi, and more.
Mashal Hussain, the incoming president of the World Food Prize Foundation, said in a statement: "If we can put a man on the moon, we can surely rally the funding, resources, and collaboration needed to put enough food on plates here on Earth. With the right support, the scientific community can deliver the breakthroughs to prevent catastrophic food insecurity in the next 25 years."
The letter will be discussed during a Senate Committee event in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday.
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'This Is Unprecedented': Several Horrific Wildfires Ravage Los Angeles
"There is no 'firefighting' in these kinds of conditions," said one meteorologist. "There is only saving as many lives as possible and getting the heck out of the fire's way."
Jan 08, 2025
Several major wildfires burned out of control in California's Los Angeles County on Wednesday as roaring winds fueled the rapid spread of the blazes, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate as state, local, and federal officials mobilized resources to confront the emergency.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on social media late Tuesday that the city is "working aggressively" to stem the wildfires, which scientists and government officials characterized as uniquely devastating.
"Emergency officials, firefighters, and first responders are all hands on deck through the night to do everything possible to protect lives," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said early Wednesday. The governor noted that more than 1,400 firefighting personnel have been deployed to "combat these unprecedented fires."
The Palisades, Eaton, and Hurst fires broke out on Tuesday. It quickly exploded amid what the National Weather Service described as "extremely critical fire weather," with wind gusts up to 99 mph propelling the devastating blazes. The extreme winds forced emergency crews to ground aircraft that were working to contain the fires.
"For some context, fire crews are up against near hurricane-force winds occurring mid-winter in rugged terrain during a drought at night," wrote meteorologist Eric Holthaus. "There is no 'firefighting' in these kinds of conditions. There is only saving as many lives as possible and getting the heck out of the fire's way."
"The emergence of extreme wintertime wildfires in California presents one of those classic 'this is climate change' moments."
The Eaton fire, which broke out Tuesday evening in the Pasadena area, "spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot," The Los Angeles Times reported.
"The residents waited there in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses, and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety," the newspaper added.
The three fires have together burned thousands of acres so far and destroyed or endangered tens of thousands of homes and buildings, according to Newsom's office. So far, at least 19 school districts have announced complete or partial closures due to the fires.
Video footage posted to social media showed residents watching in horror as flames surrounded their homes:
This is by far the craziest video from the fire in Los Angeles. This guy is filming huge walls of fire surrounding a house they're in, and there's another person and a dog. I have no idea why they didn't evacuate or what happened to them. Let's hope they're okay. #PalisadesFire pic.twitter.com/QYtsBSKvdl
— Sia Kordestani (@SiaKordestani) January 8, 2025
Another video shows residents attempting to salvage as many belongings as possible before fleeing:
Video of the moment my friend and I abandoned his house after we tried to save what we could. Please be praying for him and his family @orlylistens
Location: North of Rustic Canyon#cawx #PalisadesFire #fire #California pic.twitter.com/fie6Ywkmz3
— Tanner Charles 🌪 (@TannerCharlesMN) January 8, 2025
"There has been a recent massive increase in wildfires in California but really, a fire this big in January? This is unprecedented," scientist Hayley Fowler wrote on social media. "One of many extreme events fueled by the climate crisis."
Holthaus wrote Tuesday that Southern California is "facing a rare and dangerous juxtaposition of extreme winds and midwinter drought," the meteorologist described as "a worrying example of the state's expanding wildfire threat as climate change worsens."
"The National Weather Service defines 'extremely critical' fire weather as sustained winds over 30 mph and relative humidity of less than 10% in drought conditions and temperatures warmer than 70 degrees," Holthaus observed. "This is the first time in history these criteria have been met anywhere in the United States during January."
"The emergence of extreme wintertime wildfires in California," he added, "presents one of those classic 'this is climate change' moments: A specific set of weather conditions are now occurring in such a way to produce the potential for rare disasters to become much more common."
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