The increasingly immodest children of a modest star

What would governance look like if our planetary condition was central rather than ancillary to our political self-conceptions? What issues would become paramount, and how might this change our views? How would we act if we took seriously humanity’s profound integration into Earth’s planetary systems, demonstrated by the COVID pandemic, from the microbiological scale of the virus to the macrosystemic scale of the planet’s atmosphere? What would change as a result of human beings being revealed, not as masters of the planet, but as part of it? 

Human beings are essentially and ineluctably embedded within planetary-scale phenomena: we affect and are affected by our Earthly home. Western science, which is the bedrock of modern technology, politics, and worldviews, however, emerged in large measure in denial of this embeddedness. Springing from a secularized distillation of Christian belief (“And God said, Let us make man in our image,” according to King James’ Genesis, “and let them have dominion . . . over all the earth”), this scientific tradition rested on the precept that humans were inherently different from all of God’s other creatures. Unlike the beasts, the “fowl of the air,” and “every thing that creepeth upon the earth,” humankind was endowed with reason and a capacity, if not moral duty, for technical mastery over the natural world—a unique inheritance that set us humans apart from nature. Yet the scientific method that developed over time from those precepts—a method of inquiry rooted in the scrutiny of evidence and radical skepticism—has, by the early twenty-first century, revealed that there is no separation between human beings and the natural world. In a triumph of the scientific method, the tools of science overturned science’s most basic assumptions. This insight has been percolating for about a century, catching the attention of the occasional forward-thinking scientist, but it is now increasingly clear that the idea of humans distinguished from nature is intellectually unsustainable. It is, moreover, ecologically ruinous. The idea of “humanity apart” is, and for a long time has been, encouraging grave harm to the ecosystems in which humans dwell and the biosphere of which humans are a part. 

These discoveries have changed the face of science and, in turn, have triggered a rupture in philosophy. But these insights about the state of the world and our place in it have yet to trickle out of the scientific labs, specialist journals, and rarified seminar rooms and into the mainstream consciousness. They certainly have not yet affected how societies act. With this book, we hope to change that. Given what we now know—and are likely to still learn—about Earth and the place of humans on it, the question that animates this book is: What should we do about it? 

Our answer is that we must transform our modes and systems of governance, which is to say the institutionalized social rules that tell us how we are supposed to live in common…

Blake, Jonathan S.; Gilman, Nils (2024-04-22T23:58:59.000). Children of a Modest Star. Stanford University Press. Kindle Edition. 

Another new book. apropos of core exigent / existential concerns...

 

"Human beings are essentially and ineluctably embedded within planetary-scale phenomena: we affect and are affected by our Earthly home. Western science, which is the bedrock of modern technology, politics, and worldviews, however, emerged in large measure in denial of this embeddedness. Springing from a secularized distillation of Christian belief (“And God said, Let us make man in our image,” according to King James’ Genesis, “and let them have dominion . . . over all the earth”), this scientific tradition rested on the precept that humans were inherently different from all of God’s other creatures. Unlike the beasts, the “fowl of the air,” and “every thing that creepeth upon the earth,” humankind was endowed with reason and a capacity, if not moral duty, for technical mastery over the natural world—a unique inheritance that set us humans apart from nature..."

A lot to reflect upon, in light of the topics of recent posts here. Stay tuned...

_________

   

Define "Civility."

Spoiler alert: it's not a synonym for "politeness," "manners," "decorum," "agreeableness," "deference," "passivity," or "humility."
  

 

I don't recall at the moment how I ran across this book. Deep into it at the moment. Much to recommend thus far.
 

Impressive woman. Master’s degree in social policy from the London School of Economics. Now adjunct faculty at Indiana University (in her “spare time“). A stickler for precise etymology-grounded definitions of core terms—very helpful in de-conflating widespread misunderstandings which only serve to routinely throw sand in the gears of discourse.

