Friends,
My good wishes to you on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
I live in California, near the coast. Since the week after Christmas, we have been pummeled by eight “atmospheric rivers,” a weather phenomenon that summons moisture into a powerful band and then unleashes intense blasts of precipitation.
The stream next to my house has become a river and some of the roads I rely on are impassible. I’m one of the lucky ones. At least 19 people have died as storms continue to cause widespread flooding, mudslides and power outages. Another storm is hitting today. Millions of Californians are under a flood watch.
Among the most vulnerable are low-income people who live in fragile structures or are homeless, disproportionately people of color. We don’t talk nearly enough about the consequences of climate change for the most vulnerable among us. If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, I’m sure he would be.
Why is the media so tentative about attributing the devastation here in California to climate change at all? Or the climate havoc all over America, and the world?
Saturday’s New York Times front-page story about what’s happening now in California didn’t even mention the words “climate change” until the 26th paragraph, the third from the last. Even then it didn’t blame man-made climate change but referred obliquely to climate scientists who “say” climate change “amplifies normal extremes” of drought and flooding.
A review of coverage by national TV news in the weeks after the storms began found that (with one exception) cable news and national broadcast networks failed to link California’s devastating storms to the global climate crisis.
It’s as if we’re living in two worlds carrying separate stories — in one, stories about the devastation occurring all around us; in another, stories about the findings and solemn warnings of climate scientists. Why aren’t they the same story, including the perils suffered by the most vulnerable?
To be sure, it's difficult to directly attribute specific storms to climate change. Meteorology isn’t precise when it comes to causes and effects. But is there any doubt that the Earth is warming due to human causes, resulting in more extreme weather exactly of the sort we’ve been experiencing on the West Coast?
Climate change did not directly produce the raging water that pulled a five-year-old boy from his mother’s arms as he was on his way to school in San Luis Obispo County last Monday, of course, but climate change was obviously behind this tragedy — as it’s been behind so many other tragedies that have been faithfully reported but whose underlying cause is being ignored or reported in the 26th or so paragraph.
I understood years ago why editors, publishers, and TV producers were reluctant to wade into the political fight over climate change. It was too charged, too partisan, too many facts were in dispute, and Republicans were adamant in their refusal to concede that human-created climate change posed a clear and present danger. The media were content to report on climate catastrophes and leave the debate up to the politicians.
But now? There’s no longer any legitimate dispute. News outlets have no excuse for temerity in connecting tragic weather events to the undeniable, violent changes in the Earth’s weather. It’s like journalists who report on the high rate of homicides in America without mentioning how easy it is to get guns in this country, or the reporters during the early stages of Trump’s presidency who didn’t want to come right out and say he lied. A failure to make such clear connections is itself misleading.
Each climate calamity we endure is another learning opportunity for the nation to understand the existential threat of climate change and why we must take the lead in reversing it. For the media to avoid talking about it is a loss for democracy.
ever since 1970, we've had irrefutable data that climate disaster was headed our way. who had this data? EXXON! astonishingly, exxon scientists had the most incredibly accurate climate modelling data -- sometimes MORE accurate than what academic scientists had regarding climate change and its human causes. (this came from last weekend's WNYC programming if you want to learn more)
climate disaster is no secret. it's no lie. we've known about it and publicly commented on it since, literally, 1900 and even earlier. as a kid growing up in a small farming community on west coast amerikkka, i CERTAINLY knew about it because i clearly remember my nightmares from back then.
this lack of journalistic rigour and -- let's face it -- lack of journalistic HONESTY regarding the causes of california's floods is no different than the reasons that trump still roams free: lies that are paid for by elites and corporations. it's outrageous and shameful and inexcusable that anything but the unbastardized TRUTH about climate collapse is being reported anywhere in the world today. even steve forbes, the CEO of my publication, went on the record last week in a short opinion video making a series of muddled claims and science-free arguments that the planet was not in any danger from human overconsumption.
but journalistic honesty does not serve the elites nor corporations, whose only goal, it appears, is to accumulate more of everything (especially money), by ripping it out of the hands of the working class whom they've forced into modern slavery. they also place the burden squarely on the shoulders of the working class to solve this MASSIVE problem, ignoring the FACT that one elite white man emits hundreds of times more carbon in their quest for more More MORE than, sometimes, entire nations.
the 1% should be ashamed at their insane levels of greed and consumption and waste, but they aren't. this is a badge of honour -- to them. meanwhile, we burn and drown and watch the planet become completely depauperate of any and all living things that don't create huge profits for the slave masters.
It has occurred to me that Musk's preoccupation with settling Mars was >always< a smoke screen. He's investigating means of "terraforming" an uninhabitable planet. Put a pin in that, for a moment. If not that, he's investigating how to devise self-contained, artificial environments to shelter those having enough cash to afford such a domicile. I understand he wants to build an orbiting mansion for himself. How about orbiting foundries & factories that rely on the human resources supplied by orbiting prisons? All that may seem a bit of a sci-fi proposition, but the technology is available and up there working >as I write about it<. It has yet to be developed to it's >full< nightmare dystopian potential - and Musk is on its vanguard. What's worse is that it's >history<. Can you say "Australia?" Just because it's an old plot in sci-fi doesn't mean someone hasn't read about it and considered it a good, money-making proposition that will garner a "certain kind" of political support. (How far do you trust Q-publicans with power over this nation's destiny?) After all, private sector prisons >are< a thing. At some point, such an indenture could be the only repose from the impending climate disaster, as well.
Meditate on that concept for a few minutes before you blow it off as rubbish. Just sayin'.
I suspect ideas of a base for mining is at heart of returning to the moon as well.
It's probably only way NASA got any funding for Artemis.
I used to love space exploration, which it what it used to be, but when I started hearing about colonization and mining. I knew the corporate profit machine had seized control of this as well. 💔
Agreed! The corporate profit machine is not content with just destroying this planet! Boundless greed.
We need a paradigm shift toward the circular economy, in which everything is recycled. Mother Nature recycles everything, and so should we if we want to survive. Until our for-profit economic system is replaced by a circular system, history will repeat itself.
and make // require - doubtful - the producers of the plastics et al pollutants
entering the total planetary environment - responsible for the clean up and
recycling and cessation of further production - But like I said - all of this is
highly doubtful - ref: cost effectiveness eating into mega prophets (misspelling intentional) -
The job of government is to establish the rules for the playing field called The Economy, The Market. If and only if governments get in tune with Mother Nature will we survive.
Including the military. Honolulu water issues come to mind.
The military is gradually abandoning its disregard for the environment.
A little too late. I live near the former Grumman facilities. Check out the plumes under a white picket fence suburban area. And that’s just one example on Long Island. No foresight at all. They’re are superfund sites here, I believe going back to the 1940’s. Just one speck in the United States and territories. And that’s not taking into account marginalized areas. I have spoken to retirees who worked in the defense industry here. They were just interested in progress, not the residual effects.
I applaud the military for moving forward, yet I’m curious how interested the gop is in following through.
Much of the environmental pollution of the DoD was due to ignorance, which now has been expunged from the military mind. However, the Reptilians and even some Democrats are in the pocket of the zillionaire class. Don’t Look Up.
The GOP? Ha! They live in a totally different fabricated world.
It strikes me that everything is circular, Stan. Nature recycles, and history works in cycles, as well. Perhaps....if we humans wreck our planet irreparably, we'll be recycled by Nature, and maybe our history will come full circle: we'll start at our most primitive beginning again. The whole process taking eons, of course.
Denise, I've been reading about archaeological rediscorery of several ancient cultures = Troy, Greece, Egypt (my fav), Rome, in the Americas et al, & now Knossos on Crete. And all of them -
'was done in' by some natural catalysmic event OR human overpopulation exploiting to death the environments that - evolved - these cultures. So, YES, Nature DOES recycle virtually everything naturally. It's when dealing with the human concocted synthetics (plastics in all it's forms derived mostly from petroleum products) that Nature has difficulty in the recycling process, since most of those synthetics do NOT exist in the natural realm... Sigh ~~ ~
Yes, it’s probably egotistical of us to think that we can’t destroy ourselves through stupidity and greed.
Creating chimeric respiratory viruses in a lab seems to be a more clear and present danger. We have 5 million dead, nearly everyone injured, economies and education set back at least 2 years. It could happen again tomorrow, and with a more virulent and deadly strain.
What brilliant scientists think that creating deadly viruses in the middle of a crowded city is a good idea?
Good point about plastics, Dale. Perhaps Nature will find a way to overcome even those synthetics, eventually.
Denise, I've recently seen "announcements" of - worms which will eat polystyrene or styrofoam.
The problem with this is that the little 'beasties' pictured chomping away on styrofoam are - meal
worms or larvae of a particular species of beetle and not (true) worms at all. And the additional problem as I see it, what does 'eating' this styro do to them, their body chemistry and potential
future generations. To my way of thinking we (even with this meal worm revelation) have a very long way to go before we - have a real and successful biological process for dealing with this - synthetic waste. a truly - organic - recycling process.
Yep, I've read about those beasties, too. I dunno....call me mystical foo-foo, but my thought is that, yes, plastics are synthetically made, but they're of this earth. That said, Mom Nature is endlessly adaptable. Perhaps, over the course of millennia, she can find a way to vanquish them.
INDEED ! ! !
Our environmental & societal collapse could, & likely will, happen in a very short time, & we may be a lot closer to that point than most people realize.
Agreed!
Put the NASA mission in perspective with my comment elsewhere about its true, original mission. China's sniffin' 'round on the moon, and it'll wind up being a new "space race" - if you remember that old chestnut.
Indeed! You clearly understand what I'm talking about.
I just finished ready a series of sci-fi stories by a British writer E. C. Tubb: 'Earl Dumarest Saga' written from 1975 to about 1984 & 31 stories all sequential. It's set in the far far far future post apocolypse on Planet Earth // Terra, where Earl Dumarest, as a boy, has stowed away on a space ship, bound for - who knows where - and all the stories are about his future life and his quest of finding and returning to the planet of his birth.
Very engrossing, but I doubt more than a few episodes are currently available. I collected them from the beginning, having worked in the wholesale/retail book biz back then.
And, in my opinion, the story lines are a - forcaste - of how human behavior didn't/hasn't/won't change as a whole - for the better... And, in a very real sense we're
seeing that happen - now ~ ~ ~
Anyone seen AVATAR 1 & 2 lately?
DZK, Musk is a megalomaniac! He had a few ideas like his electric cars, but he doesn't have the wherewithall to see projects through and he treats workers so poorly they can't produce the quality products Musk claims to be making. He is addicted to attention and is into blaming everyone else for his "failures." He doesn't learn from his failures either except that he can use his money to cause all kinds of havoc and will still be covered by the media as though he is some kind of genius. I can see him drawing up the blueprints for prison factories in space, on earth too if he is permitted. We already have privatized prisons which is a start in that direction. Whoever came up with the idea of private prisons should be in one of them, say for a year. If someone is committed to prison for a crime, it is up to the state to see to the prison, not pay a bunch of money to a private corporation to run it. This is disgusting and needs to stop. The problem, most people don't care and Republicans like not having to take responsibility for imprisoning people for minor crimes while they are committing major ones. Ugh!
Regarding Musk, a little research reveals he did NOT create Tesla, but was rather an INVESTOR. He was not getting the attention he craved and had an internal fight for control with the TRUE founders of the company. A settlement was reached by Musk where for $$$$, he would be able to title himself also as a "founder" and be the "face" of the company. Musk is VERY similar to Trump in his extreme narcissist disease and unending craving for attention. A carnival barker comes to mind, a habit of overpromising and underdelivering. (ex: operable Self-driving feature) The SAD part is that corporate media worships those with money and believes that if someone made enormous money in one thing, they must be great at EVERYTHING. The "journalists" never bothered to investigate the con man Musk for who he is and find out exactly HOW that wealth was made. Maybe his "modern day slaves", I mean his workers, had just a little to do with it. Imagine a "man" being angry and pouting because he wanted his slaves to continue working at his Fremont Tesla plant in the middle and worst part of the covid pandemic and the State of California said, because of the closeness of the workers and other health concerns, he would have to shut down for a period of time. He disobeyed the State orders and made his slaves work ANYWAY and many got covid. Then he closed the factory and moved it to Texas. Megalomaniacs with NO COMPASSION FOR HUMANITY HAVE NO PLACE CONTROLLING OR LEADING PEOPLE!!
The equivalent comparison of EM to DT could be summed up like this-
Elon had just as many friends growing up that worked in his daddy's South African Diamond mine- As Donald had as many friends that lived in his daddy's slums in NYC...
Just sayin'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Small correction. Emerald mine.
Lonnie, that paints a powerful picture we should all pay attention to. Thanks!
Thankfully we will see justice in our lifetimes and the oligarchs worldwide will learn what suffering is. There was a study released last year in Seattle by a billionaire Chip? Hanoyer?
That unequivocally stated that since the 1970’s- when the 0.1% began the onslaught of the middle class and all others- except themselves- that EVERY adult in the USA would have earned the equivalent of an additional $100,000 per year in income, had the tables not been turned through the Offshoring of industrial capabilities that have decimated the entire economy, except the most affluent people in America.
A self imposed imperialism- if you will.
Also, I had read Elon’s father had a diamond mine, if it was just gemstones… it’s synonymous with the wealth it takes to operate a mine that produces raw materials from the earth. Just ask Joe Manchin!
As a manufactures rep in Silicon Valley, I had the pleasure of working with the true founder of Tesla at a number of companies before he displayed the courage and foresight to establish a new electric car company in Northern California. Thank you for bringing this fact to the attention of the members of this sub stack. We must defend ourselves from megalomaniacs that want to control our world. They very well could be the one's who will determine the future of AI. A scary thought.
David, knowing there was a true genius involved with developing the Tesla and other electric vehicles gives me hope. I am guessing that genius doesn't whine, lie about everything, abuse workers, and throw his weight around for attention. What a relief that I don't have to worry about geniuses as much as I did when I thought Musk might be one.
You are correct.
Thank you for that correction, Jim. Like too many billionaires, Musk is given credit for things he never did, like Tesla. Musk is a leech (a blood sucking worm) the best definition I can think of for this parasitic loser. Some segment of America have become so addicted to celebrity they adulate the worst scumbags we produce. (Yes, I know he is South African by birth)
Fay, yes, Musk is a scumbag no matter where he is from. It is just too bad we happen to have so many of them here right now. Why isn't the media bringing out the facts about Musk's "professional" life? I know, I know, money lets people hang in the shadows if they want, or rather since Musk wants to be in the limelight all the time, he just wants his background to remain in the shadows and people to think as I did that he is a genius. He's just another rich whiny white boy.
Jim, thank you so much for the info about Musk. I did not do my homework and allowed myself to be persuaded by the media that Musk was a genius and I led me to believe he was the inventor of the Tesla car and the other things he was into. Wow! That is a good lesson, do my own research on all the figures the media puts forward. I usually do, but somehow, like a whole lot of people, I did believe Musk was a tech genius when he was just a rich guy? Oh lord! How did I miss that? That lowers him in my opinion a lot, to the point that I don't even have to think about him. How anyone who knew he was a jerk could have let him "pretend" to buy Twitter (he got investors so it is impossible at this point to know just how much he really did pay and to whom. Gag!
Musk did make a lot of money with PayPal, an internet payment service, allowing him to invest in Tesla. But, even that story has unflattering dealings with his business partners. As I understand, Musk was partnered with others (sound familiar) pushing them to primarily focus on his invention, and the other investors were keener on theirs, known as PayPal. He eventually sold his shares in PayPal. Musk seems to have a history of difficulty working WITH people.
When I worked at PayPal I never saw any code in the repository under Elon's name. The only co-founder who contributed code that I saw was Max Levchin. Maybe he posted under X Æ A-Xii Sr.?
HAH! Even before I learned the truth from Jim, I felt there was something not legit about Musk. Never regarded him as anything but pond scum. Now I know why!
Appreciate the info on Tesla's origins, Jim. Did not know those facts.
Granted, Musk has likely shot his space plans in the foot with his massive ego. However, I'm almost certain someone far, far quieter, cleverer, and more antisocial is conniving a way to pick up where L'enfant terrible fell on his damn kisser.
overt narcissism.
Hi, Ruth, Little by little, the private sector has been buying out the government since Ronald Reagan (or before?). The buyout of prisons is one of the more alarming examples. When someone said they wanted to get the government down to the size of a corner Woolworth store . . .? Remember your downtown Woolworth's? They see the government as lost profit, and want to make it as powerless as possible (except for defense). Drown it in the bathtub. Abolish it, except for defense. Fascism is symbolized from the time of the middle ages, as reeds bound together with an ax blade sticking out from the side. When the corporations bind themselves to the government (and do what they want with it), you get fascism. Some say America has been fascist since the vice presidency of Dick Cheney. Maybe it began when Kennedy was elected, when J. Edgar Hoover was employed by the Federal government. When did America begin to become fascist? When Emma Goldman was asked to leave?
Sandra, I suspect there have always been men in power who have a totalitarian bent. They think because they are physically strong it means they are intellectually strong and strong leaders too and deserve reverence from everyone. Those three very very rarely come in a package, but men insist it is all the time (check out Santos, and OK, Trump, McCarthy, . . . .). Andrew Jackson was a fascist who claimed to be a "man of the people" when the people he was courting were the other slave owners, those who would bring down the banks, and men who would kill and herd indigenous peoples away from their lands because gold had been found and white men wanted . . . . The robber barons/barrens were fascists too and hoped no one would notice. Some people did. Many men and a few women will do almost anything to force other people to be seen as inferior to them and act that way. Trump and Kump are all in this category.
These folks were trained to it from birth by predecessors who were also would-be fascists or something similar. Now they want their children not to be taught about people unlike themselves. I guess they no longer think their parenting to racism, white supremacy, misogyny, and the rest is insufficient to mold their little darlings the right way. Maybe we the People just need to demand schools teach all of our history, the good and bad and that those cute little white boys and girls are descendants of people who were not always very good people and that we hope they willl do better.
Imagine the White fear going on when we begin to realize there might be reversal and repercussion as People of Color continue to achieve wealth and prominence. We all know the history. Imagine Black retribution. The problem comes down to this White fear. Some Euroamericans see this threat growing and they see only tribalism as their safe place. They can't imagine or accept a world where there's a White minority, after everything that has happened. I think this is why southern Whites want to obliterate history, so their kids might be safer from retributive forces in the future. I can understand their reasoning, even as I also want full equality for all, everywhere. That's the only possible way forward. Yes, thank you for scanning further back for examples of fascism. I'm rather "fascinated" by symbols, which tend to teach us the origins..
andra, I appreciate your understanding of how white people's fear can spark tribalism. I believe a lot of the tribalism is created by public figures to make sure people who express sufficient anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-whoever else the "leaders" want maligned will feel they are part of the "in-crowd." People do need to belong and this is a warped sense of belonging because it is not built on community, caring, or gasp, love. It is born and nurtured in fear, hatred, stress about the other, and a history of successful maligning of those groups. The problem, the "public figures" want the people's ignorance too. Keep groups separate, scream about white women and Black men or some other configuration of race contamination. Hold events that encourage their white belongings to keep people other than white people from living in their neighborhoods. Make sure their white voters don't think about global warming and what it is doing to poor people of all backgrounds because they might summon some compassion, perhaps, god forbid, empathy for those people and want to do something about it, maybe change some habits, drive less, use less electricity, waste less food, take shorter showers, etc. Can't have that!
Amen to all of this.
"...this is a warped sense of belonging because it is not built on community,..."
A key characteristic, Ruth. You absolutely have the right of it.
Although....for the types of people you describe, "community" is what they're all about. That is, THEIR kind, THEIR exclusive enclaves, THEIR income brackets. Their community permanently excludes all the "others," and they'll use every possible tactic to keep it that way. Their community isn't what you and I mean by the word; far from it!
There have always been fascists. Take a listen to Rachel Maddow's amazing podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1647910854 I wondered what could be so important and pressing that she would cut down on her work at MSNBC. Then I discovered the podcast. She is absolutely right. What we are going through now has happened before and we all need to know this. It was not so long ago.
Donna, yes, Rachel Maddow's "Ultra" was amazing. I remember hearing about "America First" in high school, but it was presented as though it were a minor blip on a radar (OK, there was no radar then). It turned out it was a pretty formidable group of public figures who participated, even a religious nut who had a massive radio audience. For a priest, he certainly did spew a lot of hatred. I noticed the Catholic Church did nothing significant to stop him for years. One can wonder why. Every American should see "Ultra." I can't wait to see the movie about it when it is made and comes out.
Outer space is a very expensive location for the prison slave labor corporation industry.
There are now two full generations, adults and young adults now successfully engaged in an addictive prison of sociological disconnection where necessary human interactions consist of timeless actions by prisoners of tapping on the bars of a cell to signal another, yet rarely meeting the other in a human encounter.
Technology has imprisoned our humanity, our minds and our future by an intentional design of hand held mobile phones intended to platform the social media content most addictive, most profitable, and most controlling of facts, opinions and truths for the most profitable prison of all, social control by a near-total replacement of the physical commons and social meetings by video and text.
The effect of the web based social media app and handheld device enslaves in all directions of the human condition.
One is REQUIRED to possess presence on a minimum of 1 social media app for any serious consideration of employment, education or inclusion within the corporate defined confines of the technologic social construct we dwell within. Without presence in an electronic social platform one is defined by the addictive-behavior regime as anti-social and non-participatory. By the age of 12 a young pre-teen is defined by technologic social presence and little if at all by the character of the human presence.
Consider the absolute presence of control by the algorithmic, psychotic interference of social media upon every thought and idea from childhood to old age. We are a species rendered slaves to an addictive device which acts to divide the human presence to empower the will of one of a few entities controlling the monopolized industries of a planet hurtling to the profit-driven catastrophe of an irrelevant hubristic species devoted to addictive behaviors such as profiteering and an idea of corporate-extruded ‘individualism’ and personal power.
Slavery is real, slavery is behavioral, and slavery is the socially accepted insanity of the corporate technological instruments created to control, modify and punish the non-conformist to a prison planet.
When physical social spaces again become more important than the tap-tap-tapping on the prison bars of a handheld device keyboard, we may have a second chance at freedom. That importance cannot be of greater necessary now within the destruction by climate change and pandemic disease contagion which serves to imprison all and further imbed the technologic prison of social media control.
You got it. Good analysis. It all began so innocently, as I recall, learning to use my 1986 CPT word processor. Totally improved my typing skills at the time. In the early days, the whole thing was like magic.
Ah yes ; Remember Web TV ? It was fun, and still can be, as long as it does not become the addictive time bandit.
Your comment piques my memory of a couple of items. At the close of the Peter Sellers movie "Being There" is a dark screen display of the phrase: "Life is a state of mind." Also, I've said for a long time the the "Star Treck Next Generation" episode "The Game" was prophetic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_%28Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation%29
Both fully support your view.
This is pretty darned realistic thoughts that never occurred to me. Well in a way yes they did occurto me. . That we are addicted to the ping and pong of our devices calling to us. AND have lost attention span for anything longer than 5 minutes. Sigh.
RON RODARTE ; There are still many people who are not on social media and who even thrive in this world. They read books and watch some podcasts and even get together in the flesh to meet and discuss history or even politics of the present time and listen to live music and dance. Not everyone who home schools their children is a white Christian Nationalist. Not everyone plays video games. Not everyone is addicted. I know people who do not even own a 'smart' phone. Just one of those rechargeable 'flip' phones for basic communication.
