Adaptation

“The demand for climate information is going up,” said Sarah Kapnick, global head of climate advisory for J.P. Morgan. The position at the bank, created two years ago for Dr. Kapnick, a former chief scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, underscores the desire in the business world to understand the risks and opportunities of global warming, she said. So this dude Steffen started a seminar you can join for $25,000.00. He mostly talks about places you can move to that will be more climate resilient, a good lifeboat. "Most New Yorkers who take the seminar want to stay in the city, despite its risks of extreme heat and flooding, and buy themselves second homes elsewhere, Mr. Steffen said." Just so we know who these people with climate anxienty are, they are the people most responsible for the catastrophe, Rich Americans. One guy in the class bought himself 40 acres in the Catskills as a "sanctuary". So not exactly Extinction Rebellion and not exactly Dark Mountain. On the other end of the spectrum there is Max Wilbert of Biocentric saying eco-sabotage is our remaining hope for slowing the warming. Like myself, he points out how catastrophic events like the pandemic, the 2007 economic collapse and today's war in the Middle East are the only times emissions actually go down. A harsh reality. Straddling the middle is the venerable Robert Jensen ( not to be confused with Derek Jensen) who has a great critique but suggests "we" need more conversation and dialogue. I heard him on a new podcast put out by the folks at Overshoot, a subsidiary of Population Balance. Riding the wave, their slogan is Shrink Towards Abundance and by shrink they mean population and economic throughput/ resource use. Speaking of abundance, Ezra Klein had Naomi Klein on his show and when asked to recommend a book, she suggested Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin's On the Concept of History, written by fellow ecosocialist Michael Lowy. I have always been intrigued by that essay, especially the thesis that examines Klee's Angelus Novus, the crazy angel looking back at the wreckage of history as the wind of "progres"s blows her into the future. Progress in scare quotes because it is modernity itself which is the catastrophe. Or as Bruno Latour put it: "we have never been modern". Techno/industrial capitalism

Trump's Abundance Bill

Trump has jumped on Ezra Klien's abundance agenda, proposing legislation that would gut environmental protections in order to fast-track the building of housing. Apparently the thing holding back construction of more houses is the inability of developers to fill in wetlands or wipe out threatened species. So while the Pres is busy right now destroying another country he might find time at some point to get some de-regulation going. At the same time "Many of the consequences of global warming — such as more intense storms, warming oceans and melting glaciers — are arriving faster and more powerfully than many scientists had expected." This little blurb can be found at the bottom of page six in the NYTimes because all the headlines are about oil supplies being cut off in the Straight of Hormuz. From the same article: " new research found that the rate of global warming has nearly doubled over the last decade. " Doubled! Wow! That could prove troubling but all our attention is focused on securing reliable supplies of the stuff causing the warming! Remember 1.5 to stay alive? Well, you might need a new chant. How about 2.0 Here We Go! Ask a politician of any party what their plan is and you will get this answer: we are looking at common sense solutions that keep our economy strong and allow us to remain competitive in a global (China) market. Translation: drill, pump, burn. Meanwhile, you might want to let your membership in Antifa expire because the Feds want to lock you up as a terrorist. You could find yourself in Guantanamo just because you like wearng black outfits. And black boots. Actually, the FBI is investigating anybody who is anti-capitalist so if you don't see a blog post for a couple of months... Last point: I have always believed that the best Trump doppelganger is Rodney Dangerfield and this latest episode, where Trump, sitting next to the Prime Minister of Japan, says: "“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he said. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK? Right?" That got some laughs, the kind Dangerfield would get in Caddyshack playing a rich guy throwing his weight around.

Risk

“The line between betting, speculating and investing has largely disappeared,” said Timothy Massad, who served as the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for financial stability after the 2008 recession. “It’s very worrisome to me.” As if there was a well-defined line in some mythical past. We pretend it is not a casino so as to preserve legitimacy, I guess. But the system rewards and therefore creates gamblers. “Since 1980, the Arctic annual air temperatures have warmed nearly three times faster than the rest of the planet,” according to Dr. Druckenmiller. permafrost has been melting since the early 2000s, and researchers have now discovered toxic chemicals leaching into rivers in northern Alaska as the permafrost melts. Turkey, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, “pushed to dilute wording on the climate crisis, the science of melting glaciers and the role of young and Indigenous people”. Oil and gas profits drive this resistance, of course, and these profiteers are gambling with the future, betting on some miracle techno solution to emerge soon. How about AI driven quantum computers developing fusion energy? Perfect! "Time of Monsters" kind of says it all. Wack grifter ideologues warning us to wake up to "wokeness". All this as the next "extreme El Nino" begins to build and the polycrisis morphs into total chaos. War, "political" idiocy, in a word: oblivion. "The worst are filled with passionate intensity..." "We would rather die than change", plenty of ancient wisdom out there but none of it acknowledged. It should be obvious by now that there is only one way to reduce fossil fuel consumption in capitalism: catastrophe. We last saw reductions during the pandemic, but as soon as the masks came off, people went back to the status quo. Now we see the Straight of Hormuz closed through war and again consumption will go down temporarily. It is not difficult to extrapolate from this as to what needs to happen to arrest climate change. As Max Wilbert puts it, no one wants to see the inevitable short-term suffering, but "ecologically, collapse is likely the best path forward, given that governments and communities have refused to take meaningful action to halt global warming, the mass extinction of biological life, and the rest of the eco-crisis." The obvious argument is always "but we don't know if what comes after is better or worse". By this they mean governance or economic conditions or liberty/ rights etc.. This is a totally human-centric approach. The question we need to ask is "Will this be better for Nature, for the biosphere?"