I'm particularly liking the author's long walk through the major historical philosophers. When I began my studies toward my Master's in Ethics & Policy Studies in the mid 90's, my first seminar, "History of Ethics," had 11 required texts. It was basically a history of (mostly western) philosophy beginning with Plato, and winding up amid 20th century philo thought leaders. I can attest to both Alex's broad & deep coverage and her assessments. Excellent.

(I had a 2nd seminar that fall: "Argument Analysis & Evaluation" (pdf). Lordy. I was still working at my Medicare QIO analyst day gig at the time.)

Worth it to recall again the foci on my interest in this stuff. We have no shortage of serious issues to attend and resolve constructively and peaceably (Klingenstein's War Against Evil Woke Communists a.k.a Democrats notwithstanding). To that end, in 2019 I asked "is there a Science of Deliberation?"

   

What do you think? And what have I missed in my (somewhat overlapping) tabulation?
 

UPDATE

 

One thing leads to another. Got onto this via the video interview above.

 

The Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox and my Maryland Democratic Governor Wes Moore. Will have to dig in to all of this stuff. 

Disagree Better: Healthy Conflict for Better Policy

Americans need to disagree better. And by that we don’t mean that we need to be nicer to each other, although that’s helpful. We need to learn to disagree in a way that allows us to find solutions and solve problems instead of endlessly bickering.

The “exhausted majority” of Americans want this, and the science is clear about interventions that reduce polarization. As doers and builders, Governors are in a unique position to model what healthy conflict looks like.

The Disagree Better initiative will look at the problems of polarization, elevate the solutions that groups around the country are already implementing, and feature Governors showing what disagreeing better looks like. Through public debates, service projects, public service announcements and a variety of other tactics, Americans will see a more positive and optimistic way of working through our problems...

There are others (some of whom I've previous;y cited) working this turf (click the logo graphics).

 

All quite worthy.

UPDATE, ON "CURIOSITY"

Indeed.

Nothing could be more important to true "learning." I've riffed on the topic for a long time. e.g., see one of my posts from a decade ago (some link rot at the bottom).

 

We have to care about getting at truths. Being curious implies that we're OK with not knowing things a priori. Our current know-it-all western culture impedes that motivation.

Two Cheers for Uncertainty (???)

WHAT IS THE RATIONAL FUNCTION OF "INFLUENCE" (PERSUASION)

IN EFFECTIVELY & BENEFICIENTLY RESOLVING ISSUES

Who doesn't want to be "influential?"

_____

 

UPDATE: ERRATUM GOING TO A PRIOR POST

  

 

See "Spiritual Warriors, 2024."

 

BACK ON THE "CIVILITY" TOPIC: OTHER VOICES

 

The Promise of Strong Civility

Civility is strategic and pragmatic and so not just a matter of niceness. We can use strong civility in the service of persuasion when we think carefully about our communicative interactions with others and the necessity of preserving social democracy. Communication practices matter when we are faced with questions about how to live well with others, and strong civility holds the promise of pointing us toward the kind of communication practices that might both build relationships and make sociopolitical change through persuasion possible. We foreclose opportunities for persuasion when we treat others with incivility, and we replace persuasion with the kinds of rhetorical forms of division that can only end in victory or defeat. We cannot build a democratic way of life with those kinds of communication practices as a foundation. We do not mean to offer civility as a cure-all or an antidote to the erosion of democratic institutions and the laws and policies that surely preserve and protect our democratic system of government. Analyses that ask questions about those institutions of governance are essential to fulfilling the promise of our democratic future but so are analyses of the communicative practices that we use within the social spaces that make up the deliberative imaginary. The promise of strong civility is that it offers us a set of specific practices and habits capable of building a democratic culture and not just a democratic system of government.