I hope this is true. I'm one of the people you describe. I still have to use my computer because I can't possibly use my phone to type messages. I get angry every time I see the request: Password. It's encouraging to read your remarks and that I don't have to feel so left-behind by the world.
Sandra B ; It's true, and I also hate passwords! every site requires them and I find it annoying to have to consult my password safe all the time. I wonder why anyone would want to hack my bill payment sites, for example. Are they going to pay my balance?
Sadly, Laurie - there are fewer and fewer who eschew the easy addictive behavior or 'convenience' of electronic coms for in-person communications or the intellectual stimulation and enhancement of reading books and sharing one's thoughts.
It is a challenge taken up buy some high schoolers in Brooklyn who have initiated a rebellion on their own perceptions of this very real issue. The link is here: https://mailchi.mp/nader/teenage-iphone-rebellion-in-brooklyn-fjyobt81qw?e=5873c0d8a5
An article by Ralph Nader built upon a newspaper report of such teen rebellion - good trouble!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/style/teens-social-media.html
Awesome that high schoolers are thinking independently. We have some students involved in civics in our town , They actually participate in national competitions to test their knowledge of civics! It is a newer part of the curriculum in school , civics. Financial literacy too.
Independent thinking with group participation is a key to human survival, throughout mankind's survival.
False constructs of a ruling class or priesthood have often led to the downfall of civilizations.
Personal technology devices are a false construct, touted as a convenience, yet used to addict youth and adult for behavioral modification.
The movement to private and chartered corporate schools to replace the public infrastructure has also been a false premise, resulting in religious and socio-political indoctrination centers funded in part by funding taken from public education & augmented by private tuition, affordable for the economic class of 'designated economic survivors', yet impossibly expensive for masses of the silenced and ignored who have been denied their economic future.
The most damaging aspects of these education policies is the development of the school-to-prison pipeline and the rise of the economic draft, created by the lack of employment and absence of publicly funded higher education which forces youth into a military service promising what was our right as citizens only a generation ago, now denied as subjects to a corporate-captured civilization.
It is indeed a good sign that human survival skills are in play, and that the youth in your vicinity has grasped how deeply the denial of civic and financial knowledge has affected policies and planet, which in the learning will prevent corporate economic enslavement of entire communities.
Add a false premise of personal handheld technology to the false premise of credit spending and the chains of social slavery become apparent.
False premise in policy & product offer indoctrination into oppression by personal consent, a major tool of the American form of capitalism.
Until education is again in public hands and individuals are allowed to meet in the public commons rather than virtually, the obfuscation of truths & personal knowledge which are the keys to freedom will be in the sole possession of the most predatory competitor to humankind, the corporations and its false legal construct of corporate personhood.
It’s becoming fewer and fewer. Cell phones are everywhere. For better, but mostly for worse. Google offers everything at your fingertips. Most people don’t seem concerned that they’re being commercially tracked/targeted.
Especially now with the pandemic, when conversations occur over phone or FaceTime.
Kevin ; I have a smartphone and am aware of the fact that I have 'cookies' following me everywhere I go. 'Google is your friend' my husband says. It can be useful. Sure , they follow us everywhere we go. I just remind myself that "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you are not being followed." It's the world we live in. Very difficult to navigate without our phones, tablets etc. Sometimes I turn off my devices and avoid TV 'news' for a while. Feel better for it. But I know that even going to a doctor appointment now requires online accessibility.
Instant gratification, catchy clickbait and a false sense of superiority. AI is already ingrained into the youth.
I was in the generation that 'Turned on , tuned in and dropped out' from the consumer culture. We fought for clean air water and food. there are still many of us who are conscious and still learning. Life is a question of balance, for US, IMHO.
At this juncture, I get the sense that that those who would have us believe climate change is a hoax >know< it's not. They're intentionally exacerbating it, in service to the vision I've outlined above.
Consider the kind of serfdom involved with serving in even an earth-bound estate, a totally enclosed "tube city," where the pay-rate is simple survival.
I suspect that an earthbound plan for the super-rich to evade the effects of climate change is more the goal. At least that's far more realistic. It's not hard to imagine a future where the privileged few can remain comfortable in climate safe enclaves (in mountain areas, islands, greener and wetter places where crops grow best, etc), while the majority face the worst of what remains of the earth. Also, just as it has been throughout history, there has/will arise a class of lackeys who can see what's coming and who don't want to end up on the short end of the stick, so to speak, when things get really bad. We call those people Republicans and they inhabit Congress, governor's mansions, state legislatures, mayors offices, etc.
>Exactly< my point, brought down to Earth.
That's been happening for sometime, as working class people have been priced out of entire regions that have prime conditions. 😠
“Don’t Look Up”!
Reminds me of The Simpsons episode where they built two rocket ships. Lisa (a fantastic character), Marge and Maggie are on one heading for space whilst Homer and Bart are on the other rocket heading for the sun. There’s more to the story and The Simpsons have been a rock for me since they debuted on The Tracy Ullman Show.
DZK, I am a fan of Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction, but I do not want to live those visions. I want to think that having forewarning, we can make those dystopias impossible. The problem when money is in charge of everything, those dystopias look great to the monied: they have all the money/resources, they can make others do whatever they want, and they are all-powerful, like comic book heroes or villains - it doesn't matter which. Those are the fantasies of toddler-men who think only of themselves, the toddlers who never learned to play well with others and to care about anyone but themselves. We keep giving them more power and excuses for their bad behavior while people die in disasters that we could work harder to prevent.
Exactly the way I view them, Ms Sheets. If a sci-fi writer can come up with it, you can be certain that there's a recipe for Soylent Green - for example - is in someone's cookbook! Among the tales of heroism & sacrifice are a considerable number of cautionary tales.
The thought of corporate colonizing other worlds, straifing their resources and polluting their pristine environments as they have done here turns my stomach. Humans' out of control population boom is another nausea inducer. 😠
Colonizing space itself, within the Terra/Luna system is a far more feasible starting point, from which missions to the moons of the gas giants to mount. I'm figuring the Alpha Centuri system will be quite safe within in the probable timeframe that humans, as a species, eventual demise. I don't buy into ETs from distant star systems, either.
A few years ago I got an image in my head of a dead planet surrounded in thousands of space contraptions, villages, homes, satellites (I don't recall mines and factories), but that's what we're describing today. Everything that still exists has to get up into the stratosphere in order to survive. (I always have to report these prophetic images, even if today's readers won't accept them. I should describe a few other things I've seen coming lately. Community is the way forward. Everyone knows that one. How about forced abortion? Not ready for that one yet?)
Sandra, what a sad image, we have to leave the planet to survive when if we had put as much energy, time, and planning into taking care of our Earth, we could have saved it and moved into space because we wanted to explore. OMG! We do keep electing people with no vision. They are more blind than I am and that is scary since I only can't see. They can't see ahead, think clearly or care.
Governments have forced sterilization on women for the last 200 years here. Native American women unfortunately were the first, if my recollection is correct.
Maybe 35 years ago we attended a lecture from Carl Sagan, who predicted settlement of Mars via crating an artificial atmosphere and seeding...within our lifetimes.
When we lived in Maryland many of our neighbors were NASA scientists and contractors working on the Mars project.
True enough. However, the asteroid cloud that sends material our way is more accessible for extracting raw materials - particularly "rare earths." All that's necessary is to establish a platform for extracting in. I >really do< appreciate NASA, but it was ice-water on my enthusiasm the day I found out that its primary mission was - and to some extent, still is and always will be - Cold War propaganda. To this day I temper my enthusiasm with the reality we live in. In the neighborhoods I lived in, my neighbors in VA were CIA, and in MD they were NSA. The TV series "The Americans" creeps me out!
I've wondered whether mining heavy metal from astroids and taking it to Earth might not tip some balance in our rotation around the Sun, or send the Moon off somewhere else (?) Anyone?
Why bring it to earth when what you're building is already where you're processing it?
Carl was always ahead of his time.❤️
Absolutely! When one obtains $1,000,000,000, one just naturally becomes "certifiably insane." Why WOULDN'T musk want floating prison colonies to power his floating mansion?!?
Daniel, that's an interesting thought, have a billion dollars and that billionth dollar brings mental illness with it. It kinda seems that way. What does seem even more likely, a billion lets people think they can control things they should not have control of. People sometimes set up scholarships, trust funds, and other entities to "spread" their largess. It lets them decide who makes it and who doesn't, which company will get a start and which won't, which charities will get help and which won't, and for how long. That kind of power can go to a person's head and let them think they are better, smarter, more worthy than anyone else. It brings to mind the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and so many others. That is not to say that these organizations don't do good things, but that they should have so much power and influence.
Exactly right, Ms. Sheets! The "mental illness" I described comes from the knowing that they can manipulate the world to their whim with no negative repercussions. (Just look at disgraced former president Donald "Bunkerboy" Trump!)
Daniel, yes, that billionaire mental illness is problematic, yet, people still look up to those people as though they are magical beings. It's nuts!
Ruth Sheets ; Only those who are unaware of how Musk's and other obscenely wealthy have harmed the world will be sucked in to admire the 'sparkling ' powerful rich guys, and envy their 'toys' and 'power' to destroy. Those who know anything can clearly see the perils they threaten.
Daniel H Laemmerhirt ; Incredibly he is still manipulating! Look at Congress, The 'Supreme' Court and our Democracy! I am encouraged that there is a push for ending the filibuster, the Electoral College, and getting our system of voting repaired! The Majority still rules overall!
Laurie, I am encouraged too, now how do we get people to see that ditching the filibuster, the Electoral College, and the rest are worth paying attention to? I wish I knew that because one whole party wants to do none of that. They just want money and power.
Ruth Sheets ; It is encouraging that there is messaging in our media about these things. Remember that the majority want these. All the money and power in the world will not help those who don't care about climate disasters in CA or anyplace else. The party that is against survival will not remain whole!
Now, Ruth, that you mention the Gates Foundation: it started in Bellevue WA near
Seattle a few decades ago. Bill and Melinda Gates with Melinda being in charge of setting up their Foundaiton (by building a 1/2 Billion dollar headquarters complex. They've since divorced but (as far as I know) Melinda is still heavily involved in their Foundation. Similar scenario with Jeff Bezos and his ex MacKenzie Scott. After their divorce she vowed to 'give away' a goodly part of her settlement fortune (billions I think I heard) and one of her efforts was to give to charity 2 of
her/their mansion properties, one of which sold for something like 37Million, but to whom ? ? ? I never heard... Such are the lives of the - fabulously wealthy ~ ahemmmmm ~
The 2013 dystopian movie "Elysium" comes to mind.
Musk believes he can terraform Mars because Arnold did it in a movie.
The key is in understanding that learning how to create a livable environment under hostile conditions immediately translates to using what's learned in less hostile environments - like extreme climate change.
Even worse - some approaching the wealth of Musk believe the universe was made in 6 days and a day of rest. They also believe that the world must end in fire to cleanse the 'sins of mankind'. That's also in a movie, and in a best seller, the Bible.
The war economy of American capitalism is the most dangerous instrument in the hands of the most dangerous group of humans ever to wield political power, as most of the assembly are servants to these 'believer' factions.
War and religiosity have a gruesome history of badly run violence, cruelty and destruction.
Look at the current world conflicts. Ukraine vs The Russian Orthodox Church. The papacy and the crusades. The ongoing protests in Iran. But wait, there’s more. White right wing evangelical christians wanting to impose their (corrupted) beliefs in a nation founded on the separation of church and state.
Today? That's not that far out DZK. But I wonder, with all this super, emerging technology, WHY CAN'T WE QUELL FOREST FIRES BY NOW? ....RIGHT at the beginning! We need our planet under us if we are to survive -- it's all we have right now and it can last. What mystifies me, has it not been learned that Mars been a defunct planet for how many millennium's???? Venus could well be what was our planet's beginnings?
Well, all that would >justify< such "space exploration,," now, wouldn't it?
Que up on YouTube: Zager and Evans song: 'In the Year 2525' played with the backdrop of
Fritz Lange's "Metropolis" (1927) and you'll get a glimpse of what our - future - could look like. : (
Will check out. Know the song and recently rewatched Metropolis. In a weird way Motörhead’s song of the same name from 1979 seems relatable.
Just wondering IF ? Motorhead's song is the original recording of this song. Haven't heard it if it's not. Or a cover recording of 'In the Year 2525'. Before OR after Zager & Evans ? ? ? don't know ~
No. Motörhead’s song is one of a dystopian present. Think of the movie as a gritty inner city narrative. It’s from The New Wave of Heavy Metal movement from the late seventies through the early eighties. Primarily from the UK, spread through Europe and finally made its way to North and South America. A movement I was happy to be on the ground floor.
A proud punk and metal fan. Punk got me through the Reagan years.
Thanks Kevin for this new - revelation - of that era. I was more into other genre of music, mostly classical, but heard of what you mentioned during those times. Thanks -
And I totally forgot, one of my favorite all time bands, Bad Religion, 40 plus years going strong. Greg Graffin, singer and lyricist is a College Professor with a phd. As is Milo from The Descendants and Dexter from The Offspring also have phds. So much social commentary in two minute long songs. I could talk about music all day. Thank you for letting me stretch the old noggin.
I enjoy classical music. I’m a huge fan of all things music, primarily rock. There’s even neo classical heavy metal. A finger on the pulse of the 1980’s for me is post punk/hardcore punk/punk, and heavy metal. And not consistently filled with sexual innuendo and hate. What Dylan was for the 60’s and 70’s, writers and musicians such as The Clash/Joy Division or Fugazi and Propaghandi are for the 80’s and 90’s. Memories of the Sunday matinee shows at CBGBS in the late 80’s. That was our forum. Unfortunately white nationalists/fascism and nazi ideology have crept in.
Thanks Kevin for this 'walk down - your - memory lane. LOL.
I found it quite informative considering I'd never really gotten
into these genre's of music before. Even with Curt Cobain et al being from Seattle. And Jimi Hendrix. Even though I've heard of most the ones you mentioned, but just by name. At that time I just thought it was all a - lot of noise - and not being able to hear/understand the lyrics (or maybe even context). My loss ~
I understand. I lived it, so it’s extremely relevant to me. I only have two Dylan albums. Nashville Skyline and his first. Doesn’t resonate with me like the aftermath bands. But the message has stayed the way.
Like I said, I wasn't into the Heavy Metal or Grunge or ~ ~ but curiously enuf I frequently drove by a little neighborhood park near where Curt Cobain and Courtney Love (Grunge Movement ?) had lived and a bench there was continuously covered in melted candle wax as memorial for Curt and the demise of his band (not remembering name) when he died. Rumor had it that Courtney supplied the drugs that - did him in. Sadness. Both he and Jimi have long standing memorials her in town with well executed murals of both. It'd be curious for me to find out IF ? you have recollections of a similar nature. Cheers : )
That's a waaaay old song I remember from when it was first released. Thanks!
DZK, I too heard this song - way back when - it originally came out. And when I came across it
again with the Metropolis backdrop I - saved it - to remember ! and add to my trepidation of 'What May Come'. (wasn't that the title of a 50's B grade sci-fi movie ? ? ?)
"Things to come," I believe is what you're thinking of.
You are right : )
Thank You !
It occurred to me earlier today that the decision by oil industry executives to deceive the public & bribe or blackmail the government about the climate disruption their products would cause was making the conscious sociopathic choice to make billions of extra money while letting the world go awry & billions of people (& countless animals & plants) die, making a bet that the money they gained would be enough to construct something that could protect them from the environmental destruction they knew would come.
This seques into what has been built here in Seattle by Jeff Bezos and Amazon = The Amazon
spheres. Geodesic domes totally enclosed environments near downtown Seattle - to be - front and center to the general public to - ooh and ahh - over. Could this be the experimental precursor to extra-planetary colony structures ? ? ? And just how much Terran planetary resources were used to construct these - artificial - environments ? ? ?
Yes Jaime, it is criminal that they deliberately chose huge wealth over the lives of potentially millions of people when they didn't release the report. I honestly don't understand such greed and callousness.
The Rockefellers knew this, wanted to diversify but the Saudis control Exxon.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rockefeller-family-is-exiting-the-oil-business/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/the-rockefellers-vs-exxon.html
Daniel, thank you for, as you always do, pulling up such relevant, interesting links. I didn't know this OR that the Saudi's were behind FOX news and have been such a destabilizing influence in the US. They have strengthened the ruling class and are achieving their goals. It is the plutocratic class getting richer on our climate disaster. And you are right about how numb Americans are to climate crisis, not a whimper of complaint.
Claire, yep, not a peep about what happened in Alabama being related to global warming either. The people of the Southern states have suffered enormously, but they still keep putting into office racist, misogynistic, homo/transphobic people thinking somehow those people will care even about them, the white folks with roots in the deep south. Those white folks are also suffering but just can't get past the other baggage so they can see that their leaders are letting them pay the price for poor leadership while the storms keep coming. They mourn the loss of homes and livelihood, but don't hear this is global warming caused by humans, which needs to be stopped before even worse storms arrive. Voting against one's interests is still beyond my comprehension, no matter how much I read and hear about it. Personal hatreds over the truth, I just don't get it!
Excellent commentary!
Oh Girl Scientist, that was amazing! I don't say that lightly! Your identification of greed and the 1%'s addiction to accumulating and destroying is excellent. How is it we can't demand better journalism, better reporting? How is it the people most impacted by global warming in this nation will vote for candidates who still, after decades of evidence, even from Exxon as you note, claim global warming is not real or proven or some other such nonsense? I don't get it, but I suspect our media have something to do with it. Thanks for your comment!
The journalism of today is a corporate for-profit industry which cannot insist on journalistic responsibility due to the profit and loss from deviating from the corporate requirement to support their actions and defend their associates.
No journalist with integrity survives the onslaught of defunding and de-platforming by 'mainstream' media. Mainstream is no longer a corporate presence, as seen in most of the commentary herein. 'Mainstream' readers have evacuated the bunkers of war-driven corporate American media giants to the less-corporate-influenced platforms as used here at Substack. Even the slightest corporate profit association to a media source can and will be used to twist the power of a journalist into a subjugated scribe, or cause the penury and silencing of the best journalistic minds - BECAUSE of an intelligence which cannot eschew the evidence or quell the deafening question begging to be asked.
If subscribed to a corporate media account, demand a full spectrum of journalism.
When the truth is present there is a path to intelligent design.
Sadly we have no truths to ascribe to in a corporate controlled and profiteering media insisting its power is sacrosanct while the viewers and subscribers evacuate ground zero of the lies and innuendo blown from their corporate offices.
Overflowing rivers ever since I became cognizant (by 1960's) of these disasters were results of the huge demise of plants and trees that could accommodate NATURAL rainfall . They've long known this too. That is only one of California's problems; droughts, the fires leaving nothing to hold rainfall. Sucking the ground dry is another.
Thank you GrrlScientist. I did read the article about the Exxon scientists findings and how it was squashed by the then CEO of Exxon and buried for more than 50 years. You are right to be angry. My only exception to your post is the use of the word "elite". The definition of elite is "a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society" These people to whom you refer are as far from hat definition as can be found. Far from superior (except in their own minds) they are the greedy scum of the earth. Otherwise, great and accurate post.
I have no idea as to what you're referring to. Sorry. Thanks for stopping by.
Sorry Don, the post was intended to be under the main topic, not your comment. Oh well, cannot undo it now!
No problem I just didn't want you to think I said something I didn't. LOL
I would challenge you to at least consider the opinion of one of the original climatologists, a retired MIT scholar who specialized in atmospheric dynamics.
It cannot hurt to peruse a skeptical view once in a while, especially when you become certain that you are right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LVSrTZDopM
Ok. I did listen to the video clip. He centered on two things, the insignificance of CO2 and Hydrodynamics. I did take a class in organic chemistry, and I admit I did not enjoy it, it was one of the few classes where I only earned a B. I took no classes in meteorology. My undergraduate majors were chemistry and biology and MA in physiology, so I claim no expertise in climatology. Also as a scientist I am fully aware that any scientific statement is not taken as a matter of fact, but a measurement of what is known at that time and subject to change as more data comes in. I understand his skepticism based on his interest in physical hydraulics. However at no time did they discuss the breaking up of glaciers in either the Arctic or Antarctic, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet was simply mentioned in passing. However in the reality of January 2023, both these events continue at a rapidly increasing pace, There have also been recent articles on the result of thawing of permafrost in both North America and Russia (with negative effects) AND the ocean (all Earth's oceans are interconnected so rising in one area means rising in all) is rising. In science denying Florida, they have raised the level of the main north south highway. There has also been an increase and intensity in cyclones, hurricanes, and tornadoes in the last 100 years that we (humans) have been tracking them. While I understand the disagreements among certain scientists in the causes of climate change and models of these changes, only truly stupid people like the trumpster, and greedy individuals like the executives at Exxon can deny that the changes we are experiencing, don't exist.
I think we see eye to eye on this comment:
"Also as a scientist I am fully aware that any scientific statement is not taken as a matter of fact, but a measurement of what is known at that time and subject to change as more data comes in."
I like to say that most of science is opinion. Some opinions are better supported than others. Very few should be treated as fact. In medicine, a good doctor will recommend a second "opinion", right?
Some branches of science can boast of greater precision than others. In my opinion, and that of Dr. Lindzen, climatology is not a "hard" science and very much subject to debate (in spite of what Al Gore thinks). Dr. Lindzen should know, he was one of the first climatologists, before climatology was cool.
Thank you, and yes we do see eye to eye. People in the social sciences fields - especially politics, are always accusing people like Dr, Fauci of giving wrong information and I do attempt to explain that nothing is absolutely factual, especially viruses that change minute to minute. Humans seem to have always, since the evolved on Earth, to want exact answers for everything. I'm always so glad to meet someone who understands.
It's less about chemistry than it is physics. Fluid motions are very difficult, if not impossible to model. As it turns out, the main cooling mechanism of our planet happens to be the motion of the atmosphere, and particularly the convection of warm air. Rising warm air creates thunderstorms (and tropical cyclones) which carry water vapor aloft where it radiates infrared energy. You have probably seen the infrared imagery of hurricanes and thunderstorms on weather programs. That shows the infrared being radiated into space and captured by satellites in space. Once the infrared leaves the atmosphere it does not return. That is a loss of heat and models cannot predict how much or how little of it will happen in the future. The fact that warming creates more convection is considered a negative feedback (heat loss) which tends to stabilize our temperature. It's like a thermostat.
As for the glaciers breaking up, you first have to gain a long term perspective. The planet has been warming for about 20,000 years, and glaciers have been retreating that whole time. Interestingly, that period of warming, melting, and greater precipitation has coincided with the entire period of human civilization. When glaciers reach the end of life, they will naturally tend to melt faster. There is much less cold thermal mass to resist local warming conditions. Greenland will still take 1000 years or more to melt completely at the current rate because it is not floating ice, and it is a very large thermal mass resistant to warming.
Before the current warming period humans were trapped near the equator and New York city was under hundreds of meters of ice. The climate was colder and much drier, there was less plant life, and we basically lived as beasts, struggling to survive. That cold period lasted around 200,000 years! We can credit this current warm period with every creature comfort we enjoy today, developed during a time when we did not have to struggle. We could rest, dream and invent things instead of struggling.