We can see the promise of strong civility more clearly if we return to our description of democracy as a wicked problem. Wicked problems are multilayered and elusive, which means that we will not ever find a perfect democracy. Instead, our description of democracy as a way of life is meant to highlight the fact that no perfect set of principles or institutions will ever give rise to an ideal form of democracy. Instead, our commitment to democracy as a way of life is supposed to return us to the rough ground of “wicked problems” that we will never solve perfectly but that we continue to work at collectively anyway—problems like how best to achieve a free and equal society when some members of that society, when granted freedom and equality, will look to oppress and demonize others. The promise of civility lies in its usefulness in traveling the rough ground of wicked problems that are always already part of our democratic culture. Strong civility remains the best available means of preserving social relationships with strangers while still seeking out provisional and uncertain solutions to intractable problems. In other words, strong civility opens up possibilities for collaboration and cooperation in such a way that the social fabric remains intact while we are working with strangers who might think differently and have different values. As communication scholars and rhetorical theorists, we prefer the rough ground of imperfect and practical solutions to intractable problems rather than ideal sketches or perfect forms of life that we can never achieve. Civility might not be the ideal weapon to wield in the fight to save democracies from dying, but it is a necessary value for temporarily holding together disparate groups of people so that we can find the best possible solutions to some impossibly difficult problems.

On Reddit, a subforum (“subreddit”) called “Change My View” gives us a glimpse of how persuasion is made possible by civility. Founded in 2013 by Kal Turnball, a Scottish teenager, “Change My View” promotes and requires respectful conversation. Strict rules essentially prohibit the use of incivility, but more important, the subreddit demonstrates how persuasion is more a matter of meeting people where they are instead of where you want them to be. Strong civility, in this case, is also a matter of listening with respect and for the purposes of understanding, but those modes of communication are also understood as key factors in the process of persuasion. This is perhaps where the greatest promise of civility lies: in the ability to teach us all how we might more productively approach the project of persuasion in ways that will hold our democratic culture together while generating the kind of change we want but do not know how to get. In other words, if we lose civility, we may lose the best means we have of changing people’s minds, and it is hard to see how we might live a democratic life without healthy and robust practices of persuasion. “Change My View” might give us a small window into how we might save our democracy, or the fact that it remains a subreddit tucked away in a distant corner of the internet might be a sign that it is too late. We cannot say whether our democracy will die or thrive in the coming years, but we do know that if it thrives, it will do so through communication practices that foreground care, cooperation, collaboration, and forms of civility that allow us to live well with others.

Keith, William; Danisch, Robert. Beyond Civility: (Rhetoric and Democratic Deliberation) (pp. 170-172). Penn State University Press. Kindle Edition.

I've cited them before. Another fine read. 

 

AHHH... THE "WICKED PROBLEM"

We can see the promise of strong civility more clearly if we return to our description of democracy as a wicked problem. Wicked problems are multilayered and elusive, which means that we will not ever find a perfect democracy. Instead, our description of democracy as a way of life is meant to highlight the fact that no perfect set of principles or institutions will ever give rise to an ideal form of democracy. Instead, our commitment to democracy as a way of life is supposed to return us to the rough ground of “wicked problems” that we will never solve perfectly but that we continue to work at collectively anyway—problems like how best to achieve a free and equal society when some members of that society, when granted freedom and equality, will look to oppress and demonize others…

Recall my prior post?

 

UPDATE: FINISHED ALEXANDRA HUDSON'S BOOK

The author wraps up nicely.

We may think that anger gives us power. But in fact it drains us of it, because we are trying to change the behavior of others through harboring a lethal emotion. Maybe it’s the Irish in my blood, but I have a long memory and sometimes find it difficult to forgive quickly—and to let past grievances stay forgiven. For some reason, it seems safer—and makes me feel less vulnerable—to stay angry instead of letting go. Often, hurts and frustrations I’ve endured manifest in unhealthy ways. At other times, I’ve found many life-giving outlets for the frustration—journaling, kickboxing, talk therapy—that have been helpful. But I’ve found that forgiving eradicates the root cause of the hurt, and is the ultimate solution.