Yes, hurricanes and tornadoes will increase with warming, but they will also increase with cooling. They respond to the difference between ocean temprerature and air temperature. When the air above is cool and the water is warm, there will be convective storms generated. We see this every year in the fall when cooler air drops down over warm Gulf and ocean waters near the tropics. The temperature difference generates storms which carry heat aloft and radiate it into space. It works like a thermostat. More heat, more convection. Less heat, less convection.
Check out this article, and in particular the graphic showing the 20,000 year period of receding glaciers (Laurentide ice sheet graphic). It's a great perspective, sort of a time lapse video which gives a clearer understanding of how the past has led up to today.
https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_materials/coastlines/student_materials/907
Thank you, Gandalf for this detailed explanation. As I said, I never took a class in meteorology so your post is very welcome. Most of the climate articles I have read have said that while this warming is a natural part of the cyclical nature of Earth's atmosphere since the recession of the ocean and the rising of land masses, the process has been speeded up by the activities of humans. Do you agree with that, or is there a different explanation?
I'm not sure that there is even a valid metric of "global climate". I was taught that climate has more to do with local norms, such as the Sahara Desert being generally in the same place for thousands of years, but the fringes having migrated around due to long term weather cycles.
Warming as a singular metric is even difficult to measure. This was discussed in the interview of Dr. Lindzen. The weather stations have been subject to urbanization and yes, urban areas do tend to be warmer because of all the dark roofs, asphalt, and lack of trees. That has tended to cause weather stations to register warmer temperatures as urban areas encroached upon them.
I've seen data both ways, some show a general warming, others show none (surface versus satellites). The amount of measured warming is still rather insignificant compared with the changes I described over the 20,000 year warming trend. In a warming trend, one does expect some warming and continued sea level rise.
To answer your question, surely we have some impact, but I don't think it warrants emergency status.
I also believe that increasing the cost of fuel harms us all much more than any warming ever will. It especially hurts the poorest of the poor. Increasing fuel prices does not harm the fossil fuel industry in any way, it actually makes their net worth rise. It's not a solution to anything, and like so many of our government actions, the cure is probably worse than the disease.
Thank you, again. Whatever source of energy we eventually use, we need an awful lot of work an new invention before we can begin to be rid of fossil fuels, if we ever do. Right now, the main problem seems to storage. No matter how much energy we produce from hydroelectric, solar, thermal, wind, etc. We can't use it immediately so we'll need storage "batteries" if I understand it correctly, and while we're working on it we lack the technology now. I dislike the use of coal for a different reason, the mining and burning of coal and coal dust, and methane produced have killed too many people over the years. (The Great Smog of London 1952, was one such event, black lung disease another)
Yes, perhaps we could just hold on to coal as a last resort. It's only slightly better than burning wood, which is how we survived the last great glaciation.
Yes, portability is the biggest advantage to fossil fuel. It's a lot of energy packed into an easily transportable package. It is all natural too.
I doubt nature has a mind, but I do like to imagine that she would not leave us anything that would harm us or herself, including petroleum.
You have way more faith in mother nature than I. In my belief system everything is happenstance, with no plan, no rhyme, and certainly no reason. If there was a plan, why in hell did mosquitos, quick sand, poisonous spiders or poisonous reptiles evolve? What we see is what we get, it's up to us to make the best possible use of things. I just don't see getting rich as a viable reason for how we use anything.
I have a pond and the dragonflies feast voraciously on hatching mosquitoes. We also have Bobcats nearby, and they love dining on snakes. Hunters are crazy to shoot Bobcats for fun, they are our friends!
If you look hard enough, you can find purpose in anything in nature. Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. If we are truly humble, we realize that what humans may find a nuisance, other species may find essential for life. Most scientists have observed this beautiful symmetry in nature, and it is so overwhelmingly beautiful and powerful that it touches on spirituality within us all.
As for getting rich, there are many downsides to it along with the obvious benefits. One of which is that it's hard for a rich person to know if his friends are really friends, or if they are simply using him. It tends to segregate rich folks from the less wealthy. I have wealthy relatives, and when I go with them they have the capacity to make things much easier because they can pay for things that I cannot afford. I feel a bit guilty when with them, like I am a moocher. I enjoy their company and want to be with them, but there is this divide that neither of us can fully overcome. I don't envy them at all.
Do people get rich simply for the money? I don't think that is always the case. It's more likely that they are more driven to pursue their ideas, and more willing to take risks. Initially, some have to risk everything, and if they are successful, then they have more money to pursue even more risky ideas. Most good inventors are rewarded with wealth, and rightfully so in my opinion.
That is the basis of capitalism, risk and reward. Some just burn through the money, while other re-invest it in greater ideas. As they do so, they create jobs for less wealthy people who then pay a good percentage of our tax revenue as well. So while folks like Elon Musk are taking these great risks (he nearly went bankrupt with SpaceX) they are creating jobs which in turn generate new tax revenue which did not exist before they took that risk.
I find the recent hatred of Elon Musk highly suspect, and similar to the religious demonization we are discussing elsewhere. He simply chose a different religion, and is now demonized by his former sect. He is still making electric cars, advanced rocket systems and other technologies which better our lives. The only thing that has changed is that he "took the red pill". At first I had no idea why he wanted to purchase Twitter, but now I see that what he really purchased was information about our intelligence community that was being ignored by media and our own Department of Justice. The evidence would not be heard by the courts, so he bought the evidence at great personal expense. BTW, he has paid more taxes than any person has ever paid. He had to sell Tesla shares to pay them. All that being said, I remain watchful of anyone with such power, because power is known to corrupt people. So far he seems sincere and a servant of the people in my opinion.
I agree with your comments on the 'ordinarily rich' people. Persons who had great idea,s, took risks, made money. are to be admired for their foresight and versatility. I do not begrudge millionaires. I am not wealthy, because I chose not to be wealthy. I spend money on things in life important to me and therefore am happy. I do not expect perfection in anyone (we can't all be cats) but there are certain traits I cannot abide, two of them being greed and selfishness. All people should like and respect themselves - but the self adoration shown by persons like Bezos, Musk and Trump disgust me. Musk I might remind you invented NOTHING. He took existing technology, machinery invented by others and manipulated his way into an obscene fortune, not by his intelligence, brilliant ideas, or artistic ability, but by his selfish interest in debasing other people. He has treated employees (including the founder and inventor of Tesla) abominably. He sneers at government. He forced his California employees to stay on the job during the worst of the Covid pandemic against the orders of the California Government resulting in excessive deaths and illness of his employees - but what the hell, he made a few bucks, more important than he peasants, Right? As to his SpaceX, my Sister in Law in Texas owns property close to the SpaceX compound in Texas, she tells me they refuse to clean up the trash littered all over their campus. And, all the technology he is using at SpaceX was invented by NASA ages ago, No kudos there either. I don't 'hate' Musk, I've never met the man and hope never to see him. He and his greedy, selfish ilk disgust me. Bill Gates is not perfect either, but since retiring from Microsoft, Bill and his ex-wife Melissa have done a lot of important global charity work to improve the lives of others. Could he do more? Of course, But, he's doing something worthwhile. All Musk has done is produce 10 children from various and sundry women.
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I'm sorry but someone has put out a thought that I made a comment on the climate when I did no such thing. LOL
Sorry, accident.
Girlscientist is right and right and right. Don't know what big corporation got their hands on the NY Times. Suffice it to say that ignoring the problem of climate change is tantamount to being an active participant in its worsening. And I, I only speak for myself here think that the Times is quiet about Climate and also Wealth Inequality. Tell the people who could only afford basement appartments in NYC and lost love ones in the flood that climate change doesnt exist and that the reason they couldnt afford above ground apartments wasnt the radical wealth inequality and gentrification of the city. Thd truth needs to be told. Not saying what it is, is hiding it.
Bill your explanation was quite good. You tied the global warming issue to inequalities, both of which are obvious but are not tied together as neatly as they should be. One can't help but wonder why "The New York Times" can't seem to connect the dots with any skill. Could that be the monied influences getting to them too?
So well said!
Donald Hodgins
2 min ago
After the waters have subsided, take a leisurely stroll along the banks of some random winding river and see if the mystique of Sutter's Mill hasn't revisited California, in our time. Make sure you bring along a wheel barrel and a shovel.
You write, "(T)he 1% should be ashamed at their insane levels of greed and consumption and waste, but they aren't."
For perspective, a recent Daily Mail article noted that an income of $34,000 (USD) places one in the Global Top 1%. The median US individual income was $35,855 in 2020, so it appears that we Median Americans the ones who should be ashamed?
Miss Anne, just because our median income is above the world's does not mean we should be ashamed. Whether we like it or not, life is more expensive here than in many parts of the world. Instead of shame, We the People need to work to help people around the world have a better life. Things have improved over the past 50 years or so, but not enough, and global warming is going to set us all back unless we get a handle on it quickly. The other elephant in the room that we rarely even mention is population. We are now over 8 billion people and 2 countries have over a third of that population. We have white legislators with lots of money wanting to ban abortion, birth control, and any other means of controlling population while they and their rich folks use enormous amounts of the world's resources just for themselves. We need to be talking about this more and helping people here and around the world to more effectively plan their families, stop child marriages and teen pregnancy. This is just one piece of the global warming puzzle that needs to be examined and put into place.
I didn't mean to suggest that we should be ashamed of our median income which is a factor of our cost of living. My point is that, based on our income, we are part of the Global 1% who are responsible for the vast amount of resource consumption.
However, we should be ashamed that, according to the LLNL, we WASTE 2/3 of the Overall Energy we produce, 2/3 of the Electricity, nearly 80% of our Transportation Energy. We waste 40-50% of our FOOD, for goodness' sake! I find that to be shameful - especially since we could slash our resource use/waste if we wanted to.
20% of global rich folks consume 80% of global resources, including the fossil fuels that, when burned, create the GHGs that are befouling our atmosphere and are driving our Climate Disaster. The areas where most population growth occurs - Asia, the ME, the Indian subcontinent, sub-Saharan Africa - consume very little and add little to the global impacts of Climate Disaster. There is little we can do to control their population growth.
However, if we care enough to do so, we CAN, and must, control our own consumption and waste of all resources, including the GHG-creating GHGs. WE are the GHG-creating climate destroyers, not the poverty-stricken citizens of, say, Bangladesh.
clap clap clap
in most places in amerikkka, $34K isn't enough to live on.
Righto! It's not. Yet it remains our median income, which explains our unconscionable poverty rates.
It >certainly< gives one pause, don'it ‽
Surely you are aware that civilization developed during the current trend of warming which began a mere 20,000 years ago. In evolutionary terms that is the blink of an eye.
Prior to this we were trapped near the equator by glacial advance and the colder drier conditions that dominated the planet. We were every bit as intelligent as today, but the struggle for survival dominated our days.
Warmer and wetter climate is short lived, and a new glacial wave is likely to return soon. When it does, we will wonder in amazement why people were so afraid of ideal conditions.
We have CO2 levels going back 800,000 years based on ice coring to before the last ice age. The highest levels back then were 300ppm. In the short span of industrialization weve gone up to 900ppm and climbing. This has led to more water in the sky, radical storms and flooding and altered wheather patterns causing the drying of forrests and forest fires. In effect we are a frog in the tub slowly boiling ourselves to death. I don't want to be boiled.
Your facts are wrong. We are not at 900ppm. Nor is global temperature rising at the rate you describe.
Boiling frogs? Too much scifi in the diet.
No evidence for return of glaciation. In fact. pure BS.
Human activity has to any reasonable degree of probability accelerated and exacerbated warming.
Daniel,
Or, perhaps we have delayed cooling. There really is not any appreciable warming. It's not measurable with earth based devices beyond the error bars. Satellites say it's flat or cooling.
Anyhow, even if it were warming, that is to be expected at the tail end of a 20,000 year warming trend.
When it goes the other way, now that's when it's time to stock up on firewood.
That is the theory, but the data has not supported the theory. Climate models cannot adequately model the action of clouds, and this is stated in all the available literature. That may sound rather innoccuous to you, but the actiin of clouds is likely the largest single means of regulating the global temperature. That is why the models are consistently wrong in their projections, and always on the high side.
If I wanted to create a climate model which predicts rising temperatures, I too would leave off the action of water vapor as a heat transport mechanism.
The drying of the Mississippi River and the rains in California could indeed be indicative of the beginning of the next glacial advance.
There is a repeating pattern of 200,000 year glaciations and 20,000 year interglacials such as we enjoy today. This is well known and established geologic record. So we are due for the beginning of the next cycle of glacial advance.
What’s happening is the glaciers are melting, evaporating, and dropping down on us right now. This creates temporary cooling during an overall warning trend. Clouds are no help in your transport cycle as clouds trap heat while much solar radiation gets through. See Venus.
Clouds are formed in convective storms and carry heat aloft, above the densest layers of greenhouse gases. IR radiated at high altitude tends to end up in space because the gases above are less saturated and those below are more saturated.
The energy vector at the top of storms is dominantly outward. This is how the planet maintains a modest range of temperature. Venus does not enjoy the cooling effect of water in liquid and gaseous states.
Describing how weather patterns NORMALLY form leaves out all forms of human-centric interference including adding CO2 and Methane, to the atmosphere, loss of plankton (CO2 sequestration) coral reefs (acidity). Decimating the forests. While your clouds are taking some heat out into space (not fast enough) the oceans will soon be close to their threshold as a carbon sink. Meanwhile as we lose glaciers more land is exposed releasing more CO2 and methane in a vicious cycle. All of this has been proven to magnify any underlying natural cycles. The effects have been MORE extreme than conservative climate models have predicted. Galciers disappearing faster. MORE large and frequent hurricanes. WORSE wildfires. A faster sea level rise. Etc. Not only are you wrong, but farmers know you are wrong and the auto industry knows your wrong as they commit to green vehicles. This is all fixable (as we fixed the Ozone problem through world policy concerning aerosols). But people like you can and do present a monkey wrench to progress in this area.
How do you propose to know whether clouds carry more heat into space when the scientists who study them cannot even include that factor (the most important heat exchange factor) into their models?. It's one of the reasons models have not correctly predicted the rate of warming. They are consistently wrong on the high side, contrary to your assertion. I invite you to show me a model which has not been wrong on the high side.
At this point you are screaming at the sky while you yourself continue to use the fossil fuel that you want others to be deprived of.
In a multivariate system which has been inherently stable, changing one factor will not have any effect upon the inherent stability of the system. This is science and you sir, are denying science in favor of science fiction. That is not progressive, it is regressive.
Nice dodge.
I bow to a master, GrrlScientist. You've expressed your comment much better than I did mine.
I only wish I deserved the accolade.
I agree with much of your post but the fact that this has been public knowledge since 1900 kind of refutes Robert’s argument that the media has been silent and perhaps you owe your nightmares to the message they’ve been repeating loud and clear. The blame rests with corporate greed, government interest and public apathy.
But to paraphrase some old "polit-speak:" but what have they said about it lately? I think that's his point.
So I looked up on WAPO and they even have “climate” as a category with 11 stories in the last week focused on world and local response to climate change.
Carl, I am glad to hear there were 7 climate-related articles in the past week, but it is helping to connect the dots for ordinary people who are swamped with life that is important. ?That is what is not happening now at an acceptable rate.
Not sure what more the media can do for you. And unfortunately ordinary people can’t do much more than exercise green habits and vote!
Carl, I know you were not suggesting that the situation we are in related to the media is not complex, but there are so many factors, the three you mentioned plus people with no moral compass who want nothing done so they can enjoy their lifestyle fully until they die. There are a bunch of those folks, I suspect a significant number in Congress and heading major corporations. If they lie about global warming to people who believe what they say, they can keep getting elected while their constituents elect and reelect them and do nothing because they believe "the great man." The media not mentioning the significance of global warming related to the storms in California and the tornados in Alabama is beyond unacceptable. It is one of those "omissions" that leads to the apathy you speak of, and when it is "respected" media who do it, I consider it almost criminal. People have died and will die because of media inaction and poor reporting. Not reporting something as significant or hiding it far down in an article are deceptions.
I just get the Washington Post. Seems they always mention climate change as a significant factor. Here’s an example.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2023/01/17/sacramento-mayor-california-storms-his-citys-response/
And this
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/01/14/california-floods-landslides-sinkholes/
Oh Ted, grow up. We have enough toddler-men already.
Does "the truth" about the climate "non-crisis" mention anything about 8 billion humans, and growing exponentially - https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ - along with the rest of mammalian life simply >exhaling< CO2?
It’s also a failure to not talk about the influence of advertisers on news content. Capitalism is a corrupt system not random. The news wields tremendous persuasion and propaganda power powered only by billions of dollars.
although i hate capitalism as a system, it's the concentration of POWER AND WEALTH in a few hands DUE TO GREED that are the great corrupters. you cannot, for example, convince me that russia is any less corrupt than amerikkka is.
Could a progressive tax system be a cure for concentration of power and wealth?
Yes and we need to tax the rich corporations and rich ppl! You know the ones that are screwing their communities they live in! Thinking you shouldn’t pay taxes just because you have millions of dollars...huh! That’s why I think they are mentally ill! Or little babies...it’s mine you can’t have it!
Marj, I vote that the very rich people and corporations are toddlers, not the cute ones that are learning to be a full person, but the ones who get stuck at age 3 and can't manage to get past the "me me me me" and "gimme gimme gimme" stage. Maybe that is required for people to accumulate the kind of money and lack of accountability we have permitted people and corporations to have while they pay little or nothing in taxes to support the nation that lets them live in the style they have become accustomed to. We the People need to be the adults in the room, but alas, an entire political party has embraced the toddlerism of the rich and lives in that whiny me-centered stage.
What a perfect description of donald j trump!
This is what Senator Warren campaigned for endlessly during her 2020 presidential bid and still presses for today.
And concerning what Frankom says about progressive taxes: we also need regulatory agencies with actual teeth that cannot be "captured" by the very industries that are being regulated. At a minimum.
With the world's most corrupt leader at helm, Russia is worst.
AMEN!
The media is owned by right wing, very rich, mentally ill rePUGliCON’s. Mic drop! Many Americans watch so called news as if it’s the ‘truth’. Over the years it’s become propaganda, there are only a few shows that talk a little about it but that’s what the right wing, very rich, mentally ill rePUGliCON’s want!
You are absolutely correct, I don't get why Robert is asking these questions. He has to know they are run by magas.
It's a rhetorical question.
It would seem so, but we all know the answer. They are paid to keep quiet.
At least Robert is not quiet. He makes sure we get the knowledge we need.
He IS a great service. ...then we All should be a service. ....not be quiet.
Suzanna Young ; We get some good talking points here! Great facts!
Agreed!
Fox News, Murdock were financed by Saudis during the 1970s oil crisis and beyond. Propaganda arm of the Saudi government. Climate denial coupled with OPEC policies aimed to undermine our economy.
Daniel, yes, the Murdochs are tapping into the oil powers. They needed/wanted money and they got it and in exchange had to work to destroy the economy and democracy they now depend on. Murdoch is proof that our immigration system is really messed up. Rupert got American citizenship so he can bring down our democracy while the DACA folks are still waiting for a path to citizenship and they have actually worked to build up our democracy. Clearly money can get one anything even when it is a chance to help kill a democracy. Unbelievable!
Thank St. Ronnie Raygun for Rupert Murdoch's speedy and painless acquisition of American citizenship. He couldn't make enough money to satisfy his greed in Australia, so he emigrated to the UK and took over some their biggest of their newspapers (Murdoch's bloated company used to be called News International; now known as News Corp, and Murdoch owns 'the Times', 'the Sunday Times', 'the Sun' and the 'Times Literary Supplement'...used to include 'News of the World', 'Today' and a couple of smaller papers, as well) and then set his eyes on the rich pickings in the U.S.'s lucrative market. Murdoch is a blood-sucking parasite with the rich man's disease--"greed is good".
Steve, thanks for the reminder. Advertisers do impact nearly everything that happens. I have even seen ads on local news programs that contain lies (this supplement will . . . . for you - when there is no evidence for it and maybe some against it) while we are supposed to be seeing the truth as presented by the newscasters. Do they need the money that badly? I guess so.
Agree, Steve. In almost 20 years working in news/tech publishing, I saw that much of the content that was produced---especially in the news journal for which I worked---was geared toward pulling in the most advertising. In fact, whole special sections were invented just to rope in advertisers. When I started there, ad sales reps weren't allowed to have anything to do with the news reporters. At the end, the sales manager was largely dictating much of the the what and when of news coverage.
Denise, how sad for the publishing industry. You would have thought they would have fought harder to keep the two realms: news and advertising separate as they should be, but alas, even journalists end up often in the pockets of advertisers, even if they are getting nothing directly from those advertisers. The threats, the need publications have for advertisers, and weak management can lead to that. There should be regulations about that, but hey, it is supposed to be free market and free speech, right? It's just pathetic that the money nearly always wins out.
Agree on all points, Ruth.
I might mention that the "real" journalists I worked with deeply resented it when the company started pushing the "higher revenue at any cost" mantra. They privately joked about all the special, flagrantly pandering sections added to the journal, but most of them were old enough that they couldn't easily switch jobs, so they were stuck, unfortunately.
And advertisers did rule. One very large national account dictated the type of subject matter that could/couldn't appear adjacent to their ads. Not an uncommon situation.
History of "yellow journalism." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
Worst offenders: Hearst, Murdoch.
Yeah Daniel, yellow journalism. It just shows us all that what is happening now is not new, just more pervasive, therefore more potentially destructive.
Thank you. This is by far the most important threat we face, even greater than the global threats to democracy. We are existentially threatened by global warming caused by human activity, and the sixth global mass extinction is underway, no matter what we do or don't do. The fact that all of our general news media regularly ignore this threat and prioritize coverage of a royal family in England or athletic contests illustrates the absurdity of our times. I really can't imagine people in other centuries reacting to news of this kind with such indifference. To paraphrase Voltaire, if Greta Thunberg did not exist, we would have invented her.
Kerry ; Distraction is the point. Those who determine news content are working for the 'rulers'. They want to control the narrative that keeps them in power. When arable land and potable water are getting scarcer, guess who will keep filling their swimming pools? Who do you think will get good food sources? enjoy beaches? Have access to skiing, solitude in National parks, access to football and other popular team sports arenas? Who enjoys all the power? It's happening now! The fact that we have people like MTG, Gosar, Jordan and Matt Gaetz running the 'people's house' is telling. The big dollars put 'em there! Another distraction! The hot button abortion rights issue! They are throwing everything they can at US to distract, anger and depress us! Pass the ERA so the more than half of US who are being treated like cattle for breeding can thrive and fight. Martin Luther King was right. All the real people should unite! "A slave who cannot be beaten is half free!"
"I really can't imagine people in other centuries reacting to news of this kind with such indifference."
History. IMHO disasters would invoke pogroms, the Spanish Inquisition, recrimination against other perceived demons, Fascism. In the Soviet Union famine led to the murder of Kulaks. In Cuba, during the "special period" WE were demonized.
The "masses" are distracted by gas stoves, the war against Christmas and seek their Pied Piper -- like Donald J Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-I2nK0qRQ
yes every age is absurd.but it never mattered like it does today
The masses are maggots! (rePUGliCON’s) I know lots of ppl concerned with their health. If it’s dangerous let’s use our critical thinking skills and fix it!
Speaking of dear, brave Greta, here is something we can all do today: Sign Avaaz.org's petition about getting attention about this court case: "6 brave kids are about to do something historic: they’re taking 33 governments to court over their lack of action on climate change. If they win, the impact is hard to overstate: the ruling would legally bind all the countries to immediately increase their climate action. Let’s make sure the court feels the eyes of citizens and journalists watching them by requesting a livestream that will allow everyone to follow the hearing as it happens. Sign now!"