Too often, it seems that people use woundedness as an excuse to lash out at others. They use their wounds to fuel their righteous anger, and justify harming anyone who gets in their way. People forget that violence—verbal, emotional, or physical—hurts themselves as much as it does others. It debases them. Harming others makes them less human. Our hurts are never an excuse to hurt others, and hurting others will never make the world a better place.

I fall short of the ideals of both civility and of quick forgiveness daily, and it often has negative consequences for how I interact with others. Without creating a fresh slate each day, it’s easy to operate in the world hobbled, wounded and bumping into other wounded people without the grace and emotional wealth required for life with others. I continue to remind myself of these lessons, and have found encouragement in the words of the apostle Paul, who wrote “As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”

As far as it depends on you. We are more in control of our emotions—and of our responses to our emotions—than we realize. When we fill our souls with endeavors that give us life, such as curiosity, friendship, and beauty—we are less likely to be litigious about the small things in life. We are less likely to walk through our every day running into and up against others—our self-love is less likely to bump up against the self-love of others. We are not on our own. We are not monads, and we don’t live in a vacuum. Adopting a reverence for life in all of its forms, choosing to be kind to all living things, ennobles us and the world around us.

Conversely, when we harm others, even in the name of pursuing a greater justice, we, too, are also hurt. When we are hurt by others, as William Blake noted, we hurt ourselves if we choose to drink the bitter poison of resentment—when we let our anger fester—and fail to forgive. This is how Erasmus defined civility in his handbook for young people five hundred years ago. This principle of good living together in community, alongside the many others that we have explored in this book, is remarkably timeless.

Together, as we’ve discovered throughout this book, they comprise the soul of civility. [The Soul of Civility, pp. 367-368].

Much to recommend in this book. apropos,

"WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT the individual genetic and developmental differences that impact the sensory portions of our nervous systems, it’s remarkable that we can agree on a shared reality at all."—David J. Linden

ON DECK

 

New book coming out.

Amazon blurb:

A clear-eyed and urgent vision for a new system of political governance to manage planetary issues and their local consequences.

Deadly viruses, climate-changing carbon molecules, and harmful pollutants cross the globe unimpeded by national borders. While the consequences of these flows range across scales, from the planetary to the local, the authority and resources to manage them are concentrated mainly at one level: the nation-state. This profound mismatch between the scale of planetary challenges and the institutions tasked with governing them is leading to cascading systemic failures.

In the groundbreaking Children of a Modest Star, Jonathan S. Blake and Nils Gilman not only challenge dominant ways of thinking about humanity's relationship to the planet and the political forms that presently govern it, but also present a new, innovative framework that corresponds to our inherently planetary condition. Drawing on intellectual history, political philosophy, and the holistic findings of Earth system science, Blake and Gilman argue that it is essential to reimagine our governing institutions in light of the fact that we can only thrive if the multi-species ecosystems we inhabit are also flourishing.

Aware of the interlocking challenges we face, it is no longer adequate merely to critique our existing systems or the modernist assumptions that helped create them. Blake and Gilman propose a bold, original architecture for global governance―what they call planetary subsidiarity―designed to enable the enduring habitability of the Earth for humans and non-humans alike. Children of a Modest Star offers a clear-eyed and urgent vision for constructing a system capable of stabilizing a planet in crisis.

Saw ir reviewed in Science Magazine.

_________

  

Time's 2024 Man of the Year:

A post-Presidential first.

Well, I guess we'll see...

TRUMP PRESPONDS

"Just four years ago I was a very popular and successful President of the United States, getting more votes than any sitting President in history. Tomorrow morning I’ll be in Criminal Court, before a totally conflicted Judge, a Corrupt Prosecutor, a Legal System in CHAOS, a State being overrun by violent crime and corruption, and Crooked Joe Biden’s henchmen 'Rigging the System' against his Political Opponent, ME!"

"I will be fighting for myself but, much more importantly, I will be fighting for our Country. Election Interference like this has never happened in the USA before and, hopefully, will never happen again. We are now a Nation in serious Decline, a Failing Nation, but we will soon be a Great Nation Again. November 5th will be the most important day in the History of the United States. MAGA2024! SEE YOU TOMORROW."