Kerry, I suspect the people of the past would be doing just exactly as those in power today are doing. They liked sensation, ignored the facts, and let rich people have power they didn't deserve, which let them destroy everything they could get their hands on as soon as they got everything they could from it. Beavers, for example have sculpted the North American and European landscapes for millions of years, but for their fur, men hunted them nearly to extinction and our lands and the many animals that inhabit them suffered. That was in the 18th and 19th centuries. Fish, whales, and so many other creatures suffered a similar fate if people didn't care or even know because they thought those animals they hunted were forever and any protests were silenced or ignored. The problem is letting men have power who think they are superior to everyone else whether they have leadership abilities or not and whether they are leading people into directions that will benefit more people than themselves. It might be helpful if researchers could help us identify characteristics of candidates who should never gain office. However, that would be seen as unamerican or something. I guess it is since we have the myth that anyone can be president. We found out over time that this is a poor myth and We the People suffer because of it, but it will go on and people will continue to vote for child-men who just can't seem to think of anyone but themselves and people like them to support.
Sadly the media has been bought by the 1%. It must be frustrating being a journalist these days and being told what you can and cannot do. Who loses? All of us.
To all Constitutional Americans:
Every one of us have multiple sources available to verify everything we are being told by our government, by the mainstream media, social media and friends and neighbors. DON’T ALLOW ONE SOURCE TO CLOUD YOUR JUDGMENT! Gaslighting has become the norm by some of our elected officials. We need to hold them accountable. After all we are their employers. THEY WORK FOR US! We all need to vet what we are being told.
There are many other sources available where we can fact check whether or not we are being gaslighted. If you find 10 sources and 9 of them give you the same story it’s probably true! If only one or two of them give you the same story it’s probably BS.
The Mainstream Media can no longer be counted on to give us truthful information in an unbiased way. We have to get the facts ourselves through other sources.
tragically, the mainstream media is trained to lie. it's a subtle thing, but they are trained to "report both sides" of any issue they report about as if BOTH SIDES are equal (in science) when CLEARLY, to any rational, thinking person, "both sides" (in science) are NOT equivalent.
[EDIT -- ADDED IN CUZ I ONLY THOUGHT OF IT AFTER CLICKING "PUBLISH"]
have we learned NOTHING from the "report both sides" of the evolution "debate" nor the "vaxx debate" as if mindless lunatics know as much as scientists who have devoted every waking hour of their lives to their work?
[/EDIT]
every time i hear this insipid mantra, "report both sides", i hear the death knell of the science journalism profession.
(edited to add "in science".)
Mostly they omit, rather than lie. It's what they *don't* talk about that enables people to think everything is rosy.
part of that problem comes from a lack of scientific knowledge. journalists almost never are trained scientists, and few have ANY scientific background at all. getting a deep understanding of science is not a trivial matter and communicating science in an understandable way (as well as communicating the sheer UNCERTAINTY of science) is usually extremely difficult.
some of this is driven by the public's lack of scientific knowledge too: most people want simple answers, not "wishy washy science" (never realising that scientists are nearly always dealing with interpreting and communicating incomplete data -- scientists do not and cannot know everything, but nevertheless, we must still draw useful conclusions from incomplete data so we can get funding to do more research, design experiments to fill in the gaps of what we don't know, invent new technologies or improve existing technologies to help fill in these informational gaps, and come to some sort of conclusion that funding agencies and journalists and the public can understand.)
so it seems this is a perfect confluence of the public's lack of education in and knowledge about science and maths, compounded by most journalists' same ignorances, fed by scientists' inability to propose a definite simple "answer" with one or maybe two simple solutions to this maddeningly massive, complex, subtle and overarching problem.
GrrlScientist ; Yes, you nailed it. It's as complicated as it is irrefutable. Look at the massive destruction and death caused by climate disaster! It's easier to 'investgate ' a guy like Dr. Fauci and give their angry stupid base some red meat entertainment than it is to be intelligent enough to know that the more that is known in science, the more scientists realize that more needs to be known, intelligent solutions still need to be developed as we learn. That is true progress.
That’s a good point - People getting whipped into a froth over the mortal peril of vaccines or suddenly developing a scientific interest in viruses while conveniently ignoring the carbon dioxide increase in our atmosphere, or pretending that warming is a good thing, as some extremely repugnant manipulators suggest.
Kerry ; At least we don't have the former guy saying these storms are related to Californians' not raking the under brush in the forests, or raking it, and then it absorbs water, causing dams to form, the buildup causing floods... or something ridiculous like that, and totally besides the point and completely blitzo.
True. But I do think we would all be better off if we could stop George Soros from using those space lasers to change our weather patterns. But then again, you know, his friends all control the media so we'll never know the truth. (Insert sarcastic smiley face icon.)
Hahaha!
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has a Knight Fellowship to educate reporters in science. For those who don't know it, there is a publication,
Science News, which celebrated it's 100th anniversary last year. Founded by the newspaper publisher Scripps it was designed to educate the general public, Read it and learn
Interestingly, my first job out of journalism school was at Science News. They put me to work writing "fillers," bits of facts of one, two and three lines needed to fill up a column back in the days of hot type. I had to glean this from stacks of PR releases that were not copyrighted.
many people will not accept unpleasant news.
Is there any other kind of news?
Some have a very skewed view of science and believe it can prove what they want it to prove. A religious group took what they believed was the Shroud of Turin to scientists and wanted they to prove it had been worn by Jesus. They were very disappointed when all the best research could give them was it is a very old piece of cloth.
Yes, the desire for magic is strong.
Yes, you’re right: not enough people read Karl Popper! However, the arts can come to the rescue by providing metaphors. Surely the film “Don’t Look Up,” which portrays an earth-destroying comet, has convinced many people that we’re facing a cataclysm.
GrrlScientist, this is compounded by so many people's desire for easy answers and neat solutions (conditioned by countless half-hour sitcoms and so many feel-good movies) in a black & white world.
Complex, nuanced answers give these folks headaches.
T L Mills ; Yes! especially when news media needlessly complicate the facts to the point where people are more confused and even misled.
Gail H ; True, but omission is dishonest and misleading, like an outright lie. Ignorance is not bliss ; and with what we are experiencing now, it's inexcusable. Death and destruction is happening more frequently all around us. Real leaders don't 'pass the buck', and put blame on the workers.
Just follow the money!
This is the most important topic of our age, maybe any age, and the reason we fail is relatively simple: it requires us to change. Corporations hate that. (Exxon could not face the need to change when it knew from it own studies in the 1970s that fossil fuels caused climate change). They use advertising to make sure we ignore the need to change. They pay politicians, legally but blindly, to make sure they ignore climate change. We have a government of fools, especially but not exclusively in the house, because those in power (those who have the money) paid to put them there.
Change is hard. If we don't change we will be destroyed. Already we cannot recover from our fossil fuel addiction easily. And while a substitute is available, it cannot carry us to a clean energy future that looks anything like our now uncomfortable present. Imagine a United States that uses 20% of the energy that we use now? Eighty percent of what we need to change involves avoiding energy use and the associated material consumption that goes with it. It means figuring out rather quickly how to degrow an economy without collapse. For this comment alone I, and the science community that agrees with this, will likely get criticism even on this site, but would stand completely condemned in mainstream media. We cannot face the reality of what we have done to the planet.
The event now in California was predicted. It happened in 1862, probably on a larger scale, and the evidence is that extreme atmospheric rivers happened historically about every 150 years. (See chapter 2 of Tom Philpott's Perilous Bounty) What climate change has done is change the frequency and extremes of climate behavior. Expect drought and atmospheric rivers to get more extreme. It is baked in already. All we can do now is reduce our contribution to the problem and learn to live with it. The other alternative, chosen by those in power, is to accelerate into the brick wall of ecological reality without airbags or seatbelts.
The reason Exxon didn't was because it had inventories of fossil fuels and was controlled by the Saudis who had even more. In business, FIFO -- first in first out.
IMHO this is a national security issue. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/national-security-and-the-threat-climate-change?gclid=Cj0KCQiAiJSeBhCCARIsAHnAzT-K-VhgESAtqipZHTtSc02ezKZpzC-ZRIyBdFEllmyzpn9fes9jhEgaAvY5EALw_wcB
"degrowing an economy" has a lot to do with developing a sustainable economy. I hope our country can find a way to do it without making life miserable for the 98%. We have a huge intellectual pool to draw on, so it should be possible.
"If we don't change we will be destroyed."
I believe the truth is even more bleak: if we don't change, we WILL DESTROY OURSELVES.
As others mention, there is the issue of following the money. At a more basic level, there are issues of incomprehensible changes that lead to an instinctive denialsm.
Journalists often have limited lived experiences and must do their best to document complex issues within the "business model" of the publication (i.e. follow the money and its power). Also, the next natural disaster leads to a terrific set of stories on "how we will overcome" for tomorrow's front pages. It's a vicious cycle for sure.
Put simply, humans have no reference experiences in a planet with 3+C degrees over the baseline during our existence in the last 10,000 years or so. Indeed, there were no humans able to survive in those periods. We may want to begin to think of why.
A way to humanize this debate is have a discussion about why humans cannot survive when the average ambient temperature gets above 50C. It's rather simple and nasty. The walls of our cells jellify and we cannot be held together. We are seeing risks of this in many hotspots such as Pakistan, where temperatures of 50C (122F) are fairly common.
Denial? When I lived in California, threats were: 1. Earthquakes. 2. Draught. 3. until recently wildfires and mudslides..
My sister in law lived in a house on stilts over the Hayward Fault. Some of my cousins in SOCAL lived in Fullerton, which was devastated by a small quake.
In life, everything is a risk reward relationship. People who choose to live on a fault line, or on a coast, line assume the risk. Insurance underwriters have it worked out. Risks are available to the public. https://www.kin.com/home-insurance/california/
Don't have to be an automotive engineer to drive a car.
The fire next time? https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4ETN21RZwwI
Two years ago, my then 19 year old daughter, who is majoring in Environmental Science, was talking about getting her first tattoo. She was thinking of the lower tricep area just above the elbow. As a 50 year old woman, I showed her my tricep and said,”you sure you want your artwork there? At 50 this is what that area looks like.” Her reply, “50? With climate change I won’t be alive.” This was right after 159 people died in Germany from flooding. “Touché,” I said - “go live your life!” She had already accepted the fact that death by climate crisis is very real, and it was a defining moment for me as well. We live on Cape Cod and she is graduating this year. Her plans for the summer? Come home and swim at her favorite beach as it “won’t be here forever.” She wants to go to law school and eventually work with Environmental Policy - but her law school applications are determined by location - Pacific Northwest? Nope - tsunami land when California gets the big one. These are the types of decisions she makes on a daily basis around climate change. Ignorance is bliss for those who believe our climate crisis is not real.
Isn't it sad that people born in the 21st century should have such low expectations for life? We should, all of us, be whole-heartedly ashamed for what we are leaving them.
Fay, 👍🏼 And making children do shooting drills/lockdown at school instead of taking definitive action on getting guns out of our society is a monstrous disgrace. This will impact children for their entire lives.
What is truly horrifying is that the young teachers coming in have never known a world without school shootings - they were all born just before Columbine.
Agreed, it is horrifying and sad.
I agree, Seeking Reason. I retired from teaching in 1988 so missed all the terror after Columbine. What I find amazing are parents who support having guns readily available to any and all. You'd think that the loss of a child would affect every parent of school age children everywhere in the Country, but the Sandy Hook, Parkland, and Uvalde seem to be exceptional. The others seems to treat shooting deaths as 'Oh, well, just another day in the neighborhood'. After all, we don't want to deprive those weapons manufacturers of their right to place guns in every ones hands Profit over People, that's our motto. I've never owned a gun, I find them noisy, stinky and dirty, but I have no objection to those who like to hunt, target practice, shoot skeet or compete. just so long as their weapons are locked in a safe to which only they or a trusted backup has the combination. This crap of weapons for 6 year olds is abominable.
Agreed! I teach 8th grade and tell them all the time how we have failed them and it is up to them to save this country, this planet. . . Despite our (yours, mine, and the likes of those in this discussion) efforts we just couldn’t make the world a better place for them.
Hi Beaud, Congratulations, I taught 8th grade 15 years (science, primarily Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy - but some other sciences also) what a great age to teach, I loved their enthusiasm, their developing intellect (lacking in the lower grades) while still maintaining their sense of fun. I was able to tell them of the coming threat of global warning but in the early 70's to late 80's it seemed there was still time as long as the government addressed it. WRONG. the government didn't address it, except for a few scattered exceptions like Al Gore. Republicans were on the rise, dominating the 80's and of course they were far more interested in appeasing their wealthy donors.. Reagan, especially, was deaf, dumb, and blind to any science. I have never forgiven him for preventing our conversion to the metric system in 1984, because he was too stupid to understand it, even though many American industries had already converted and continued to convert to metric to accommodate their global trading. Not sure whether he didn't have enough fingers and toes or simply couldn't count to ten. Whatever, he set American science back. (of course he did worse things, like starting the lower tax for billionaires ball rolling)
Fay, when I was in school we prepared for the metric conversion. That lasted a semester or a year. We were told it was too costly for businesses to have to change everything and too much pushback from the public! Like you, I find it unforgivable that we were made such a laughable ass-backward outlier among the world.
When I had children, we moved to a city that taught foreign language starting in 1st grade. I picked this city to move to because of this. By the time my children started school, that was discontinued due to insufficient funding! We should all be able to speak at least one other language but there is no place to practice enough to be conversant. Reagan was the beginning of the religious overstepping their bounds and MAGA mentality. We all remember the Reagan quote: “The top 9 most terrifying words in the English Language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help’.” Another president who didn’t believe in supporting his own government!
I’ve heard his son speak. He's a very decent person and although he looks like his mother, his mannerisms reminded me very much of his father.
Beaud, thanks for making me laugh out loud about the tattoo on the tricep area! I always think about what all these tattoos will look like when these young people get older. 😄 But it is truly sad to think about dire consequences to life at such a young age.
Good morning Dr Reich. Glad to hear you’re okay. News coverage limited in including the culprit, climate change is not surprising. I’ve seen more in-depth coverage from news outlets outside of the United States, including the mention of climate change. I guess news outlets here don’t want climate change as a corporate sponsor. But they’ll happily take money from the polluters.
I’m glad you mentioned the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was always ready to speak of those without a voice. Those struggling through the effects of climate change.
Your post has given me inspiration to go back and listen to his speeches. His fervor and want for justice and accountability.
Thank you both for being beacons of light in these sad times.
When we talk about climate change, there is seldom enough said about what we individually can do. Deforestation emitted more CO2 than fossil fuels. And why do we deforest? To graze animals. 80% of global warming is not by fossil fuels, it's a result of diet. We are eating our way to extinction. If we all switched to low meat or vegan diet, we could make a huge difference. Yes, let's keep the oil in the ground, but we can all control our diets. Difficult for we creatures of habit but necessary for our survival. We need to reforest those grazing lands.
Good point Jean. But we’re really pushing our limits on time to reverse this.
Some of it is because we dwell on stuff that is much less important, like the gas stove uproar of the moment. AT LEAST, they are referring to the weather the way you did—atmospheric "rivers" of precipitation, followed by their arrival as described. And now we are seeing it while we sit at our tvs stunned. The weather man I listen to the most is a "climate specialist" and he talks about it all the time.
I live in Florida where we have had another morning of heavy frost and probably more to come. You can wright off Florida's participation in citrus products this year. Ditto strawberries. Maybe that will get people's attention. When, like California, you are living in the midst of what used to be considered "damaging, freak" weather, it begins to dawn on you that this is the new normal. That is, we have no idea what's coming next until we see it on radar.
In my little conservative local paper, there was a FRONT PAGE article by a climate-savvy person warning us what it would be like if we were hit by a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane. Several MILES inland would be awash in water. This was considered NEWS, not speculation.
So, the climate-change language is creeping into our daily speech. When we have been in the midst of it, it's no longer speculation. You are just stubborn if you refuse to see it or say it.
In Baghdad By the Sea, even some Republicans are environmentalists because we have increased risks of hurricanes and seal level.
OUR Governor Doesn't Believe In SCIENCE Or DEMOCRACY
thank you Lynn for underlining that. I've lived in and love Florida since 1949 and am dismayed at the human onslaught more than the natural one. The-powers-that-be just about everywhere, either don't know or choose not to know Florida's ecological make-up, thus not (help) avoid or at least slow the too much unrestrained ravaging and ruinous exploitation.
I agree with you,. Mr. Reich. In my heart I've felt that the Earth will heal itself and take us down if we don't help her do so.
The Kochs and their Olybuddies saw to it that their mishandling of our planet was far more important than protecting poor people. To them we poor folks are as useless as teats on a bull. I personally had no choice but to be in their way by living in my car for 10 months thanks to the extreme greed of San Diego County and its landlords' decisions to up their rents during the pandemic by $500 a month or more thus driving the gods know how many of us into our cars or onto the streets,
What? Me get angry? Why draw attention to myself when the very people whose job it is to work for We the People have their heads up the arses of the Oligarchy while at the same time living quite nicely, eating well, nice expensive homes where their families have all the joys of the wealthy. Our tax dollars give them all that and more.
Meanwhile the Republicans of the lunatic fringe keep us in full ahead anxiety by threatening to do away with Social Security and Medicare. Why don't they just have their Trump-gathered militia of domestic terrorists come around and shoot us with those weapons they believe are quite okay to own?
Has anyone bothered to look up the Southern Poverty Law Center's main page online that I mentioned in a previous comment? As many as a thousand hate groups are scattered among every state in the Union. Another page tells who runs them and most of them turn out to be those fake Christians who are determined to rewrite our laws with the ultimate approval of the fake Republicans just waiting to finish what they started on that memorable date: January 6. Oh, yes. They all stand behind the Old Rugged Cross and without the slightest hint of true Christianity in their bodies.
Just to argue my own case, I'm a 76-year-old Vietnam veteran and I'm gay. Because our government is so good at seeing to the health and safety of their own families and to hell with We their Providers, I now regret having chosen to go to Vietnam for my country, managing to reach the rank of Specialist E5, and had a Secret Clearance, all within the 3 years I was in the Army. I'm damned proud of my accomplishments considering I'm only a high school graduate.
More than 20 years ago I took a legal secretary course in Beverly Hills and graduated with a grade of 96 percent. I retired in November 2011, a legal assistant, and after all my accomplishments wound up living in my Hyundai Elantra for ten damned months because my country is not of the same 'thee' as the song intended.
And guess what? It's all our fault for letting our government get out of our control. Is it too late to take it back? Only if all those fascists get locked up before they carry through with their promise of authoritarian rule. And, boy, are they close!
If Trump et al isn't locked up, nothing will change. But I think there is a point…where they will not feel the need for consequences until a violent resistance happens. I would hope not, but I don’t see anyone insuring justice. There truly aren’t many criminals bigger than mafia/fascist controlled Trump. This isn’t like Watergate, where the crime was almost pulled off out of sight. These fascist lunatics are breaking the law in broad daylight! On tv. Recorded. And yet we can’t even muster up an arrest of the worst tyrants.
We have seen numerous resistance protests, BLM, Occupy Wallstreet, March for Our lives on and on…major constitutional protests that have been quashed, turning violent by bringing in rt wing thugs to cause a reason to arrest! And of course, the rt wingers make sure the nuttiest violent MAGAs all have dangerous weapons by the dozens. What a disgraceful country to refuse to address this all!
You speak the truth in every sentence. So frustrating! Thanks for posting.
Dear Richard, First let me say how sorry I am for your obvious suffering, So far as the Republicans go, we (you, me, and all us old folks (I'm 90) are the problem because we didn't have the decency to die the day after we retired, No it's not too late to take back our Country, it's just a lot of hard work and commitment.
Fay, wouldn't it be grand if we old folks could get someone to transport us to the Mall in D.C.? Some nice warm day we could sit there and silently haunt the the Fascist Republicans untill they finally get the message: We will not lose our democracy to a bunch of lunatic fanatics.
Well, it doesn't hurt to dream, does it?
I love this cheerful post, Richard. You brightened up my day (:-)
I'm glad I cheered you up.
Because, among others, our media refuses to admit the obvious, we as a species are doomed. Extinction is inevitable. Already my granddaughters have decided not to bring children into this world. I'm too old (like you) to witness this, but our great-grandchildren will. So very sad, when it all could have been avoided.
Even now the huge oil companies are denying their part in this catastrophe, when they could have stopped it. As Keith below says, "Just follow the money." I hope humanity's death was worth it.
I am banking on the wormhole in space as a portal to time travel. Once upon a time, I named a company "Suspended Animation Corporation."
Apparently we also do not have math capacity to discern another 10 dimensions in our existence.
This is weird; my son at age 10 in 1969 was despondent that there may be no forestation when he was older ....! Pick that up on TV? He's been a life-time conservationist and activist ....and also wouldn't have children who might have been in their 20's by now. He also understood the looming depletion of sea life -- especially our "food" fish long ago.
I recently read a short piece about wind turbines in west Texas in the Economist, sorry no link at hand. The ranchers are very happy with the significant income from the power generation, much higher that from cattle but don't want to call it "green" because they would be admitting that climate change is real. Instead they are happy to call it "clean energy". In some ways I don't care as long as it gets built but it remains crazy to think of climate change as some left wing talking point. Or as my grandmother would say "good grief" what about your grandkids.
Solar is also a cash crop. My personal favorite is thermal energy, which can cost practically nothing to implement.
Done right, thermal energy has as the potential for low cost power and can operate 24 hours per day. The done right is really important. Thermal requires drilling to tap the heat and bring it to the surface to run turbines and generators. We know how to do this so ground water (fresh water) isn't damaged, but if done by fly by night contractors we get ground water contamination similar to fracking problems by unregulated contractors in PA. (Not to confuse fracking with thermal energy, the only thing similar is they both require drilling which can be done well if well regulated.)
YES...very important to emphasize that thermal has to be done correctly. Already there are areas in our state that are having to tap into DEP's limited funds to remediate contaminated wells and potential pollution of streams and rivers...
(Not that it currently has anything to do with thermal energy, but science is constantly discovering that some practices that were considered "safe" turn out to be very much UNsafe. I'm speaking of the huge damage done by spreading PFAS-contaminated sludge (before PFAS was found to be a "forever" chemical and before they knew the sludge was contaminated) onto heretofore pristine pasture lands. Now people are warned not to eat venison from deer "harvested" in these areas and at least a dozen farms that used to provide MOFGA-certified beef and milk have had their livelihoods destroyed.)
Not the same thing. Fracking is not thermal. Thermal energy refers to the energy contained within a system that is responsible for its temperature. Solar thermal does not require much technology. E.G. 2 pieces of glass can collect enough to heat water.
Heat is the flow of thermal energy. A whole branch of physics, thermodynamics, deals with how heat is transferred between different systems and how work is done in the process (see the 1ˢᵗ law of thermodynamics).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/doe-thermal-energy-storage-Stor4Build-consortium/637526/
We owned a 1939 house that had a solar water heater. 2 planes of glass, bottom painted black. Ubiquitous in Japan.
When I lived in Pa 45 y ears ago we were toying with "co-generation." EG Heat from a steel mill retained and converted to electricity.
At that time, the Federal Homeloan Bank Board had programs to concert force of streams (kricks) by using generators. I represented a couple of townships that had projects.