"I’ve got 8 Biden cases (lawsuits!) going on at one time. They want to take money I would use for the campaign, and my time. Never been done before in our Country. Crooked politicians and corrupt prosecutors and Judges. November 5th is the most important day in the history of our Country. WE WILL WIN! MAGA2024."

😩😩😩

DAY 1 SUMMARY

A predictable maudlin circus. Very little of substance to even comment on. This judicial soap opera is predicted to last from 4 to 6 weeks. Of course, Donald had to take a last verbal shot after court.

 

CODA

   

_________

  

We in the “First World” are ALSO “Tribes on the Edge.”

We in Baltimore were graced by a compelling talk given by Celine Cousteau last night. The “Baltimore Speakers Bureau” saved the best for last this year.

 

"Humankind has not woven the web of life.

We are but one thread within it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

All things are bound together,

All things connect."

—Chief Seattle

To which I'd add

"Nature may be red in tooth and claw,

but it is not merely so."

—Sam Harris

APRIL 13TH UPDATE

At approximately 5:15 PM Eastern time, I saw a CNN TV news story that Iran had launched a huge wave of missile and drone attacks (hundreds of them) directly from Iran and aimed at Israel. It is now a bit after 8:30 PM, and many of them have been shot down, but a number have gotten through. Going to be a very bad night.

 

APRIL 14TH FOLLOW-UP

Rather puny outcome, given the more than 300 missiles and armed drones launched by Iran. Who'd they put in charge of this attack? Abdul the bin al MyPillow Guy? All jokes aside, expect more bad stuff in the wake of this.

_________

  

The U.S. White Nationalist Flea Market of Ideas.

 a.k.a. The “Claremont Institute”

   

 

On one level, the jokes just write themselves. However, this stuff is really not funny. Stay tuned for some serious fracking on this poignant, sorry motherlode of rhetorical fallacies and Incel-resonant White Male Victimhood pearl-clutching and indignantly harrumphing MEGO sophistry.

[Note: "The Claremont Institute" is not affiliated in any way with the SoCal Claremont Colleges. I called the school to confirm that.]

FOR STARTERS, A BIT MORE CONTEXTUALLY RELEVANT READING

The movement now called MAGA has long existed in the American political bloodstream; fittingly, Trump’s companion motto, “America First,” originated in 1940 among isolationists at the outbreak of World War II. Across every iteration, this movement’s ideology was and is loosely defined by nationalism and traditional social values, fierce opposition to liberalism as a slippery slope to communism, and a tendency toward paranoia and conspiratorial thinking. For most of the postwar era, this worldview remained on the fringe of American politics—that is, unpersuasive to most Americans, and systematically frozen out by the two major parties. In contrast to the mainstream GOP, the fringe passionately opposed immigration and trade and rejected bipartisan compromise, even tolerating violence.

In spite of, or maybe because of, being so marginalized, a core tenet of this belief system was that its adherents were surely right, and most Americans surely agreed with them, if only their views could be heard—that America was inherently and immovably a right-of-center, conservative country, no matter how many times the voters said otherwise. This faction managed to persist and even grow despite the repeated electoral setbacks that befell its champions, from Barry Goldwater to Pat Buchanan. By the 2010s, with the rise of the Tea Party backlash to Barack Obama’s election, the coarser side of the American right was gaining strength but still decidedly an outside force pressuring the Republican Party. The movement lacked someone with the political talent, charisma, fame, or resources to popularize its ideology (as Ronald Reagan did for his sunny small-government conservatism)—until Trump. The America of Trump’s first inaugural—“this American carnage”—sounded shockingly dark to anyone not already steeped in the harsh pessimism that had long festered on the outer edge of the American right. To those who were, listening to Trump sounded like finally, for the first time, being recognized and represented.