I attended a seminar about 20 years ago taught by MIT about heat from the earth's core. In some locations, such as California, volcanic energy converted to steam. In the eastern part of the US lots of fissures close to the crust. According to the speaker the oil companies have been lobbying against thermal.
Fracking: In my part of PA we had layers of coal, gas and oil. My county has the Middle Kittaning Range. We dug a well when I was a kid (1954), hit an artesian river, 3 layers of gas. Came in like an oil gusher. On reason we had a pottery industry was because we had clay and natural gas about 30 ft. down.
When they drilled in Northeast Ohio, just a few miles from my home town, they caused earthquakes.
I was involved in coal cases for many years. In existing mines, stick a pipe in them and methane occurs, can be used commercially. No humans need to be involved. Same concept as thermal.
I feel that the earth that I have loved has been gone a long time. Each decade of my life has brought losses of place: the beautiful once undeveloped Georgia island that supported such a variety of wildlife now paved over by a huge highway, the marine life so abundant in the salt water stream that fish and shrimp jumped freely into my boat, the calls of frogs at night that were so loud the sound saturated the air, and the beauty of the dark night skies with stars so bright they seemed to be possible to pull down to earth. All of this is gone, not because of global warming but because of over population and senseless greed. Yes, the earth is warming because of humans but it’s not, by far, our only loss. We have mostly cared only about our own species to our own peril, now arguing over a degree of destruction rather than taking the action required to protect this earth from more and more and many more of only one species, us. Yes, I am angry about global warming but it is to me a more obvious continuation of what has been happening for decades. It’s just now hard for more to ignore.
Each year I look to see how many species have gone extinct. To see how greed has been destroying nature only to our selfishness.
I was at a drive through safari in Florida recently. The audio playback stated at least one animal we spotted was already extinct in the wild. I mentioned the hypocrisy of an animal left to be gawked at, and missing the point that it’s now extinct in the wild. I can’t recall its name offhand.
There’s more to global warming than just global warming
I lived in Garberville CA for about 10 years there abouts. That’s further up north in California almost on the border of California. A mile and ½ from golden California and Golden has the highest rainfall in the state. I lived about 2 miles from kings peak overland on skid road and a half a mile from four corners, Ma-key lumber yard on one of the highest mesa in the state if not the highest Mesa. Every year is the same story torrential rain that was from 1969 to 1977 flash flooding an extreme chore condition that people would not talk about because of the tearing apart at the canopy the people are completely unaware of.
Yes global warming is making things advancing in increments but what you’re not aware of is the tearing away of the forest canopy strip logging to make and process compressed boards instead of plywood. It was bad enough strip logging Redwood years ago but that’s turned into processing oak and madrone which preserves the canopy. So originally it was just dug fur without any hesitation leaving a few little scraggly babies around they come around to reestablish the canopy. They never did, the logging company, very good jobs in replenishing the forest.
But most people after reading what I’ve just written about just shrug their shoulders shake their heads there’s nothing I can do about it. And blame it once again on global warming. If there’s not a canopy there to protect the coastline so when the storms move from north to South it causes more damage. But since global warming the storms have been coming in increments yearly worse. Try to remember there is, are polar ice caps and the possibilities of even hurricanes coming from West to east and up from Mexico which is happened, when I was a child, these were tropical storms that are small hurricanes and they are fierce.
Not to mention the San Andreas fault.
I’ve lived through two earthquakes in Northern California one barely noticeable and the other one catastrophic. That’s living on the high Mesa overlooking kings peak. If you live through a catastrophic earthquake where the earth rises 7 to 10 feet off the ground and settles back down within seconds you’ll never forget it.
Earth can accommodate only a fixed number of humans if they all live at First-World levels. Above that number, our species is a cancer on Mother Earth. We are "special" only in the sense that cancer is "special."
"if they all live at First-World levels." Exactly! It's far more about consumption than about population per se. Consider that 20% of global Rich peeps consume 80% of global resources. Meanwhile, the poverty-stricken citizens of, say, Somalia contribute roughly zero/capita to our Climate Disaster.
Yup. Do unto Mother Nature's children as you would have them do unto you...
The media downplays the truth in all these stories because the media is controlled by the corporate world. It is always greed. I wish the 1st Ammendment didn't protect lying. I wish there were sources of news that we could rely on for truth and to call out the lies, the racism, the misogyny, the economic injustice that are damaging the incredible dream that our country could be.
It's an "Inconvenient Truth"..Thanks for the heads up Al Gore...
So, fellow commenters - How many of you have made substantive lifestyle changes that would lighten your personal load on Our Only Home? Have you stopped flying? Are you driving less? slower? in a more efficient vehicle? Have you sealed the air leaks and insulated your home? Stopped eating beef? Blah and blah. Talk is cheap, blaming Exxon, the Chinese, the nabes is easy. What have YOU done?
True in many ways, but I imagine that many of us have already done a lot. I commute on an electric bike, which takes the energy produced by one-third of one solar panel, 315 watts. My house is super-insulated, taking very little to heat. I have eliminated about 2/3 of my driving, which is not enough but a start. So yes, things are being done and I am sure others reading this will have done even better, though none is enough. Yet to not blame Exxon, Amazon, Facebook, and the New York Times, to say nothing of outright denialists like Fox News and Koch Industries would be a tragic mistake. We have to change, yes, but the liars who create public opinion have to change even more. To deny that is foolishness.
i have made substantive life changes and choices: i'm vegan, i don't own or use a car, i've flown once in the past 15 years (for travel, i instead rely on walking, biking, busses and trains), i've replaced my gas stove with an induction stovetop, i compost, i don't keep meat-eating pets, i repair household items whenever possible instead of replacing them, i am childfree.
but all that said, just one white american child is enough to negate everything i've done in my life.
The NY Times ran a quiz a couple of weeks ago about things individuals can do. For example, I learned that being a vegan is much more helpful than simply being a vegetarian, as I am now. That's my resolution, and I suspect it's going to be a challenge. There were other suggestions like avoiding long flights and not owning a car.
Thank you! I had only one child because I loved the earth that once had flourishing wildlife. I was a board Director of a state Sierra Club and each time I introduced overpopulation as an issue, I was told it wasn’t worth talking about. Many decades later, I see they were correct. Why talk about the real problem when instead we can distract ourselves with the impacts caused by our overbreeding.
8 billion people on the planet. And now how many are dying of hunger, unvaccinated against diseases we thought we wiped out, fleeing climate change catastrophes, just in the United States.
And how long can we expend funds to clean up and rebuild after never-ending, increasingly expensive natural disasters without impacting other essential Federal expenditures? I look at the enormous losses of life and property in Ukraine and I think of the cost to rebuild and then see the many homeless and starving in this world and I can’t understand how we cannot know that we must put quality of life over quantity of humans, things, money, etc.
I get your point. Quality of life is what we should be striving for. But there are still billions of people who will never have a chance. Ukraine/Yemen/Syria among many.
If we would focus on how to rebuild taking in both the climate, how to build responsibly, and how to take care of society, maybe we might accomplish something. But I guess this doesn’t fit the current big picture.
Miss Anne. Many of us. As a matter of fact, in order to get some loans, mortgage companies require green initiatives.
https://www.livekindly.com/number-vegans-us-jumped-3000/
So Miss Anne -- I see you didn't say what *you* have done -- why is that?
The problem is that it doesn't matter mostly that I stopped flying 20 years ago, spent my retirement teaching people to garden, started a local time bank to promote local resilience, do permaculture, learn about 'transition' and other lifestyle changes toward a 'powered down' more sustainable relocalized bioregion focused community. I have a car that is rarely used (monthly maybe) and that gets 30/gal, walk mostly - for the last 15 yrs. I garden on a small permaculture based urban lot with beehives on the roof and try to raise a significant amount of my food & share.... fruit trees, perennial veg etc, for 30 yrs efforts. But its all for naught due to the promotion by folks like Exxon of big lies so that the other 99% are still living in lala land -- yes to beef, yes to insulation. doesn't matter - there are those that profited from promoting denial and they won.
Good for you re: your lifestyle. You ask a reasonable question of me. P
lease rest assured that I'm practicing what I preach. We live in a small, 60 yr old, all-electric, solar-powered Net Zero home that has had a total energy conservation upgrade. We buy little "stuff" and always look for used items first. We haven't been on a plane for 25 years and are vegetarians who grow most of our own food in our garden. We drive less than 3k miles/year and will upgrade to an EV as soon as the two-way charging protocols are standardized so that we can use the EV as home battery backup during outages. Our footprint is about 1/5 that of the avg American family and we'll get it even lower.
I agree that the efforts of those of us who are living lightly are more than offset by the uber-consumption of the Heedless Ones. For that matter, I don't think our species has a prayer in Hades of survival - we're just too myopic and parochial and we've dug the hole too deep.
However, I refuse to let that change my own actions. I think our efforts - yours and mine - do matter (in the short term at least). It is comforting to know that we're not part of the problem. There has been more than one situation in which other folks have seen our lifestyle (we do NOT proselytize about it) and been motivated to take similar steps.
As Mencken said, "We are here and it is now. Beyond that, all human action is only drama." So we focus on the miracle of life in all of it's infinite intricacy and discover new miracles each day.
With you going above and beyond to improve not only your quality of life, but of your community is the true victory.
Yay, Miss Anne, That's the crux; practice and preach when possible.
Are they still voting for representatives who are part of the problem?
Some of us, myself included, have been on this journey for decades. Learning what works (choosing to be vegan and more) to leave less of a mark when leaving this mortal coil. If there’s a will, there’s a way.
Not surprising, unfortunately. The main sources of news and information are disappointing in many ways. I subscribe to the NY Times, but am continually disappointed in their news coverage. I subscribe mainly for a few of their columnists. I get a lot of my real news from Twitter and other sites by following people I've found to be reliable and accurate. I never watch local news on TV! Pure sensationalism. We may see major changes in news coverage and reporting in coming years.
Unstable jet stream -> weather that would have been farther north dipping far from the poles (e.g. into The Bay Area)
Maybe we should expect pictures that *show* the path of the jet stream, e.g. in decades past v/s now?
Great idea. Pictures, are worth a thousand words. Hello. People would get it. I once saw an animation of how a cold or infection enters or attacks the body which goes to war. There IS a war and recovery is important. This was made in England.
It’s not politically popular because somehow the minority right wing nutcases have gained tremendous influence, through the willfully ignorant and uneducated masses. Also the evangelicals and similar groups, tell you it’s all in god's hands and not to worry and the earth is not nearly as important as heaven or hell, for that matter.
So true Mary. Another danger of people living a fantasy they’ve been indoctrinated into for generatiins.
Merchants of Doubt is both a book and a movie on how Industries have lied and distracted the public on Tobacco and climate change.
you can buy it or probably get it at your Public Library either as a CD or through your library's Association with movie streaming services such as kanoply and hoopla.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXRuxuTyrxo
https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVPIA6l2OTg
you might consider helping the League of Women Voters in your area getting high schools signed up to get seniors registered to vote. this is an all hands on deck moment in our lifetimes
Climate change is not an accurate description, we need to be referring to it as climate destruction, or degradation or?
Alma, we already had to change the wording from Global warming to climate change but your phrasing is best of all. 👍🏼
Actually from there it was changed to Climate Emergency. Tho not many cared.
Unfortunately 53% of the white cattle voted for Trump in 2016.
The French philosopher Blaise Pascal had a famous wager. He posited there would be two possibilities in a belief in God. Either it was true or false. He said he believed in God because if it were so, he would win a great deal and if false, he would lose nothing.
Climate change is much the same. Following the same logic, a belief in climate change is easy. If true. limiting fossil fuels and reducing our use of them gives great benefits to the planet and all who live on it; if false, one just limits our squandering our finite resources by following my mother's Yankee motto: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."
That's the reason I now have 3 EV's in my garage at home: one car and two EV-bikes. (along with a solar array on the house)
False dichotomy. Define "god."
I guess it’s ones perspective. I would like to think something occurs after death, doesn’t mean that I believe in a Christian/Jewish/Muslin god.
You Have MORE $$ Than The Rest Of US. I'm Just Hoping To Keep My Social Security, MEDICARE, And VETERANS BENEFITS Away From The GQP Traitors.
I acknowledge having more money than most but it was only the result of a long term strategy to regularly save during my working days and not spend foolishly on the NEXT BIG THING. I also rely in part on Social Security, Medicare and Veterans Benefits. I will be with you on the barricades to keep the GQP from our support.
A society that refuses to learn from its mistakes and pay for necessary corrections along the way will eventually confront an impossible situation that cannot be corrected, no matter how much money is thrown at it.
This seems to be the encroaching horizon.
May I say that I feel the same about the lack of reporting on the ongoing opioid crisis. The deaths keep increasing and no one seems to connect the dots to do something about it. I keek waiting for coherent policy prooposals.
I finally was able to get my wife to watch Dopesick. She was shocked, and she works for a large pharmaceutical retail chain. I’ve lost 3 friends to opioid addiction.
Greed
I am using this Martin Luther King Daypay tribute to a member of his spiritual family Dr Robert Reich. It occurred to me when Dr Reich said that he's been interviewed for Bill Clinton's pre eulogy, that I would never be asked to comment on the great citizens of our society as I am not Center Stage but more in the peanut gallery. So I take it upon myself to do Dr Reich's pretty eulogy from the point of view of somebody who is so completely grateful for him. Just his doctor Reich was so thrilled that another spiritual family member of ours, Robert F Kennedy, acknowledged him when he was a mere worker in his office I have been grateful to be acknowledged by him in a sentence or two. He has come down from the castle walls like Buddha. At no gain in every loss to himself he has stood up to the powers that be and takes us all along with him as equals. To say that this is outstanding, and a movement for the whole world of going spiritually forward, is just the very surface of how much it means for Dr Reich to make us equals to him and to speak to us as if we matter. My alternative high school principal, Mr Joseph Fernandez told me when I was doing an oral history with him that one of the major problems in this nation was as follows.. he said Alexia everybody just wants to be somebody everybody just wants to be heard and acknowledged and in this country it's just not allowed for the majority of people. Dr Reich has led us all be somebody and that has been crucial. Another two members of our spiritual family, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash put it this way in trying to acknowledge his connection to Bob Dylan. He said it's like being stars, and we are alike we are alike and yet we are in unalike. I'd like to have the arrogance of thinking that in addition to his family members, his students, his closest friends, his readership that we in this substgroup are his closest friends and we are alike alike and yet unalike. So in completing my pre eulogy for Dr Reich, that nobody asked me to give and nobody would have ever asked me to give by the way, I will say this, Dr Reich, you made us somebody. Alike alike and yet I like.
No way to edit comments. I misused a word and can't correct it. Can you please add an edit piece to our comments or maybe I am missing it? Thanks
I edit my comments by clicking on the "..." next to "Collapse". See if it works for you. It should.
Thank you. I was hoping someone would be kind enough to tell me. Thank you, kind man.
CBS and NBC cannot be watched without watching 1/2 of the News being commercials. The host says maybe 3 sentences, possibly a short video and WHAM, another commercial. Hard to watch. No reasons why there are catastrophic floods, or climate change, because the News Corporations have to make money. Shameful
Then, listen to All Things Considered. They run on citizen donations and they are good.
NPR sold out to the Kochs.
But have they bought out the BBC yet?
Free Speech tv is another good one…Democracy Now! Thom Hartmann etc
Always look forward to Thom and Beau of the Fifth Column. And those on Substack.
They break stories in less then a minute or two. Most are regulated to under 30 or 40 seconds so they can show a 2 minute add for a prescription drug. At least for the world news broadcasts on ABC/CBS/NBC. Priorities, sigh.
Agreed
"Why is the media so tentative .."
Maybe the media is trying to figure out how to apologize for being bought by the owners of the military/industrial complex that has ignored warnings about it's effect on global warming and it's consequences since scientists first started talking about it over a century ago. I wonder how many of the 1% are even American citizens? Such shameful cowards make the rest of us Americans look stupid and ignorant and we are chastised for protesting against them. War is NOT good for business, for social or intellectual life, and depressed the spirit of anyone involved in every aspect of it.
Gov't has known it for decades, not nearly enough action. Mainstream media is only in it for the $$$. There is no $$$ in pursuing climate change as a story to sell to advertisers, imho......
Gov't will never pull their heads out of the sand.....
Unfortunately, people's attitudes, largely dictated by the media, change more slowly than the climate is doing - especially when they can be made to believe that their precious economy is threatened. Jobs and income, jobs and income. That's the mantra of the corporate "leadership". Play on, orchestra, while the Titanic sinks beneath your feet. You'd' better believe that with all the chaos, someone, somewhere, is scheming how to profit from it. It's not a calamity, it's a business opportunity. Remember J. D. (Just Dollars) Rockefeller: "The best time to invest is when blood is running in the streets." Or, in this case, flood waters.
That’s right Steve D, and we see this with manufacturing of “bullet-proof” backpacks for children, installing bullet-proof glass, EVERYTHING EXCEPT ADDRESSING THE WEAPONS THAT KILL THEM!
Exactly. Profits over priorities.
On one hand, key industries and governments have concluded, with current notions of economic growth at the root of so much of the earth’s ecological deterioration, that a major industrial transition is about to occur and that the economic rewards will go to companies and countries that lead the way. On the other, faced with this degree of change, those particularly with heavy stakes in the status quo are inclined to deny the severity of environmental threats and assume we can get by with minor adjustments to business-as-usual. Accordingly, they finance so-called “friendly” powerful political and business leaders, not to mention major media outlets, in return for the latter pressuring reporters, editors, and news executives, if not to avoid inconvenient facts, at least to soften their tone to benefit investors’ interests.
Nah. Most almost all companies, operate on the immediate share price. Their principals are forever killing the goose that laid the golden egg to get short term profits to the detriment of long term prospects.
Also as I keep pointing out unsuccessfully, many important segments of our economy i.e. energy are controlled by foreigners.
Daniel, I understand Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) issues an annual report titled “Fear & Favor: How Power Shapes the News.” The report gathers some of the year’s most egregious examples of owner, advertiser, and government influence on journalists to use something other than journalistic judgment in deciding what gets withheld or under-reported.
PBS's Frontline series on Big Oil is well worth your time. The industry did excellent, peer-reviewed research decades ago and then, like Big Tobacco, suppressed the results and funded mis/disinformation to cast doubt on the effects of fossil fuels on climate. They should help bear the costs of the catastrophes we face. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/peril-and-promise/series/the-power-of-big-oil-a-frontline-docuseries/
Yes. We are losing our ability to call a spade, a spade! Good Grief. Bite the bullet and face the consequences. They are coming at us whether we have courage or not. Courage and clear language are needed for us to be effective. Let's turn off the white noise and tell it like it is!
They ignore the mass extinction, as long as they can enjoy their yachts and jets and mansions -- next in line for extinction comes homo sapiens, but they don't care.
"They'" are mostly foreigners who control our domestic businesses.
Why do they care?
Could you elaborate as to who? China at one point owned a lot of land here. Don’t know if it changed. Most large corporations are multinational.
Most of the energy companies are either controlled or under contracts with Saudi and other OPEC countries. Much of manufacturing is owned in Asia or Germany. Buy a German car, and profit goes to Deutschland. Odds are the shareholders do not pay US taxes.
Thank you. Manufacturing sent overseas for profit. The new gop philosophy “For the shareholders and anti corporate tax”.
But the United States had already made their mark on the world. Pushing product around the world, such as Coke, Marlboro, “blockbuster” movies and etc. And now those industries are bought out by international conglomerates.
I hope that rational economists have been studying this trend wherein lax regulations and huge mergers have a cratering impact upon our economic system. My recollection was when Ma Bell was broken down due to antitrust violations.
If the gop were serious about financial issues in government, they should be reviewing tax compliance/codes for corporations, pursuing antitrust violations and enforcement. But PACs and corporate lobbyists are their primary concerns to appease, and then to finally represent the best interests of all of their constituents.
You’ve given me food for thought.
Yes. Again yes. Palo Alto looks like Pakistan.. underwater. But the big news on the climate pages this week was Gas Stoves??? Are my morning scrambled eggs a bigger threat than coal power plants (Joe Manchin) and, gas guzzling supertankers (Exxon?)
"Next time people disparagingly call someone socialist, let them be told that they are , too, and that socialism and capitalism go together, and that our well-being as a species depends on their prosperous coexistence."
I don't remember where I found this and who said it but I carry it in my wallet.
California is EXTREMELY vulnerable in that she sits on the San Andreas Fault. May not have to go so far to get to the beach. Reno and Vegas are just around the corner. But seriously; as long as the only ones affected are Blacks, Hispanics, and homeless( White Trash) no one gives a fiddly f...! When middle and upper middle class Whites start getting affected, WELL------ Don't believe me! Look at the cause of the War on Drugs!
They haven't because the channels are run by magas, don't you know that, Robert? They are not allowed to say it, they might tick off their maga bosses.
I get the impression that off late the voices of climate change deniers, COVID deniers and anti vaxxers, election deniers , history deniers etc have gotten stronger again, not the least because of the voices coming from the new GOP House majority who seem to want to go back to the past (that did not exist) . Is life so harsh nowadays that we prefer to deny the reality.? If so, then why is this denial so strongly driven by big money and by big business who in contrast seem to be doing very well in the current reality? Do they simply want to keep us unhappy and dissatisfied? One thing is for sure , a world in turmoil offers great opportunities for a few ...and great suffering for the rest. Also, a world that denies its past and/or current reality cannot have much of a future.
Check the racist collective subconscious of deniers.
I think that by those denying reality, they don’t see anything that needs to be changed.
I haven’t read yet today’s statements by Robert Hubbell. I will get to that and maybe comment here again and there once. I did read Heather Cox RIchardson’s discussion of the heroism of the average person that is not or little noticed and of which they never boast.
Mr. Secretary, you are speaking of such heroism lacking by today’s journalists and their editors.
This is a very important point to make, and do so repeatedly and emphatically. Another piece of information that's lost in the "dramatic footage" is the financial cost that everyone is, and will be, paying for the current disasters, and the multiple disasters yet to come. What will this do to our insurance rates? To the cost of goods and services to replace those lost, and to adapt to the new normal? To flood proofing our cities and infrastructure and other measures to reduce future costs? To the taxes we pay to support disaster responses and replace services and infrastructure? Not to ignore the emotional cost of losing loved ones, homes, workplaces, etc. Why can't we mount the kind of urgent response we make to Covid, RSV, Flu and other diseases? The threat is a great, the danger is as dire, why are we dithering and debating this "clear and present danger"?
This was a great point.
Robert, We all know that moneyed interests have top priority in this country and around the world. Unregulated capitalism makes this easy. When so-called news stations are not held accountable for intentional lies and the danger they inflict, there is little we can do outside of the much smaller-reaching independent news and true investigative journals helping expose this.
Not putting the orange terrorist-inciter behind bars is something we must fume about and demand every day. This is a very grave injustice with shocking repercussions. Yet here we are…in-our-face fascism and totalitarian lunatics are allowed to take a seat in our Congress.
The truth has to reach the audience’s ears before we can even think about changing their minds.
It’s kinda a foregone conclusion; if you don’t believe it yer living inna different planet. Here in NY it’s like April; not quite Junuary!
Who needs the media; just look outside and do look up!
The reluctance to properly attribute storms and other severe weather to climate change is probably a reluctance to offend advertisers.
I don’t know. I’ve been hearing links to climate change throughout, and reading articles that tie the frequency and intensity of recent storms to climate change.