Trump never missed an opportunity to use his presidential megaphone to elevate these views, from defending white nationalist marchers in Charlottesville to railing against “deep state” enemies. He both welcomed more people from the radical fringe into the Republican fold and at the same time mainstreamed their views to steadily radicalize the existing rank and file. In his final year in office, two genuine crises collided to radicalize millions more Republicans with astonishing speed. First, the pandemic upended all semblance of normalcy, injected politics into daily life, and fueled a spasm of conspiracy theories that presented attractive alternatives to experts asking for major sacrifices; suddenly, as government officials started exercising powers unseen in living memory, many Republicans found it a little less far-fetched, a little more credible, to believe that Democrats wanted to control their lives and take away their freedoms. Then, massive street demonstrations responding to the murder of George Floyd created an atmosphere of social upheaval, racial unrest, and, based on portrayals in right-wing media, rampant lawlessness and destruction. Trump’s campaign messaging rolled it all up—the “China virus” and the “thugs”—into a vast voter-fraud conspiracy arrayed against him and his supporters. The widespread misinformation about the virus and the protests primed Trump’s supporters to reject the result of the election. The names, dates, and places of the supposed theft, to the extent they were ever specified, were always changing and never really mattered. The essence of the stolen-election myth was the latest, biggest expression of insisting America must tilt right, that, as Trump would repeat at his rallies, “this nation does not belong to them, this nation belongs to you.”

Arnsdorf, Isaac (2024-04-08T23:58:59.000). Finish What We Started. Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. 

Click the cover page above.

QUICK OFF-TOPIC ERRATUM

I am an inveterate Rick Wilson fanboy. After a brain-numbing day of reading everything, I never wanted to know about the hatemongering AntiWoke non-cosmopolitan Stephen Miller, (See prior post; I finished the Miller bio) this provides a good respite, for me, anyway. Not that I totally, uncritically buy into all of this AI Gartner hype cycle.

More shortly…

_________

 

Climate change mass migration implications: "On The Move"

Read about this in Science Magazine.  Goes to my "Covering Climate" riffs.

 

Photo from the Science Magazine review. Been there, seen that fiery, smoky sky.

2018 wildfire haze, in front of my house in Antioch, looking W. toward SF mid-day.

 

AMAZON BLURB FOR THE BOOK

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"

 

On the Move explains how we got here and where we're headed. It's crucial guide to the world we are creating." —Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction



 

A vivid, journalistic account of how climate change will make American life as we know it unfeasible.Humanity is on the precipice of a great climate migration, and Americans will not be spared. Tens of millions of people are likely to be driven from the places they call home. Poorer communities will be left behind, while growth will surge in the cities and regions most attractive to climate refugees. America will be changed utterly.



 

Abrahm Lustgarten’s On the Move is the definitive account of what this massive population shift might look like. As he shows, the United States will be rendered unrecognizable by four unstoppable forces: wildfires in the West; frequent flooding in coastal regions; extreme heat and humidity in the South; and droughts that will make farming all but impossible across much of the nation.



 

Reporting from the front lines of climate migration, Lustgarten explains how a pattern of shortsighted policies encouraged millions to settle in vulnerable parts of the country, and introduces us to homeowners in California, insurance customers in Florida, and ranchers in Colorado who are being forced to make the agonizing choice of when, not whether, to leave. Employing the most current climate data and predictive models, he shows how America’s population will be squeezed northward into a shrinking triangle of land stretching from Tennessee to Maine to the Great Lakes. The places many of us now call home are at risk, and On the Move reveals how we’ll deal with the consequences.

These are the opening book lines from the Prologue:

 

I totally get it. In 2017, my late younger daughter was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. There were days when her chemo sessions had to be canceled because the area wildfire smoke was so heavy in the air. Four months after she died, I had to have aortic valve replacement heart surgery. My postop PT rehab sessions had to be canceled several times for the same reason. In 2019 we left California and moved to Baltimore—only to then get slammed with COVID-19 shutdowns the following year, and then persisent fire smoke from massive Canadian wildfires.