Coverage in America has improved a lot in the last few years although it’s still LAGS way behind Europe.
WE have virtually divided the population of earth into two camps. Pro-civilization and pro-hedonistic, authoritarian. Why are we so reluctant to call a spade a fucing shove.
Reducing essential needs to market commodities—housing, healthcare, and yes, journalism—radically undercuts the foundations of social solidarity. As Lord Acton observed nearly two centuries ago, there is no such thing as a “conservative capitalist.” We might add to the list of corrupt coverage the widespread journalistic practice of referring to the odious QAnon fascists as “conservative.” At that point, the always-flexible connection between political ideology and popular terminology loses any meaningful significance.
Exxon sat on it, WY (at least symbollically) bans electric vehicles; people, companies looking out for "number 1"; then it becomes a partisan issue. I know that I'm far, far from the sharpest knife in the drawer, often wondering how I always tested in the >90 percentile in standardized testing. Overall people aren't that bright, and those that are easily manipulate those that aren't.
And the fossil fuel companies knew what they were doing to climate decades ago: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/
The easy answer, money. Now what was the question?
Of all the systems on earth that exist today, Democracy is the system best suited to restore the earth and deal with global warming, and create a relatively fair equality in access to resources, including wealth and housing, representation and equality before the law. This is a conclusion of Jared Diamond, author of Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed
No matter what else affects democracies, all the most recent studies agree that accurate information, as disseminated via social media and mainstream media, is necessary and critical to the continued existence of a democracy. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2021/653635/EXPO_STU(2021)653635_EN.pdf https://www.theatlantic.com/live/disinformation-democracy-uchicago-conference-2022/
So to heal the world, we need democracy and to heal democracy we need to police social media and mainstream media. And that is happening only sporadically, as when France fined Meta recently. Meanwhile, the ice is melting. Storms are on the ocean. The people in charge of increasing or reducing greenhouse gas emissions are making investments in coal, gas, and oil, not in insulation, conservation, wind and solar. They are not subject to the consent of the governed that is central to democracy.
What are the next steps we public can take that will actually save the earth from Bill Koch, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Koch_(businessman), the House of Saud and its Saudi Aramco oil holdings, Mukesh Ambani and the Ambani fossil fuel holdings, and the Top Ten Investors in Fossil Fuels on the planet. https://www.responsible-investor.com/study-reveals-top-10-shareholders-of-worlds-fossil-fuel-reserves/#:~:text=Fidelity%20Management%20%26%20Research%2C%20Dimensional%2C,according%20to%20new%20academic%20research.. In 2021, a representative statement regarding global warming was made by a BlackRock representative:
"Because the global economy today is carbon intensive, the portfolios of most diversified investors...remain carbon intensive. That cannot and will not change overnight, and BlackRock's aggregate portfolio will necessarily be subject to the investment decisions of our clients."
In other words, don’t look to BlackRock management to divest from fossil fuels.
Oh, I think we should anyway. Is that democratic?
DEMOCRACIES are GREAT! Too bad ours is in MAME ONLY. Good luck with climate change and getting past all the FREE CASH that BIG OIL spends bribing our congress.
But then again, I am more concerned about the sudden bright blinding flash caused by our governments failure to entertain the possibility of a negotiated settlement of OUR Ukrainian war - again the indirect result of congressional bribery by the merchants of death in this country.
Now that you mention it, the news media generally does separate its reporting about each disaster from its reporting about climate change. There are also the recent devastating tornados in the South, which are earlier and more powerful than usual, likely due at least in part to warmer than normal Gulf of Mexico temperatures as a result of climate change. Here in Indiana, we are experiencing January temperatures that are well above average, such that most precipitation is falling as rain, not snow.
I read several years ago that local weather forecasters should be getting the message out about climate change, because it is relevant to the weather they report, and because they have wide audiences. But they don't. On the contrary, one local weather person here, by her editorial comments interspersed in her report, clearly believes that warmer is better. When the weather warms up, she opines that we are doing well.
Just outside of NYC, and the last time we had any significant snow was last March. Saddens me to see what the warming temperatures have affected the birds.
Kevin this is all wreaking havoc on our plants and the wildlife (and us, of course). In Chicago, last year, we had 3 weeks of old fashioned Chicago winters that used to last 5 months. This year we’ve had one snowfall with blizzard winds over one weekend, which happens to have occurred over Christmas weekend.
When I’m traveling and tell people I live in Chicago, they always respond, oh! The winters are so cold there! Not anymore. We’re fortunate to still receive rain so unlike California, we haven’t yet suffered a drought due to lack of snowfall.
Our reluctance to talk about crises, of whatever stripe, is probably due to crisis fatigue.
We can take only so much pounding; we need a break, which the news never used to provide; it was all bad news, all the time. Now we have soft news, even the NYTtimes on its front page. And I think that's good: All gloomy thoughts make for a gloomy life.
Some people need that challenge, that energy charge. Professor Reich is one: He mentally bounces from one crisis to another, as do most politicians, businessmen, medical professionals, cops, teachers, firemen, and parents. To focus on the problems of others gets your mind off your own problems. It's a proven way, if you will, to happiness.
We will always have problems or challenges. I don't know what we'd do without them; a heaven where we mindlessly laze around all day, every day, would quickly get hellish. We came here to solve problems and to learn how to be happy simultaneously; it's our greatest challenge, one that never ends. May you find your golden pathway soon if you haven't already. (Pro tip: Grandkids and pets almost force you to find it.)
James, I do agree with your thoughts on crisis fatigue but equally important is to get people aware of things like climate destruction in order to force change. Glossing over it is dangerous, and I don’t think you’re suggesting that, but we come here to vent many frustrations that are blocked in the media. So mostly, I say, have at it people!
Pets definitely do. And there are plenty waiting to be adopted or fostered. Unfortunately it seems to be easier than adopting/fostering a child.
Ignorance & denial are the cause of many of our climate, economic & health problems. However, neither of main political parties have no problem protecting the wealthy!
Whataboutism again. BS.
Dems are trying to fix the climate and Repubs are not. Go to Votesmart
We are all to blame for the silence. We all have known this now for a long time. Maybe Exxon knew it longer, but it is widely known by now. Nonetheless, the vast majority of people is silent and carries on pretending that nothing is happening. So why should the media stick their head out in this sea of inaction and apparent indifference? I tried to get awareness and action going in my workplace. Impossible! People do not want to hear it and do not want to do anything about it. Period. What's the solution to that?
Oh Carolin you’re such a downer , they likely said.
EXTINCTION
The media is NOT the voice of the people. Voice of the corporations that control them. Even NPR, PBS are corrupted.
I read the NYT, WAPO and others and pay subscriptions but that =doesn't men I accept BS. My experience is that most reporters are lazy. News has to be "sensational" to sell.
Not sure why you’re asking this question when we all know the answer. Corporations own the media and so they’re not going to talk about something they are causing. American consumption in every single sector of our economy is the cause of climate change. We are the cause ourselves. The media has to sell products that are made in ways that are harmful to the environment. Almost every product we touch has been made unethically and environmentally damaging. California is consumed by automobile culture. I remember when Los Angeles had so much air pollution that you would get a sore throat from being in that city. They’re trying to make changes but not fast enough. They need rail transportation but they have people crying about the cost of building it. The US population should be ashamed of its lack of rail service and system but since 65% of Americans don’t hold a passport they don’t know how bad our system and infrastructure is. They believe in the myth of the United States is the best country in the world and that we are the most modern nation because we have wealth. They don’t realize that 1% have wealth. Meanwhile the rest of us are just trying to survive. The media sells a myth. Telling the truth is not on their agenda and it’s far gone to ever be a source of information that is credible. The US media is a joke.
Excelsior! Delusion
They wouldn't believe their planet was in Big Trouble
preferring a Convenient bubble . .In any case Business
for Profit's sake would Fix it . . and if not there's Mars and
then a far star with Earth's double . . # the space takes
Thank you for pointing this out. It is thought provoking and important, something to pay attention to and something for all of us to speak up about.
The media's failure to report the truth is a loss for Democracy and, no doubt, a 'win' for those who are profiting from the things that cause the damage. It's kicking the can down the roadism. Consider the source ; Who owns the media? Who are the biggest advertisers? In some cases, they may be one and the same : The media owners also have large investments in the industries that pollute.
The earth has entered a new epoch of rough weather events and looking back on the time of heaven on earth we have enjoyed.
I was reading a great article yesterday on tech advances in AI etc for 'the future' and all I could think about was what a lot of nonsense it was that we are spending all this effort in techie 'advances' when we might not even have a liveable planet within the next 50 years - so are the smart techies all planning to migrate to Mars ? They could be instead using their obvious huge mental abilities to save our gorgeous planetary home while it's still possible ! The earth itself can live without us, has done in past aeons, and will do again, but we are all powerless to stop our own destruction ? I sometimes wonder if in future times thousands of years hence if some other, new entity will be doing 'archaeology' & will dig up human cities & skeletons & wonder about who & what we were ! We are so very clever, yet so very ignorant about what really matters !
AI is part of the solution set for climate change
What sucks is since the ground is so dry to too long droughts it can’t even absorb the water. Making flash floods even worse with no upside. Iowa is in very rough spot also (nowhere near as bad as cali tho)
Precisely and nobody absolutely no “expert” panelists or “contributor” is being called on cnn or msnbc or ABC News or NBC Today show to discuss why a drought ridden state of CA for the last 15 years is seeing mud slides and flooding washing away soil under homes and trees? It’s like there is no science they attribute to this devastation.
In addition to your comments that I wholeheartedly agree with, for the first time in history the oil industry is being sued under the RICO Act for their corrupt practices-including the creation and funding of climate denial for the last 60+ years! The richest people on earth have had the blood of generations on their hands for too long. Our spineless politicians on both sides of the aisle also share that guilt! The costs of climate change and it's reversal should and must be paid for out of the coffers that is either held offshore in Trillions of tax exempt dollars or directly from the Perpe-Traitors themselves and the Trusts insulating the comfort level that also must be destroyed!
American education discounts the value of hard science. Cash flow is easiest with carbon emission. Media’s mission is making money, not adult education. Earth Day teach-ins started on my campus when I was a Junior. Very few schools and departments took it seriously. Exxon denied their own research. Over population was half the reason my wife and I decided not to have kids. Today the American Geophysical Union and government scientists are still sanctioned for expressing alarm about our complacency. As a trained geologist I know about extinction. We are programmed to dare the inevitable. It will be costly and painful.
When the news— if you read carefully- is attributing climate change “disinformation”, I.e. lies, to Exxon Mobil and their ilk, why do we not hear fossil fuels blamed for the dramatic climate disasters? The 100 year flood is now an 8 year flood.
And worst of all, the population bomb of human flesh on a planet that cannot sustain it. No one is talking about population. Yet we outgrow our food supply, especially if we remove pesticides and petroleum- based fertilizer from the mix. We out compete every other species for resources and are causing a catastrophic extinction event. It’s us next.
We cannot technology our way out of this. We need to see the human population drop in half. Or nature will do it for us.
I’m not optimistic.
Yeah Paul Ehrlich really screwed the pooch on population “control “ . ZPG changed their name
Chevron + Exxon quarterly profit = $30 billion approximately.
Climate Change damage to California from latest extreme weather?
$30 billion.
Cause and effect.
Similar to the repeal of the Fairness Act which produced the extreme polarization in the media, which then produced the extreme polarization in America.
Why is THIS not being reported??
Thank you for starting the “serious” dialog about the connection between climate & extreme weather.
In addition to the points made, this is hard to navigate because no single person feels responsible and weather in its usual state has not been officially recognized as a collective social good.
On a side note I would say the denial and reluctance are very similar to what we saw with smoking, big tobacco and cancer. It took years for those with vested interests including official bodies - Bureau of Alcohol & Tobacco - and state bodies eg those collecting sales tax - to come to the table.
Please keep at it while there is still something left to defend!
It's a small world, after all.
I don't follow: every time I see a report on the news, they link the rains in CA and the snows and the tornadoes and the disasters with climate change.
The ethics of traditional media say there must be a separation between publishing and journalism. The real practical benefit of this is the trustworthiness of the content, which, ostensibly, is why readers subscribe and advertisers support the media outlet. But publishers can never keep their hands to themselves. And since the causers of the growing climate emergency are making a profit, they influence the publishers who, in turn, influence the journalists. And so we have a situation where the journalists are awaiting the nod and wink from their publishers, which hasn't come since the benefactors continue to make huge profits. Things will change, not when people are negatively impacted, but when the profiteer's are.
Unfortunately even when the media does acknowledge climate change , the verb is "mitigation" not "prevention"
I feel for young people who had no choice about developing fossil fuel but will live and probably die from it.
It's why one of Extinction Rebellions's demands is "Tell the Truth." It's why we have EndClimateSilence, and Don't Look Up. Clearly the monied interests who run things don't want people making the connections. Sigh. Apparently they think they won't be affected. Ha.
PLEASE think HAPPY THOUGHTS and BUY the WORTHLESS JUNK from our ADVERTISERS. Didn't you know that NEWS is now ENTERTAINMENT?
I'm sure the combined "newsrooms" and media outlets have been told not to report on this by their corporate masters. The newsrooms/media outlets of course obey. It has been increasingly so since the 1970s...
They do market analysis. Sensationalism sells.
"Saturday’s New York Times front-page story about what’s happening now in California didn’t even mention the words “climate change” until the 26th paragraph, the third from the last."
Bias in the media isn't really about left vs. right. It's about preserving the economic power of those who own the media. If I had a chance to speak to Dr. Reich the biggest question I would have for him has to do with his field of expertise, economics. What would be the economic effects of curtailing the global consumer culture that is driving all of the environmental degradation that is happening?
George Carlin famously talked about our love of "Stuff." Do we need all the Stuff we have? The real answer is yes and no. Production has become so efficient that many ordinary people can have shoe collections that rival Imelda Marcos. The landscape is littered with single serving plastic bottles that once held something that should be free-water.
We and our future generations really do not need such stuff, but our whole economic structure depends on it. Dr. Reich. How do we reduce consumption, required to curtail energy consumption, without crashing the economy? I understand the answer to this will not be easy.
AMEN!
Sooooo very true!
How should we tell the NYTimes that what they’re doing is a lie of omission by leaving it to the end of the story knowing most subscribers don’t read the whole article frequently! ?! I subscribe but I don’t read every article to the very end! And I read a lot!!!
Additionally, pollution is attributing to an increase in lung diseases such as asthma and others, even in those who’ve never smoked! My pulmonologist screened me for where I grew up and have lived as well as my career exposures( as an RN).
Thanks for your comments!
Alison
Unfortunately, those who have not already gotten the word on the relationship of a warming planet and extreme weather events likely are not open to the information. I have seen this first hand. It’s very discouraging.
Greta Thunburg and countless climate activists who don’t enjoy her infamy or fame in media will be jailed many times over before the NYtimes and MSNBC will hold policy makers accountable for not signing laws to fight climate crisis well in advance nor will the tragic Morning Shows on NBC and ABC give its 7am lead story to how climate change caused a flood or drought when they happen. Climate change is a passing remark speculated.
People in general are much less concerned with taking action to address climate change than they are concerned with other, more pressing issues. We all continue to drive cars, and very few people would be willing to give them up. We cannot harvest (using less acreage today) the amount of food needed to avoid starvation without fossil fuel. We cannot distribute that food worldwide without fossil fuel.
Fossil fuel is easy to demonize because no one likes the fact that we all spend a good part of our money on fuel. Surely we would all like to have free energy, but there is no such thing. It's pretty much a necessity even going back to when we used wood for fuel. Fire was one of the first discoveries of man which led us to where we are today, a more civil and less beastly existence.
If you want to ask about a lack of media attention to environmental concerns, how about having an open discussion about an environmental disaster that is going on right now. One that has taken over 5 million lives and affected every person on the planet. It has also affected other mammal species.
The environmental disaster is a virus which was likely created in a research lab and which escaped due to the negligence of our own science community. Oil spills typically affect a tiny spot on the planet, and also dissipate over a short time, consumed by microorganisms. Virus spills do not dissipate, they propagate and grow, eventually spreading across the entire biosphere. Today there are members of the animal kingdom suffering with this novel virus. Over 5 million humans have perished, and nearly everyone has suffered to some degree. Why is the origin of this virus not being pursued in media? Is it because the pharmaceutical industry is the largest sponsor of mainstream media? Is it because the pharmaceutical industry is one of the largest political donors in the U. S.? Is it because no one wants to bite the had that feeds them?
Very little is mentioned in the mainstream that Gain of Function research faced very stiff opposition in the science community in its early days. We had a moratorium on the practice in the US until very recently. At the same time, pharmaceutical giants were opening new R&D labs in Wuhan and other sketchy places outside the U.S. Understandably, these pharmaceutical giants wanted to continue what they considered groundbreaking research. Gain of Function may well have a good purpose in finding new ways to fight cancer and other diseases, so it does have benefits, but the research also carries great risk, as we have all witnessed.
Regardless of whether you think gain of function work should or should not be done, it is here, and somewhere in the world it will continue to be practiced. Like fossil fuel, it is not going away.
The real, and very legitimate question is, why is this research being practiced in the middle of crowded cities, and in some cases (Ukraine) in very unstable nations? No one in media, and few in Washington will bite the hand that feeds them. It will be up to people like us. I call on Robert Reich to take the lead in pursuing this story.
When scientists created the nuclear bomb, they knew the positive and the negative potential for this newly discovered process of fission and fusion. They gathered and insisted that governments restrict the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. They were successful without the cooperation of media. Such an effort is needed today with regard to the creation of novel viruses. The potential for worldwide destruction is greater than nuclear weapons could ever be.
I propose that gain of function research be limited to Antarctica, and that those researchers be quarantined for an appropriate time before returning to the mainland. Perhaps we can later devise ways to more safely conduct these experiments at other locations, but for now, we should be much more cautious.
I would like to hear from biologists who frequent these pages. What are your thoughts?
Not Russia in Ukraine
Not Yemen, not starving children
not hate or nationalism,
Not trillion dollar defense budgets
But FOCUS, DISCIPLINE, and
LOVE UNTO THE SEVENTH GENERATION.
We are late to begin,
not sufficiently focused on doing
unto others as we would have them
do unto us.
The Golden Rule asks us to act.
We need leaders who can stop the world,
not to get off, but to focus on preserving and replenishing this beautiful paradise. Look around at those who are committing acts of creative love.
Celebrate their solutions,
their acts of love unto the Seventh Generation.
“What the world needs now
is love, sweet love—
what there’s just too little of.”
Remember Kevin Costner’s apocalyptic movies from the 80s: “Waterworld” was one. The other took us to an idyllic Mountain cabin like, more like the Dityon’s of 1883 might have build in Montana.
Climate change should have begun to be addressed in the 80s. The world ihas started too late, and is doing too little.
Ukraine is NOT “WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW.” It’s loving oneself as one’s neighbor—“What the world needs now is love, sweet love—what there’s just too little of.”
Those who can—estimated 60%—will ; those who can’t—meaning don’t want to—estimated 20% won’t. The undecided 20% need to open their ♥️-minds and star actively loving both today’s children and our future children—as Native Americans say, “ Unto the seventh Generation.”
Do you think there is a connection between this climate change silence and the fact that the media conglomerates sent owned by right wing corporations?
Humans do not like change, so one way to deal with change is to ignore it., as many farmers in this country are doing, sadly. Until of course their barns burn down or are washed away. To their credit, PBS did a credible job of explaining how excess precipitation happens as a result of warmer water evaporating more easily and a warmer atmosphere being able to hold more water, until it doesn't.
You havent challenged anything only lied and insulted. Straight troll work. In that you have done a great job. Your only purpose is to sew confusion and prevent people from acting so fossil fuel companies can keep making a killing until they dont have any more living customers to extort their profits from.
What I do know is that what I don’t know could cover volumes. Therefore I try to grasp as much as I can and defer to climate experts who rely on and stef adept at interpreting the data and whom you would presumably say are also denying science. It behooves you, therefore, to inform them of of their many gross errors and make a name for yourself as well.
Who knows about Alaska?
https://m.groundreport.in/article/alaskan-rivers-are-turning-orange-why/159754/amp
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this, Mr. Reich.
Informed and thus outraged citizens have been screaming this from the rooftops for DECADES. Like others here, I learned about the "greenhouse effect" in school way back in the 1970s and (unlike Exxon) advocated for avoiding climate chaos ever since. Fat lot of good that did... so by the time I was of child-bearing age, I chose to protect my kids by never having them. And I'm now so glad I did.
I've begun asking these Fools for Fossil Fuels in my many scathing letters of protest to these self-annointed masters of the universe:
"Do you love your own children enough to show some sacrifice and save the dying planet they are set to inherit due to YOUR reckless negligence and merciless profiteering? Who do you love more? Your effing profits or your kids/grandkids!? If you claim you love your kids, then ACT LIKE IT and retool for the green energy economy NOW, not later, because that is only thing that might (might!) save them and civilization!"
But I have to ask my fellow citizens the same thing: Where are the "Million Man" marches on Washington demanding action on this issue?? Crickets.
What do we get from the so-called "liberal media" like MSNBC? Only the low-hanging clickbait du jour: Political scandals and NOTHING about the progress the Biden admin has been making on many fronts -- and even that is far too slow to make a real difference when it comes to climate.
(Hello?! MORE off-shore drilling?! And gas pipelines for Europe too?? WTH, Joe!?! Don't YOU love your kids & grands enough to finally pull the plug on these profiteers?!)
Even the greenest Dems seem to still be riding the deadly "good to the last drop" gravy train advocated by Big Oil: One last "killing" please! And then one more drilling lease and one more after that and one more for old time's sake, ad nauseam.
ARE we ever going to stand up and demand-order-command that King Coal and Big Oil Leave It In the Ground??
Oh yeah?
When??
Or are We, too, perfectly content with the go-slow approach -- all while Mother Nature is throwing fast balls and curve balls a mile a minute? We know full well, She bats last. And so far She's cleaning Man's clock -- and sad to say: rightly so.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this, Mr. Reich.
Informed and thus outraged citizens have been screaming this from the rooftops for DECADES. Like others here, I learned about the "greenhouse effect" in school way back in the 1970s and (unlike Exxon) advocated for avoiding climate chaos ever since. Fat lot of good that did... so by the time I was of child-bearing age, I chose to protect my kids by never having them. And I'm now so glad I did.
I've begun asking these Fools for Fossil Fuels in my many scathing letters of protest to these self-annointed masters of the universe:
"Do you love your own children enough to show some sacrifice and save the dying planet they are set to inherit due to YOUR reckless negligence and merciless profiteering? Who do you love more? Your effing profits or your kids/grandkids!? If you claim you love your kids, then ACT LIKE IT and retool for the green energy economy NOW, not later, because that is only thing that might (might!) save them and civilization!"
But I have to ask my fellow citizens the same thing: Where are the "Million Man" marches on Washington demanding action on this issue?? Crickets.
What do we get from the so-called "liberal media" like MSNBC? Only the low-hanging clickbait du jour: Political scandals and NOTHING about the progress the Biden admin has been making on many fronts -- and even that is far too slow to make a real difference when it comes to climate.
(Hello?! MORE off-shore drilling?! And gas pipelines for Europe too?? WTH, Joe!?! Don't YOU love your kids & grands enough to finally pull the plug on these profiteers?!)