Below, the author's cool web page (click the image).

FROM SCIENCE MAGAZINE:

American climate migration
Increasingly inhospitable conditions will change the nation’s demography, argues a journalist

Currently, less than 1% of Earth is too hot to support human life, but researchers estimate that by 2070 nearly 20% of the planet’s surface will be outside humanity’s comfort zone. The “bubble of unlivability” could include up to a third of the people on Earth, and existing inequalities will likely increase conflict. In the United States, vulnerable populations will be prone to disproportionate risk.

On the Move, by journalist Abrahm Lustgarten, is a poignant and meticulously researched exploration of climate change and both its imminent and long-term effects on human migration in the US. Through analysis, personal narratives, and projected future scenarios, Lustgarten unveils the stark reality of a world on the brink of massive demographic shifts driven by an increasingly inhospitable climate.

Lustgarten begins with a personal account of the moment he recognized the climate crisis as a reality that no region will escape. His usual view of the San Francisco skyline was replaced by “a sepia-toned, smoke-filled universe,” he writes. “Just twelve miles away as the crow flies, behind the ridge of parched and brittle redwoods I could see from my window, the Point Reyes National Seashore was burning. Tall gray towers of smoke billowed upward, raining down soot.” He then details how climate-driven migrations are not a future possibility but rather a current event, with historical precedents and emerging patterns that signal a profound shift in how and where people can live.

Lustgarten predicts that Americans will see an influx of migrants from the south and will experience considerable internal migration as well. Increasingly frequent and severe wildfires, extreme weather patterns, and sea level rise will make some areas uninhabitable. “The poorest neighborhoods— many of them predominantly Black and Latinx—are in the lowest-lying areas, and they will suffer first,” he observes.

The book begins with an analysis of climate change pressures, providing a glimpse into what life might look like within several decades. Here, Lustgarten highlights the risks many Americans have unknowingly accepted by living in vulnerable areas and how economic policies have exacerbated these risks.

In subsequent chapters, Lustgarten projects the demographic shifts that are likely to occur within the United States. These include coastal residents moving inland because of rising sea levels and hurricanes, as well as migration from the drought-stricken Midwest to regions with stable water sources...

Amid the growing body of literature on climate change, Lustgarten’s book provides a crucial examination of the impacts—realized and projected—in our own backyards and how these changes are remaking society. Importantly, it is both a call to action and a blueprint for how to weather the coming storm, highlighting historical injustices and charting an equitable path forward. review

No "praise-criticism-praise" dings. 100% positive review assessment. I've just begun reading the book. 

 

It's reminding me that I am remiss, in not yet finishing Michael E. Mann's latest:

We live on a Goldilocks planet. It has water, an oxygen-rich atmosphere, and an ozone layer that protects life from damaging ultraviolet rays. It is neither too cold nor too hot, seemingly just right for life. Despite our ongoing search—which, with the recent advent of the James Webb telescope, now extends out nearly fourteen billion light years—we have thus far found no other planet in the universe with such benevolent conditions. It’s almost as if this planet, Earth, was custom made for us. And yet it wasn’t.

For the vast majority of its 4.54 billion years, Earth has proven it can manage just fine without human beings. The first hominids—proto-humans—emerged a little more than two million years ago. Only during the past 200,000 years have modern humans walked the Earth. And human civilizations have existed for only about 6000 or so years, 0.0001 percent of Earth’s history—a fleeting moment in geological time.

What is it that made this fragile yet benevolent moment of ours possible? Ironically, it’s the very same thing that now threatens us: climate change…

Mann, Michael E.. Our Fragile Moment (p. 8). PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition.

apropos of On The Move, Dr. Mann notes

The fact that the rate of warming today far exceeds that during the PETM presents its own unique challenges. We saw that mammals and other species migrated away from regions that became too warm, or literally—as in the curious case of the shrinking horses—adapted to the warmth. But the rate of warming today, as we’ve seen, is more than ten times greater, exceeding the rate at which plants and animals can be expected to migrate or adapt. And adding insult to injury, we’ve built all sorts of obstacles—in the form of cities, highways, and other infrastructure—that stand in the way of likely migration routes.