Even the greenest Dems seem to still be riding the deadly "good to the last drop" gravy train advocated by Big Oil: One last "killing" please! And then one more drilling lease and one more after that and one more for old time's sake, ad nauseam.
ARE we ever going to stand up and demand-order-command that King Coal and Big Oil Leave It In the Ground??
Oh yeah?
When??
Or are We, too, perfectly content with the go-slow approach -- all while Mother Nature is throwing fast balls and curve balls a mile a minute? We know full well, She bats last. And so far She's cleaning Man's clock -- and sad to say: rightly so.
Climate change is the reason for the 20-year drought in California. What we are experiencing now is historically normal. What is causing the current problem is 3-fold: California voters have approved three ballot measures to expand the state's water retention infrastructure, but the state has not spent those funds for that purpose, Second, people have moved into historically flood-prone areas in the past 20 years because there was no flooding during the drought. Third, Californians have been horrible water managers for 100 years.
The pale, stale, male crowd - the ULTRAMaga - a minority within a minority are dying off and don't give a hoot about the future. It's all about value for shareholders...
Obviously the human cost doesn’t affect certain voters. We need to talk about the financial cost and how it affects every single person through insurance and taxes.
Absolutely correct!
So true - I listened to a woman on NPR yesterday, who clearly knew better, and sounded embarassed at what she was clearly readying, talking about if the two weeks of floods in California was enough to end the drought forever, or if it would get too hot and too dry again, and what would that mean, and if the cycle of too hot and too dry vs too much rain all at once would continue like that clear into next summer. Such a hard question, no clear answers, etc.etc.etc. NPR should know better. It's just appalling.
Totally agree with the sentiments. When the TV news anchors ask the weather expert “is this caused by climate change?“, They are implying that there is no connection. on the other hand, I think it’s quite clear to ordinary citizens like myself, that climate change is directly and drastically affecting our weather patterns
I think the elephant in the room is, when 90% of the people in this country are just trying to survive from day to day, it's pretty tough to sell concepts like we need to get rid of all plastic, or we need to all be driving cars that don't run on gasoline. Combine that with the endless and willful ignorance of the GOP, who use that harsh reality as a selling point against doing anything to combat climate change at all, and we are where we are. Yes, corporate greed in all its forms is contributing mightily to not being able to resolve this problem, including the price gouging which is making it so difficult for ordinary folks to afford basic necessities, and the deliberate prioritization of the welfare of shareholders and executives rather than the workers who actually make profits possible. But Democrats also have to understand that being too zealous regarding green initiatives, especially those that are impractical, will actually have the reverse effect of discouraging many ordinary folks from supporting them. We need to focus on common sense initiatives, including the funding of scientific research that could possibly result in processes to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, or plastic from the oceans, and reverse the damage being done. Approaching the problem entirely from the perspective of forcing people to change their day-to-day methodology, especially those living paycheck to paycheck, just won't work in the long run, in my opinion, and plays right into the hands of Republicans who take every chance they get to insult and belittle Democrats.
There are still a boat load of deniers and the fossil fuel industry is pouring out lie after lie that these same people buy into. The other reason is strictly political.
Global temperature has remained in a range suitable for life for millions of years. Even the meteor which wiped out the dinosaurs did not upset the tendency toward life sustaining climate.
The heat transport mechanism of water vapor has never ceased. In fact, it tends toward much cooler temperatures and much harsher, drier climate. The current warm period is only 20,000 years old, and it encompasses the entirety of the development of our civilization. Warmer and wetter is better, but it is not the norm.
If the current pattern continues, we will descend from todays warmer and wetter climate into another deep dry glacial period lasting 200,000 years. We will likely be forced to abandon more northern latitudes due to glacial advance.
Democracy? We're a Republic!
Robert Reich speaks from the heart out of genuine compassion fr the victims of appalling weather events. All people of goodwill empathise with such compassion. There can be no help for the victims in wrongly attributing blame to other humans, when the genuine sceintific evidence is to the contrary. In Australia in the east and in the west we are still suffering the effects of similarly unpleasant weather events, with lower casualties attributable to our less dense population. Only the self serving politicians and fellow blinkered loyal disiples of the globa warming cult dare to suggest that anthopogenic climate change is somehow responsible. All thoughtful Australians remember with great clarity an Al Gore groveller named Professor Flannery. This disgrace to the academic world convinced Australia's rulers that "climate change" through heating the world would cause permanent drought in Australia to the extent that dams would never again be filled. he successfully agitated for the waste of billions of dollars on unnecessary desalination plants. Flannery's credibility crashed with the 2011 east coast floods and have crashed further since. The Cult cannot simultaneously claim that "Climate Change" causes both droughts and floods. Most of Australia as has extraordinarily low temperatures in October, November and December 2022. For the truth on such matters, all readers are invited to download a free pdf of Unchain Australia (23 erudite authors) from http://www.unchainaustralia.com
Thank you, Professor for your attention and comments on the lack of media coverage on the connection between current storms and Climate Change: Will we have one more generation to wait, or is it too late? Will there just be hope or will there be action from government and private sectors? We’re in this together, the USA and every single country on this planet. Greta Thunberg: “We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people.”
Anywhere else, it would be called poor planning. For them, it's just business as usual.
I remember viewing a video you made a while ago, which really inspired me (I designedmy own version of it), in which you divided a whiteboard (or sheet of paper) into 4 squares. One was what if we spent the money necessary to mitigate & prepare for climate disruption & the world was indeed warming as all signs indicated. It would've been money well spent, preventing the worst of climate chaos & nature & humankind would continue to thrive. Another was spending all that money when, contrary to what the vast majority of scientists were saying, there was no significant warming. It might seem like a waste of money, but the things we'd have to do would clean the air & water, preserve our forests & wildlife, wean us away from dirty fossil fuels & improve our quality of life in so many ways , actually the best outcome.
What if we didn't spend the money necessary? The 3rd scenario is that we didn't spend money, & shocking the scientists, our climate remained stable. We would've saved a lot of money, but we would've missed out on all the benefits we would've gained in Scenario 2 (& 1). The 4th Scenario, a highly probable scenario, was we did nothing & catastrophic climate chaos occurred, destroying our land, flora & fauna, wiping out civilization, killing billions of people, extinguishing a large proportion of species, including possibly humans. Unfortunately, your warnings were ignored, & the disastrous Scenario 4 was chosen, by government, corporations, the media & the public.
As an excercise I figured heck climate change is an important issue let me look up "Climate" in google to see what pops up (I left out Change to let the googles engine lead me where it would like. The first three hits were adds for climate change benefiting companies. Companies that are operating in a win win mode where they seek profit over actually making a diffence. They cant make money on Climate change if the problem actually gets fixed. See Anand Giridharadas Winners Take All. Those companies would be considered "Market World". There were as many total adds for stuff climate change profiting amd climate change denial as there.god links.. One link to the times on "Climate and Environment". One article in there posted yesterday talks about Califormias megastorms and doesnt have the word climate or climate change in it. Once you get past the adds you get Wikipedia, Climate.gov Climate NASA, UN all these are heavy defining that Climate ans Climate Change are inexorably linked. Then Climate Europe. There defintion of climate change talks about many of the natural ways it can happen and oh also human induced. Its obvious Europe wants to ignore the issue. I apologize for digressing. It looks like google is doing a Cambridge analytica and using targeted adds to give people false equivalences as to what companies are doing to fix the problem (ie we planeted a few trees) or the adds are climate denial with fun and interesting videos that you should click on right now! This leaves people confused into inaction. Where do we go when our print news media is hijacked and big tech like Google (dont be evil) gladly endorse nonsense to make a buck. I mean..its so sad that the first hit on climate to come up is an add to continue more fossil fuel consumption by planting trees.
There is no excuse for this lack of meaningful/informed comments on critical issues. Is it temerity? Is is too lazy to understand the situation? Whatever, there is no excuse for not addressing the root of the problems. “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” - Desmond Tutu. And, the oppressors are those who value their greed and power the most, even if it makes the world a worse place.
There is very little remaining of “the media”. What almost everyone could depend on, print and TV, have sold out only to become shadows of their former selves. It’s now gotten down to platforms such as this to get the word out. Problem is, not everyone either can or will avail themselves of it. So we’re left with our blasted propaganda source or the milquetoast media who all blether the same nonsense that signifies nothing much.
We’ve seen the damage caused by humans for generations but, as usual, we’ve averted our gaze. Now that the hour is getting late, we are starting to look around and realize that we may be too late to do much about it now. The final hour should be interesting to watch.
I think the media's calm about Old Lady Nature's impending WWIII enterprise is more easily understood in terms of a new inequality. Call it "habitat inequality (HI)". As you emphasized how storms tend to single out the those with inadequate shelter and the resources to cope, they also emphasizes general indifference of those with adequate wealth and insurances to survive - a science abstraction, at best..
The big news is when a forest fire guts a few mansions in the woods, especially if an owner is a celebrity.
Like all hardships born out of our well engineered wealth stratification the HIs will take the beating and the upper strata will concentrate on conserving Government resources so that capital is
well secured, and of course adequate security resources to protect them from the burgeoning mass of sick, hungry, homeless , penniless victims of OLN's savagery. The message to the poor of the world in danger: The Yanks are Coming to buy up the few good beaches and temperate habitats that are left.- m
Thank you Robert! Nicely said.
For those who wish to learn and enlighten other have your house of worship rent or borrow the documentary MERCHANTS OF DOUBT, a documentary based on a book of the same name.
It documents the multimillion dollar campaign of corporate misinfomation by corporations first about smoking now about climate crisis. rent it, view it, repeat. The truth is out there.
Thank you PBS NewsHour, todays 1/15/23 broadcast:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-climate-change-makes-intense-winter-weather-events-more-common
Agreed.
No legitimate excuse.
The media is silent because of petroleum. The world runs on petroleum. Who controls petroleum controls the world.
The media avoids presenting things that polarize it's viewers - like climate change which is a very divisive topic.
There are two main groups of people those who accept it as a scientific fact and those for whom science is secondary to their "beliefs".
We live in a massively technological world all products of science but still a very large portion of the population thinks that "believing" in science is optional.
Technology does not long tolerate such incredible foolishness.
"Don't Look Up"
I am a scientist and some of my work invovles assessing correlations. Between 1970 and 2010 the correlation between the atmospheric CO2 and mean global temperature was high. When two curves are correlated, it can mean one of four things: 1) A causes B, 2) B causes A, 3) A and B are caused by something else, and 4) they are unrelated (coincidence). Globally, we have pinned everything on option A (even though we can't test/prove it), i.e. CO2 causes global atmospheric warming.
If you look at CO2 vs Global temperature data for the last 1000 years - there is no significant correlation. If you look at data for the last 100 000 years, there is no significant correlation. If you look at the data since 2010, the two curves are diverging, i.e. reducing correlation. If the curves cease to be correlated, it rules out options A, B and probably C.
In Australia, we are also experiencing weather extremes; droughts, bushfires, and severe floods. Our media was quick to attribute this to climate change until data emerged that similar (and even more severe) weather patterns occurred in the 1930-1950 period in Australia.
I suspect the media is starting to back off the climate change narrative because the data isn't looking so supportive any more and because they have raised the expectation that if CO2 reaches net zero, the weather extremes will stop - they won't. We have always had droughts, floods, bushfires and cyclones in Australia and these will continue post net zero. They will elsewhere in the world too.
What really bugs me is that all this focus on the climate change narrative has reduced funding for research on what really affects our climate and weather and it is distracting us from the important job of protecting habitat, biodiversity and ensuring that what we do on the planet is sustainable.
So refreshing to see others alarmed at how so very long it took the media to use the word LIE in the earliest stages of Trump's term...geeeeeez. And now, no mention of the science of climate change in the face of unprecedented weather disasters, Why does media hold back ? Really, why do they ?
In an attempt not to appear overly "woke," some members in the media are twisting themselves into knots to avoid upsetting the sensibilities of those who've drank the Right wing, Exxon, global-warming-is-a-hoax Kool-Aid.
The media has no problem supporting insurrection, reporting on the Qanon, Trump rallies- ANYTHING that will drive advertising revenue. There's no reporting the news anymore. I was just reminded of Don Henleys song "Dirty Laundry". Follow the money - it's always about the money.
No one wants to talk about how humans will eventually consume the planets resources, rather than change HOW we live. In the 70s population control was part of the discussion (birth control was just starting), a land mine no one wants to step on. We had 3-4 billion then, there’s 8 billion now. I’m a science fiction reader- this topic has been well covered. I was really moved when Shatner said he felt profound sadness after seeing the Earth from space- our mindset is the Earth is dying and there’s nothing we can do about it. I call BS on that…
In the 17th century, Bishop Ussher read the bible and determined the Earth was 6,000 years old. Wheat had been domesticated for 10,000 years, so did they cultivate it in space? The very wealthy also believe in luck, which why they were alright with gambling with others retirement funds. Thorstein Veblen understood what was happening, but he was just a very boring author. He explained their mentality very well, but I had to reread it several times. "The Theory of the Leisure Class."
On the 7th day, god went to the beach and invented surfing. I took a Historical Geology course and one of the girls was overly religious. Our Prof told her "because god said so is not a legitimate answer. Give me some science or I'll have to fail you."
In 1975, Major Harold Hering was discharged from the USAF for asking, "how do I know the orders to launch my missiles came from a sane president?"
Republicans need to understand that their grandchildren will be in peril if they continue to take a pass on climate change. It is as if the party that ignores science is waiting for science to remedy the situation. To the billionaires who love to have buildings named after them: It will all be for naught if they don't recognize what is coming soon.
I, too, live in California. Right smack dab on the coast. We have mudslides and pieces of real estate falling into the ocean. Some of that real estate has highways attached to it. Some has housing. Some is public land. Don't go to the beaches because they are full of debris, including some stuff that floated down from the creeks when the sewers overflowed. What we can do is get the word out. Tell everyone you know.
The ownership of all major media is so concentrated that their corporate interests are inseparable from global corporate interests in general . Their risks should they ever be denied access to events is magnified by the scale of their earnings which are measured and defined by their market share. The major media are simply no longer the independent voices in a competitive free market of ideas that we could rely on 50 years ago. There were over a hundred major voices then that have now been concentrated down to only six. We have thousands of internet voices now with no way to guess who has or tells the truth. Major newspapers mattered, but as in all capitalist systems, the bad drives out the good. So here we are. Unable to parse the roar of propaganda and exaggeration, with out a clue to what's true.
The "media" refusing to talk about "Climate Change" is much more serious than a "loss for democracy," it's a loss for the future of this planet. In my view, the "Earth" is crying out for humans to change their behavior. And, you can look directly at our political "scene" to understand why this is such a frustrating reality. While the climate crisis predates the 21st century, just take a look at what many of us have been talking about on this site in the past year. The US Supreme Court, in my view, may be the biggest offender when it comes to the denialism of the climate crisis. For starters, the presidential election of 2000 is looking more and more like an inflexion point in this issue, from my perspective. The court "elected" George W Bush by stopping a recount of the votes in Florida which, I still believe, would have put Al Gore into the "White House." The difference was TWO "oilmen," GW Bush and Dick Cheney into the most powerful office in the world instead of Gore whose push to put "Climate Change" into the forefront of our politics has become something of an afterthought. So, instead of Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" being behind the leadership of our country, we got Iraq and Afghanistan and years of republicans and their surreptitious supporters (the Koch's and others) pushing the fossil fuel agenda. There are things people can do to help change our nation's behavior but many of the people I know just don't believe there's a crisis at hand. In 2014 I put solar panels on our home which have produced over 80,000 kilowatts of electricity. With government incentives the cost was returned in about 6 years. My wife and I have been driving electic cars since 2015 - mine is a Chevy Volt hybrid, that I've only had to put around 60 gallons of gas into in 6 years (it's my second Volt) hers is an all electric Nissan Leaf (A wonderful car with a range of around 250 miles with a full charge). Again, with available incentives electic cars are almost a no-brainer" to me. Instead of a $400 gas bill each month, it costs about $50 worth of electricity to charge our cars. From my perspective, when democrats began pushing the "Green New Deal" they were almost immediately considered "extremists" by the media. The media allows republicans to get away with labeling the progressive "investments" America badly needs as "socialism." I live in the state of Washington which has been the "target" of "atmospheric rivers" for the past several years. To those of us who've been here a long time it's just more rain. But I have several family members who live in California, and while they were in desperate need of the rain, due in large part to the many FIRES of recent years, the soil in California is "no match" for the amount of rain which comes with these torrential storms leading to flooding, huge mudslides and massive destruction. The cause SHOULD be obvious, but enough of our voters continue to be willfully ignorant (certainly part the media's fault) so that, somehow, these right wing republicans continue to get voted into office. The reality we face today is the republican controlled House guarantees NOTHING more will get done to combat this climate crisis for at least the next TWO years. Sadly, my experience tells me we'll have to get well beyond the "tipping point" before the time when the voters decide to put this present version of the republican party into the history books for good. That, of course, means more fires and "atmospheric rivers" for California, and intense weather conditions for the rest of the country - ie Hurricanes and Tornadoes. Yikes!!!
European cooling is precisely because of global warming, the result of the Gulf Stream being shunted off due to so much ice melting in the Arctic.
I agree completely about strange silences in the media. One of the most deafening is regarding Steve Bannon and his huge part in chaos around the world, including advising autocrats and insurrectionists everywhere. That advice certainly includes his unhelpful views on climate change, encouraging deforestation, promoting greed and use of fossil fuels, etc.
"Each climate calamity we endure is another learning opportunity for the nation to understand the existential threat of climate change and why we must take the lead in reversing it."
This is the money quote. When each weather disaster happens, it should be driven home by the media, in clear, emphatic terms, that's there's a straight line between human activity and that disaster. That connection should be pounded relentlessly. Populations in the developed world shouldn't be able to hide from the connection.
Global climate change is in fact planetary effect of excessive chemical change to the planet systems. Unfortunately, the human response is a simple case of economic and political failure resulting from inaccurate scientific teaching and deception by the economically powerful who have brain washed the public to protect the economic and political interests of the exceptionally wealthy. Additionally, America has been brain washed into believing the only important thing is jobs especially high paying jobs while establishing an economic system that insures many are left out. How many people on our society even know how much energy arrives at our planet from the sun, how much energy the earth itself supplies and how much energy our high-tech society requires to keep us in warm cozy homes and offices and hurdling through space in our automobiles? Finally, how has the planet evolved to allow such sophisticated organisms to survive on its surface? Knowledge about the air water and planetary soil systems is critical. Unfortunately, we live in a social system dedicated to greed much to the detriment of knowledge and understanding that can allow a planetary maintenance and human health and equality. Ultimately, what surprises are part of the evolution of this planet? If you are only struggling to afford food, clothing and a warm home how can you even care?
I am tired of the media raising the cry of "Climate Change!" whenever there is a weather-driven disaster. I do not feel it is helpful for dealing with disasters. By saying "climate change" the public is being blamed. Not a good or useful position.
And then there is the recent news from a German scientist who claims that Europe will be cooling in the next 20 years. He wrote an article about it. See https://clintel.org/german-renewable-energies-expert-global-warming-is-going-to-pause-as-north-atlantic-cools/. He has a Wikipedia page.
Fear and denial are useless expenditures of human energy. It comes down to greed when we all fail to look at facts, to plan and to apply the knowledge we already have to mitigate the current and impending challenges to our physical safety. We’ve made a silent deal to live with those shortcomings.
Weather is one area of challenge but if you really want to scare the bejesus out of yourself, re-read the Pulitzer Prize winning THE REALLY BIG ONE from The New Yorker Magazine (April 2015). We’re only guests on this Earth, floating on the mutable crust like croutons!
If you look back on trump’s analogy how you should clear underneath the trees to make it more fire resistant and safe. Thinking about it at first it sounds really great but that’s the argument of the lumber industry in order to create a better product only growing fur trees. The idea works at first but then you have global warming and it’s the canopy itself that’s important all of the resources working together and those resources are. Madrone oak whitethorn and razor ferns just to make a minimal list. This will assure the spring water that flows underneath the soil to move in an even pace throughout the seasons and support the natural evolution of growth protect the younger dug fur and balance ecology. So Donald Trump was wrong in his analogy of how to correct the problem of fires as well as ecology. Not accepting the fact that fire is a part of the process to make the dug fur stronger grow back easier and support and natural ecological evolution that aids the canopy and its growth as a whole not just for dug fur or Redwood. As far as redwoods grow we’re way past the point of balancing the ecology with Redwood but the Indians that live still in Northern California have a good argument and protecting the canopy. Even though some Native Americans in Northern California lean more towards the lumber company and have a reasonable argument which there are a few.
Well guess you better watch out for what you wish for. Hasn't California and the southwest been in like some kind of 500 year drought or something? Saw report that in Arizona one of the farmers who usually plants 2,000 acres but due to water restrictions they are only allowed to plant on half 1,000 acres. Googled Lake Mead and from what I gathered Lake Mead has risen like 2 feet. But the snow melt in the spring from the Sierra Nevada mountains showed a 200% snow fall above average, which I guess will replenish Lake Mead even more. So yes California getting hammered... tragic but the moisture is so much needed. Wish it would of come at a slower pace but dam the southwest needs all of this..rain moisture.. damned if you do damned if you don't. Stay safe Mr. Reich and hope you are able to recover form all of this..
Timidity rather than temerity
It's the proverbial head in the sand response to climate change that is so disturbing. I see it here in the State of Florida with our present government officials. California has been the more obvious place due to the fires and of course the flooding. I am not sure how it may affect earth quakes but that does come to mind.
I've had a different experience. I've been hearing about climate change and it's affects on the world and California for some time now...fires to atmospheric rivers and flash floods, and on and on and on. Perhaps not as often as you'd like but frankly that's all I've been hearing about for years....climate change. Even before I was in high school (50+ years ago). At that time I was even wondering how long I had to live considering climate change, and should I bring any children into the world. It's more than depressing...it disgusts me that this hasn't been handled properly. I think it's awful how some of our representatives have been so stupid as to not address this sooner...and the people who let them get away with it....what were they thinking? Don't they want their children to survive, and their children's children? How do these people get in office?! Our system of government needs a lot of improvement. We need to get a better system for choosing our leaders for the sake of the future of our planet and mankind. We need to think about how the future will be affected by the decisions we make today. We need to develop a system for evaluating these things and for making better decisions. Logic and reason are a good start. Perhaps "keeping up with the Jones" of the world should be looked down upon and a new vision created for our future...a future that is inclusive; a future that considers the practicalities of everything from how we live and survive to our resources and sustainability; to the amount of trash we are creating; to maybe considering alternatives to our current idea of capitalism....currently a free-for-all that has gone beyond ridiculous; to how many babies we have; the condition of the planet on which we live....the big picture down to the nuts and bolts. Planet planning...not just city planning.
Media of all types depend upon followers. The majority of the American public don't care to follow what they can't understand. They depend on the bottom line...rain is coming, get prepared. Californians accepted the "atmospheric river". Few questioned its origin. Lurking below the climate crisis is a fundamental disorder: the ability to comprehend science, we as a nation are illiterate in science. National science scores are historically abysmal...Less than 25% of our nation's public elementary students are proficient in science,(grades 4 and 8), unchanged and unchecked for DECADES. (NAEP) Solution? YES. Following European and Asian educational models, private and well-heeled schools for the last 25 years have hired science education specialists to engage younger students, building a foundation of science literacy. The well endowed are the well informed... here in the US. WESTED Educational think tank revealed that 1% of all credentialed elementary school teachers have a background in science. This is not an indictment of elementary teachers, it is a failing of public school systems that refuses to change. Studies and reports documenting science literacy have slept in files inactive and unread. Support public elementary education with specialists in science and math and watch public education and knowledge shift over the decade. Science and math teachers love what they teach. This week, science teachers in private elementary schools in California (and those in public service who love science) are armed with with knowledge and enthusiasm from a deep background to engage students in Earth science, meteorology and physics. Is YOUR elementary-aged student school science excited and devouring science? When you know concepts backwards and forwards...you become really adept at making the complex comprehensible. (Psst...some teachers will be constructing sink- hole geology, debris flows, water erosion or connecting the rainfall levels and scrub growth to the drought conditions to follow, creating another cycle of wildfire. Wow..I could go on!)
I know that after 38 years as a science educator the reality of my post. I have taught in public and private schools. Keeping the majority uninformed has consequences. I wonder if the Fortune 500 companies have an easier road when then can drive the science based narratives....
p.s. "There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know." John Heywood
We must look to ourselves and a long row to hoe it will be.
You are so right that reporters, pundits, and others often don’t connect the dots when the connections are so important to understand. As you say, the severe weather patterns are clearly related to human-caused climate change. Likewise, climate change is one of a number of concerning environmental problems, including pollution, loss of species diversity and shortage of open space, that are collectively caused by global overpopulation and overconsumption, especially by the most wealthy. These in turn result from economic and social systems that incentivize prioritizing profits over caring for each other and the earth. All of these issues are connected.
Back to original premise. I think the media has not given the full story of water and wind in California because they know full well the bulk of the money and ownership for broadcasting comes from the same sources as the companies that do most of the polluting causing climate change. To them it may seem reporting it honestly would be like biting the hand that feeds them.
I don't see some evil conspiracy here, just a matter of money---as always. Very discouraging.
How do you think people would fare if they were only able to acquire one gallon of water per day per person?
It seems as though man is a stupid animal. We seem to be self destructive. We are just aggressive. We want to kill our fellows and ignore clear signs that destruction of our own habitat is actually happening before our eyes. The most aggressive of our species seems to be able to subjugate the more peaceful of us. The only hope we have is a strong and vibrant democracy. We cannot reward the most aggressive among us.
The United States should get out of the Middle East altogether. All they have is oil and sand and if we are going to advance past the 17th century, we must develop a fuel that is not petroleum based, and not a crop that wouldn't risk anybody's food supply. If we must buy anything from the Saudis, buy their sand to replenish our beaches and let then eat their oil. Hemp could be used and although it does have food value, it doesn't need toxic spray, I don't trust industry not to poison it. Hemp can also be used for paper, fabric and building materials. It’s also clean, green and renewable. Large hemp fields would also help balance the O2 to CO2 that has been going on the burning of petroleum and coal.
It isn’t marijuana that scares them as much as hemp. Corporations are afraid of it, because it replaces so many of their products, but if they could get their heads out of the sand and use hemp instead, it could be to their benefit. Oil exploration, drilling and pipeline costs and maintenance would be a thing of the past, clear cutting and pulp factories would be obsolete, they wouldn’t have pesky environmentalists on their backs all of the time. If only one corporation could get started and make a horrendous profit, leaving the others in the dust, maybe the others would take note.
The United States has a problem with damming rivers to the point where the natural replacement for the sand particles that would ordinarily flow towards the ocean are trapped in reservoirs. Now huge boulders are brought in to prevent the beach sand from being moved to the ocean floor by longshore transport, but not even boulders work well. Humans have tried many different structures to prevent sand from being transported to the ocean floor, but in the end Nature just laughs at them.
After water, sand is probably the second most pirated commodity. A real problem of sand piracy exists in many parts of the world where beaches and offshore supplies of rounded sand particles are stolen in large quantity. The reason for using desert sand as a replacement is because it's too angular for the construction trade and would be rejected. If angular desert sand were to be brought in for beach replacement, it would take many years for it to become construction grade.
The petroleum industry wants us to burn more fuel, and they would like us to do so with ever increasing inefficient engines. If the American auto makers and petroleum industry had a mantra, it might be “don't make them efficient, just make them bigger!” Can we advance or simply continue on the industry's path to ‘flamboyant mediocrity’*?
Whenever anybody talks about energy sources that threaten Saudi oil revenues, they lower the price, thereby forcing an amnesiac stupor that causes target nations to forget how many times the Saudis had done that to them. Their strategy has been likened to the slow boiling death of a frog. Once they lower the price, different energy sources are not as important to continue and then we adapt to the ever increasing rises to where it had been before the lowering.
Humans pride themselves with having a brain, but what good is having one if it isn't used? * I got that from a classmate in college. I’d have liked to have claimed it as mine, but I can’t.
The news media is mostly owned by entertainment companies motivated purely by profit. Climate change has been made political my the propaganda machine of the fossil fuel industry, so covering it might alienate a piece of the audience when ratings are all that matter. They coverage is as disaster porn designed to tempt our base gawker instincts to hold our attention until the next ad. If they do educate or inform, at best its to legitimize themselves as news media, and at worst, it's by accident. This is just another symptom of the corporate cannibalism (consolidation) that eliminates real competition. Just as I'm preaching to the choir here, independent media on the internet cannot propagate the truth to serve a general audience in a world ruled by confirmation bias algorithms.
Speaking of climate, there's not enough forest to convert all of the CO2 back to oxygen. Most of the progress have made is negated by population growth. Technology is not up to the task and is unaffordable even today short of the goal. Population control is the only viable solution, and if we don't do it, nature will and will do it ruthlessly and cruelly. Covid is just a first shot at culling the heard. We can't grow crops in alternating drought and deluge. We catch fish in a poisoned acidic ocean. Starvation will spread beyond those countries we can't pronounce. The Second Amendment people think they can live off the grid, but they can't make their own weather or live off the planet.
From the "There Is Nothing New Under The Sun Department":
The Great Flood of 1868...
I did prepare this video attribution statement the day before the first big storm and Berkeley Lab media made a big push. But no major news outlets contacted me. If it had been about hurricanes, my phone would have run off its hook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNKG4djchC4&t=3s
Our storms, the heating up of the arctic, Europe, deadly drought and flooding in Africa and the Middle East are all part of a pattern. That pattern needs to be put together by the media along with facts on the warming of the planet. The world's unhealthy lifestyle is putting everyone at risk.
perhaps, Prof Reich, the reason is that the world, including media, as hard as it is to believe, is wising up to the whole climate change thing? Finally, belatedly, with great damage already done in it's wake, but wising up nonetheless?
Yes, climate does change. If you live long enough you will experience some change in climate, as I have. The climate cooled somewhat in the years leading to my teenage years. Having been interested in science from a young age, I do recall breathless pronouncements then that the Earth was sliding into an accelerated ice age because of, you guessed it, human influence through particulate pollution. What happened instead was temperatures turning around ~1980, rising fairly rapidly to ~2000, and mostly saturating since.
The claim that all of this can be explained by a single factor, concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is an extraordinary claim from the scientific standpoint. We have a saying in physics (I have a PhD in physics) that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Alas, none has been offered. What has been offered instead is an abuse of those who disagree, to a point of comparing them to Holocaust deniers. This alone is enough to say that what we are dealing with here is gross abuse of science by political operatives. Not science any more.
Carbon dioxide is a minor warming gas. The majority of warming in the atmosphere comes from water vapor. Moreover, carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation in a relatively narrow band which is mostly saturated at concentrations which are well below present day concentrations. As a consequence, models which predict extraordinary response of the atmosphere to carbon dioxide concentrations require ad hoc assumptions of strong couplings between carbon dioxide and water vapor for which there is no empirical evidence. The other name for these assumptions is a fudge factor, otherwise also known as "climate sensitivity".
The "climate change" debate has been hijacked by those who wish to treat Capitalism and western consumption in general as a moral evil and a threat to humanity. The same kinds of people (though not exactly the same people) who were claiming an unstoppable peril because of particulate pollution when I was young and exactly for the same reasons. It is not just a a shame. This hijacking caused an unmeasurable harm to Science and the ability of Science to influence society. This is also a potential tragedy, since Science brought us to the point of 8 billion people and only continuing application of Science can keep all of these people fed, clothed, sheltered and taken care of.
Now I will offer you an olive branch.
Fossil fuels are a dead end. Not because of global warming but because there are not enough of them for 8 billion people. If one wanted to extend North American oil consumption per capita to 8 billion people, world oil production would have to increase by ~600%. To the EU level, by ~300%. neither is likely to happen. While new oil is still being found, they are found in difficult to reach places and the extraction becomes increasingly costly. Costly means that a shrinking portion of each barrel of oil can be used to fuel the civilization as extraction itself takes ever greater portion of the said barrel. For this reason, and this reason alone, it is imperative to diversify the energy base of the industrial civilization. To repeat: imperative.
This is where my olive branch ends. Underinvesting in fossil fuels today can be catastrophic. Modern civilization is but a temporary pattern on the flow of energy. Disrupt this flow and the civilization will crumble faster than you can formulate this idea in your mind. If you want more of Donald Trump, or his younger clones, use politics to suppress the flow of fossil fuels. I am not talking about taking fewer vacations. I am talking about eating. It is extremely unlikely that 330 million US citizens could be fed without industrial agriculture which rests on energy supply. We need to be able to walk and chew gum. This means providing a secure supply of energy for which we have an industrial base today, while supporting the energy transition.
Do get off your high horse, climate activists. Do stick your head out of your echo chamber. Do consider the possibility that you might just be on the wrong side of history before you confidently accuse others of the same.
Amen, Robert. ...An in another arena, I've often wondered why the media fails to make a connection between the drug addiction crisis and the unaddressed economic factors that leave far too many people behind in the areas of education, vocational training, and social support that would provide avenues to a productive life.
The once proudly accurate news media in this Country have lost their credibility in most part to the ultra wealthy, ultra greedy owners who spent a few decades between the 70's and early 2000's gobbling up all the large media outlets in the most populous areas of the US. Why? So they could have their personal propaganda machines who would publish and air only what they wanted the masses to believe. I think they have shot themselves in the foot. The best newspapers in the Country have so shrunk in circulation some are bleeding money. TV news is attuned to promoting celebrity. What dribbles of news they report have to fact checked. I remember a time when people like Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Edward Murrow were avidly listened to because you could trust their reporting. Climate Change, which without doubt has been caused and increased by Human activity, is primarily the fault of Big Business everywhere in the industrialized world. Fixing it means lowering the immoral profits at a time when there seems to be a race to the bottom dregs to become the richest human in the world. The pity is, the people paying the highest price for this greed are the islanders who had the least to do with causing this preventable catastrophe. You and I, Robert, living in Northern California are seeing these effects from the comforts of our homes, but as you point out, too many Californians are facing death and illness from exposure to the elements. But just think what it must be like living in Fiji, Guam, Samoa, and other Islands where there is no where to go, no means to escape from the terror.
The media needs to do their job and research what is happening. Then they need to present the FACTS. That is journalistic rigor. That is journalistic honesty. Let's stop supporting those who cannot find the courage to do their job rigorously and honestly.
Money pretty much runs the country these days, including its politics and its major media outlets. Apparently it’s not in the interests of money to acknowledge problems that might challenge those interests.
Well said. Thank you.
Bob, it looks like your gripe with the news organizations is more likely a dispute over how the editors approach their jobs. For a significant fraction of the country climate change is not a fact, and they may be the same people who read the advertising the supports mainstream media as it’s circling the drain. Of your daily posts so far this one stands out as trivial
Thank you for speaking up about this! I have a new baby, and am regularly terrified by the thought that he'll be 78 in the year 2100. And I am enraged by the knowledge that oil company execs knew about this since at least the 1980s, and went out of their way to actively obscure the facts and avoid responsibility. How do they explain this to their grandchildren? I wish more people in power were listening to your guidance, and I wish there was more each of us could do.
Admitting to climate change causes the donor class to become agitated to losses to their bottom line!! They heap $$ on elected officials to keep this from becoming known and popular. Our youth know and experienced the results of climate change! Ignoring it, is a small-minded minority! Unfortunately, they control media and Congress!
Since we're not going to reverse global warming anytime soon, we could mitigate the damage from both floods and droughts with a national water pipeline system. The technology already exists, as does a nationwide distributed storage network--the hundreds of reservoirs across the country. It would siphon off water when a big storm hit, thus reducing the damage. You could move water anywhere in the country. Imagine Lake Mead full again. That's the definition of a win-win solution.
There really is a "deep state" but it's not the one that the Qnuts imagine. It is a cabal made up of corporate America, and the oligarchs of Big Oil, Pharma, Banking, the MSM, etc. sit on its board of directors. When you don't hear about the real reason for the weather disasters or gun violence, it's just the professional courtesy of one snake not biting the other.
Rewatch “An Inconvenient Truth.” Explains it all. 😢
So true. The denial around, not climate change, but the climate *emergency* is deafening and mindboggling. I'm a therapist, and even in therapist groups when the topic is raised as something we should get ready for coming into the therapy room, one hears crickets. Its maddening, but I am tired of being chicken little.
Hurricane Ian in Florida: We lived far away from the sea but it hit our street and flooded most of us, destroying everything inside our homes. No talk of climate change, even though it most certainly must have been a contributing cause.
Obviously, the petroleum industry, the auto-industry, amongst other satellite industries, dependent on traditional manufacturing cash flow streams,(petroleum and the burning thereof) are at the crux of the mis and dis information and silence on this and any other pertinent subject which may interrupt that cash flow ! No matter the ill-affects on man kind in general or any disproportionately ill-effected faction thereof . Beating that dead horse yet again, a democracy cannot survive without a free and honest press free of political, financial or social bias . VOILA' ! !
Any Doubt . .
"I may not get there with you" as if he knew a Price had come due . .
Had come out against the war . .and knew what he was in for .
a Forgive them. They know not what they do. # about Environmental Justice?
On the nose.
Gotta respect a man who keeps ‘punching up’ in the common interest. 😉
As an economist what do you think of "Carbon Fee and Dividend" as a impetus to help change our dependent on fossil fuel?
We humans, uniquely among all animals, posess the singular ability to fool ourselves. Those few who rule use this to increase their powers, by cleverly selling dangerous inventions, products, politics, beliefs, etc. So there you have it!!!
I have experienced the same dissonance between reality and the media's reporting of horrific events clearly relating to climate change. It is highly disturbing. I'm sorry that you are having to endure this horror in California. Please stay safe.
You are right and all I see are on the scientific side of the rain. How you can go from drought to this is interesting. Climate change is hurting many with the increased storms and intensity of them.
Thank you. Keep up the consciousness and important work. Ron Ennis
Change will come only when the cost of climate change exceeds the money corporations make from environmental destruction - and not a second before. The death of Americans and the destruction of lives is of no interest to our Republican leaders or their corporate benefactors. Power and money is all that matters to them.
I worry deeply about you my dear friend. You said, during this Saturday's coffee clatch, that you write most often and most meaningfully when you are angry. And you write every day and often several times in a day. You write in the morning, afternoon, and often times, like this latest article, late into the night. If you are angry that much of the time, surely your days, hours and minutes are numbered. For anger eventually destroys the host long before the target.
If you are waiting for the media to make a meaningful difference in our approach to climate change -Stop - because that will never happen and you are wasting your efforts. The media is just another conglomeration of corporate entities who primary reason to exist is to make a profit. Their principle and most profitable product is conflict. They have no interest in solutions or anything that would reduce the level of conflict. Rather, they maintain a laser focus on keeping the factions on both sides just healthy and strong enough to maintain the "cock fight" that satiates the ignorant masses and so feeds their greed. Don't let those lines of concern on Anderson Cooper's forehead fool you. It's all part of the fraudulent reality show called America created by the likes of CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and the rest. The media will never blame climate change because its not republican or democrat and that means it won't raise the temperature of the slug fest they live to promote. For them, environmental destruction is great fuel. It feeds the fire or our discontent, raises the level of hatred and division, and keeps the cash flowing ever constantly. I don't understand how you cannot see this.
YES!! We MUST seriously address climate change!
John Wesner
The current spate of California rain is likely part of the historic climate pattern that has affected California for eons. That doe not equate with climate deniers.
Not so remarkable if it's corporate media and we follow the money. I've been following those who advocate regenerative agriculture as a way to return carbon to the earth and mitigate the drought and flood cycles we now see. Industrial farming kills the living soil ecosystem, leaving dirt that is unable to absorb water. The entire water cycle is disrupted when rainwater runs off, eroding soil and preventing groundwater recharge. Farmland becomes much like the asphalt and concrete in cities, causing flooding. Brad Lancaster is showing how to make cities more water absorbing in Tucson, and Nicole Masters, Gabe Brown and others are helping farmers to find solutions. These efforts give me hope.
The evidence for global warming is increasing. We have the ability and intelligence to solve the problem. But we seem to prefer fighting each other. I believe the fallback defense for humans, when life is difficult, is to become paranoid and blame somebody else for the trouble. Frank
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=the+fault+is+not+in+our+stars+dear+brutus
As was pointed out to me recently…religious communities do a fair job of showing kindness and walking with their God, but we don’t do justice well. Knowing that weather events are influenced by global warming but not fixing the “system” is an example of not doing justice. Media and citizens need a “do better”, and work to solve the situation, for everyones sake!
There needs to be a rational--rather than emotional--discussion of costs and benefits of climate stabilization. Are we in North America prepared to live as the Amish do in order to stop climate change? If not, then some of the more emotional appeals of Extinction Rebellion need to be rejected. Let the discussion begin.
I'm just finding it terrifying waking up every morning to the utter chaos....the greed, cruelty, violence, political malpractice, the fact that we are really dealing with a political party that is fully authoritarian, and totally abandoned the democratic principles the country was founded on. Because of this we seem to be in endless crisis mode with ever increasing economic devastation.
The owners of the media are mostly GOOP major climate change deniers. Anything that doesn't dovetail with their agenda is either demonized or ignored. I'm waiting for the uber wealthy to be directly affected, as only then will it hit the fan.
Ditto on the #EXXON #EXXONMOBIL reference.
Thanks, Seeking. As with not curing a disease but dispensing exorbitantly-priced meds to "treat" them (just check out the prime time commercials to track who's raking it in - Big Farm, Big Law, Big Insurance)., there's too much money at stake in the arms industry. That's what it boils down to, time and time again. Worship of the golden calf.
Even if the media adopted the perils of climate change as its mantra, that would make little difference. If we want to have a mass response to this problem, we would have to present climate change prevention as an economic opportunity. Americans respond to the idea that they will be better off economically when they do something; pronouncements by anonymous scientists of catastrophic gloom and doom if we don’t act now simply don’t resonate with the folks who are more concerned about keeping their families fed and keeping a roof over their heads.
I just want to tell you what a great relief it is to hear you tell the truth as you always do. The omissions you tick off, especially in the context of what seem to be principled outlets and people (talking about you, NPR), feel like slow asphyxiation...and are. I would add one that doesn't fit into the "issue" category but is more a process one: when otherwise good interviewers let guests avoid answering the question it give me the same sense of helpless anger. (I know this really doesn't fit with your point, but personally it has the same effect and and IS the same passive, polite dishonesty,) Thank you again and again.
The republicans will never acknowledge a man made climate change. The message HAS to change. Instead of blaming humanity for the disasters of today, use the science to spur a movement to get humanity to fix it. Focus not on what we’ve done, but spin it positive as to what we can do. Kind of like the “make America great again” but instead “make the world safe for humanity again.” Or something like that.
Let’s get back to calling it “GLOBAL WARMING”! Extreme weather is the result of “global warming”. It is irrefutable today, the statistics starkly show human activity is the cause of the abnormal rise in global temperature. “Global warming” has bite to it, responsibility is implied. In my opinion referring to our climate crisis as “climate change” diffuses the responsibility of what is causing our worldwide extreme weather, the climate is always changing it’s natural, it’s why we have four seasons. The term “climate change” lets a lot of people off the hook, “global warming” has urgency to it and we all darn well know we’re the culprits!
Follow the money..... look who owns our media.....a terrible time to be a good reporter.
Revenue the flood of 1861-62 regarding extreme weather events in California. These are 200-year events by geological and tree ring records. Perhaps global warming will make them more frequent but the ARkStorms are a recurring feature of the west coast. Snowpacks are a good thing for filling reservoirs over time. It's when we have an unusual warming trend that melts snowpack before spring (as in 1862 and 2017) that extreme flooding occurs downstream. We may experience much more flooding in the weeks to come if weather warms!
“...or the reporters during the early stages of Trump’s presidency who didn’t want to come right out and say he lied.”
You say that as if the situation is changed.  even after all that has happened reporters STILL don’t come right out and say he lied. 
The Ocean temperature is at an all time high, leading to more extreme storms. It’s well documented by climate scientists.
Why worry--our corporate masters have gated communities and security tech to protect them from climate change; insulated from the plight of the masses ?
This is all true and quite sad but, in a sense, nothing new. The mainstream media, including some very good publications, have become risk-averse to reporting on anything that might be deemed controversial or upsetting or, worst of all, "left wing" (God forbid!). Look at how the January 6th committee hearings were grossly underreported by most major news outlets in America, even the majesterial New York Times, which only rarely gave them front page coverage. And, however much one might regret it, climate change is one of those no go areas, tarred by right wingers, as a left wing cause (as opposed to something in reality that cries out for action.) Still, there has been some reporting on it so I suppose we should be grateful for that. In fact, the NYT carried a story about a month ago on how warming of the oceans was leading to more water in the atmosphere and that one likely consequence was an "atmospheric river" that would deluge California in a way that had rarely ever been seen. As I recall, they tried to add some reassurance that it might not happen for many years. Well, surprise! it has just happened. Incidentally, for individuals who find it helpful to reflect on reality partly through the power of fiction and imagination, I recommend highly George R. Stewarts "Storm" published in the early 1940s. It really is excellent and so appropriate to the current crisis in California though the storm depicted while huge is less than what the state is now experiencing.
Similar to UK where the main political parties are in denial about the dreadful economic consequences of leaving the European Union (Brexit), and parliament absolutely refuses to allow time for debate. The mainstream media, mainly right wing, are also wilfully ignoring the topic, citing the pandemic and the war in Ukraine but failing to mention the elephant in the room.
It is not only the US where the big lie is promulgated by some truly appalling people, but here too where the whole Brexit campaign was a tissue of lies from beginning to end.
and obfuscates.
No, this is not the fault of the news media, including radio, television, newspapers and the like. No this is not the fault of our spineless politicians or the fault of the GOP or the fault of the Dems. No, it is not the fault of corporations and business interests. As Scty Reich knows full well, they are doing precisely what any business is supposed to do and that is operating in their own self-interest.
Anyone getting enough oxygen knows or should know how many times David Attenborough has explained the consequences of our ongoing actions or inactions. One of his latest films recounts the impact of climate change and population growth over his lifetime. Of course the impact is huge. So much so that we are in the midst of a colossal period of extinction.
No, it isn't any of their fault. It is our fault. It is we who put our lifestyles above all else. It is we who said our own self-centered interest was more important than anything else. And it is we who will likely leave this life without experiencing the consequences of our decisions. Instead they will be dumped onto the shoulders of the young.
But, there is good news for planet Earth. Earth will continue to spin, circle the sun, and have seasons; albeit substantially changed for a while. And when the planet is no longer fit for human habitat then and only then will the planet heal itself. We just won't be here to screw it up.