Now what about a worst-case scenario, where we actually regress, reversing the climate policies we’ve already enacted, proceeding instead to burn all of the reasonably accessible fossil fuel reserves? The state-of-the-art model projections used in the most recent assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate a most-likely warming, in that case, of about 7°F by 2100, plateauing in 2300 to an approximate 14°F warming. That is a huge, devastating amount of warming, but it’s not a “runaway” greenhouse scenario, nor is it a PETM hothouse scenario. What if we instead take the most extreme end of the IPCC simulation range? In that worst-case scenario we’re looking instead at as much as 11°F by 2100, plateauing to about 23°F in 2300. That would put global average temperatures at around 83°F two centuries from now. That scenario is extremely unlikely as it assumes a reversal of climate policy progress already made and is based on the most extreme of the more than fifty climate models analyzed by the IPCC. Though it still falls several degrees short of the PETM, it’s uncomfortably close, and possibly hot enough that much of the planet would be uninhabitably hot for humans and other large mammals. So yeah, if we try really, really hard, we could make at least most of this planet unlivable for human beings… [Our Fragile Moment, pp, 182-183]

Ugh.

HEAT, DROUGHTS, FLOODS,  FAMINE, WARS?

WHAT OF MASS MIGRATION POLITICS?

… [Stephen] Miller and another Breitbart editor, Julia Hahn, became close. With rosy cheeks and fair skin, Hahn had grown up in Beverly Hills, another wealthy hub of Los Angeles County. During a social gathering at Hahn’s apartment, Miller didn’t want to talk about anything except immigration. “That was all he was fixated on,” McHugh says, “even in a social gathering.”

He recommended that Breitbart do a story about the racist-dystopian book The Camp of the Saints. It was the book that helped inspire Tanton and May to create anti-immigration think tanks, the one filled with degrading descriptions of refugees, such as “kinky-haired, swarthy-skinned, long-despised phantoms,” and “teeming ants toiling for the white man’s comfort.”

Miller suggested that Breitbart “point out the parallels” between the novel and real life. Days later, Julia Hahn wrote a four-thousand-word ode to the book. She compared Pope Francis to Raspail’s fictional pope who preaches universal love, suggesting the book was prophetic. “Pope Francis is urging America to throw open her borders,” she wrote. (In fact, he had urged the United States to treat migrants “in a way which is always humane.”) Hahn compared Hollywood celebrities to the book’s “celebrity elites” who “throw bacchanalian bashes to celebrate and raise funds” for refugees. She likened Rubio to “one of the most dangerous characters . ... ‘full of the milk of human kindness,’ ” Albert Durfort, who fights for an immigration policy that will “seal their doom.” She wrote: “Importing millions of migrants from failed countries with different values and customs will not raise standards of living but will instead merely remake the West in the image of those failed countries.”

After that, Bannon repeatedly cited the book to describe the situation at the border. “It’s not a migration. It’s really an invasion. I call it the Camp of the Saints,” he said.

Guerrero, Jean. Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda (pp. 149-150). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

It behooves us to recall the explicit 2024 promises of The Verminator, should he return to The White House, along with his seething xenophobic White Nationalist in Chief Stephen Miller.

Stay tuned. More shortly...

_________

 

Donald Trump's "Truth Social" IPO:

 A Dead Cat bounce?

  

  

After Don Poorleone's NASDAQ:DJT opened on the public stock market last week, it quickly peaked at $79.38. Since then it has slid -49% (1-(40.59/79.38)). Bing, bing, bing, boing, boing, boing, bong, bong, bong.

 

ERRATUM 

 

4.8 Earthquake in N. Central NJ today, Epicenter 15 miles from Somerville, where I was graduated from HS in 1964. About 12 mi west of Trump's NJ golf club.

_________