America First Policy Institute

Watch out for "socialist green globalists" warn the patriots of the AFPI at their annual Global Energy Summit, what they called the "anti-COP". Lots and lots of talk about freedom and independence and the same shit Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman went on and on about: regulation and entrepreneurs and competition, econ 101 shit to put a little lipstick on the pig. As an ecosocialist I was bouyed a bit to hear about "The abyss of green socialism on a world wide scale", thinking maybe there was some amazing leftist movement taking power, but of course they were just talking about Biden policy and Europe's attempt to lower emissions. It is enlightening to watch video of the intellectual giant Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Petroleum, speak about the big changes in Washington now that Trump is ready to take "common sense" advice and facilitate drill baby drill policies. Genius that he is, he even wrote his own book about the evils of central planning and any type of collectivism or other commie bullshit. These are all people who know the climate science but could care less. They understand that millions will suffer and die but again, they could give a shit, they just want to get richer. Right now the price of oil is not helping with that plan but you get a bunch of brilliant people like Harold and the folks at AFPI teamed up with some AI and watch out! America will be great again and secure and independent, lots of freedom of course, plus we'll all get rich. There will be abundance galore! Oliver McPherson-Smith opened the summit by drawing a sharp contrast between globalist energy centralization and America’s tradition of free-market innovation. Ollie looks like a Ken doll, a perfectly plastic person. Ollie had this original observation: “Around the world, governments are using environmentalism as a Trojan horse to justify control. America stands as the shining city on a hill — leading again through competition, innovation, and freedom.” Reagan would be proud. New Jersey Chair Mike Donohue shared the story of citizen-led resistance to destructive offshore wind projects. “They said it was inevitable. It wasn’t. We fought back and won — because truth and perseverance beat globalist lies every time.” Senator Dave McCormick offered a commanding perspective on how energy, AI, and manufacturing define the new American revival. “You can’t have AI leadership without energy leadership. Energy dominance is not just an economic policy — it’s a national security imperative.” You get the idea. Sea rise, melting permafrost, orange rivers, fires floods whatever. Full speed ahead for capitalist growth.

Tornado of Trauma

As Chalmers teaches, it's always the backlash. The CIA trains a killer in Afghanistan and it comes back to haunt. The US trained killers in Iraq and now we have all these damaged souls wandering our streets. Now imagine the generation of Israeli soldiers that just committed a horrific genocide ( just following orders) and the citizens who watched and enabled it. What kind of monsters will now be roaming their streets? Watch the suicide rate for clues. Caught in the vortex of violence and hate, they are sucked downward into the maw and they will have children who will carry the inherited burden of trauma and committ their own atrocities. And on it goes. Some theorize the possibility of collective trauma, manifesting at a national level, and it would be a logical answer for why American culture is all about diverting thought away from introspection. All those dead Indigenous people and all those slaves and all those workers ground up in Capital's maw. Is that how we explain neo-fascism? This familiar theme seems to re-surface whenever people feel unmoored. There is always blood and soil to fall back on. And mindless entertainment. The new National Security Strategy doc released by the Trump Administration is full of language about "civilization", a long-time meme for imperialists looking to save the white race from replacement. The document points to Europe's dissolution as the Gates of Vienna are breached by the brown, non-Christian hordes. It has always been the white man's burden to bring civilization to the inferior races but that doesn't mean they can come streaming into our countries for God's sake! They'll start changing our national culture with their wierd food and music and shit.Your daughter will start wanting to wear a burqa! The fact that it is the emissions from our industrialization which is forcing them to migrate only suggests one solution: start drone striking migrant boats, same as they are doing to the so-called drug boats in the Caribbean. Because we sure as hell aren't going to stop emissions. And everybody knows our biggest problem is overpopulation. Kind of a win- win! What the defense strategy document does is state the obvious: it's all about the money. It has always been written by and for big Capital but in the past they would try to give it some ideological/ intellectual sheen. No longer. They now concede that China has cleaned their clock in most of the globe so they will now focus on our old whipping boy, Latin America. Plenty of oil and gas and minerals to be had close to home. As for domestic policy: an AI in every pot! What can go wrong?

Teach Your Children Well

In an interview Ezra Klein did with some creep in the Israeli government, the creep said the key to peace in the region was re-education camps for Palestinian children. If only they would learn the correct facts and history (that of the victors), they would then abandon the ideology which prevents everyone from getting along. Ezra might have said something about Israeli education but didn't. Today there is an article about the 50th anniversary of the death of Generalismo Franco. In the piece, the author says "we must outline an educational curriculum to teach young people about both Franco and the terror of Francoism. It is the only way to challenge the power of deceitful social media." On a recent trip to Mexico City, our guide informed us that in his opinion, Profirio Diaz was the greatest president Mexico has ever had. He ruled as a murderous dictator for 35 years but hey, he got shit done. I was taught all kinds of bullshit in my own schooling and lots of important imformation was simply skipped over. Remember the Alamo! The Open Door policy in China. Invading the Philippines: "The American use of torture, then called the “water cure,” in the Philippines during the war of 1899–1902 shocked some Americans of the day." Naomi Klein asks: " What were all those museums and lesson plans and documentaries about the Holocaust for, if not to prevent a moment such as this? And what about all those books with checklists on how to spot your country sliding into fascism? Why did so many of the people who read them – and even some of the people who wrote them – falter when a genocide was unfolding on their screens, a genocide that has blown a hole in the moral universe and decimated the shaky edifice of international humanitarian law, making any further depravity now feel entirely possible?" My point (and hers) is that education and curriculum must be approached critically. Super critically."Teaching" is a powerful entry into young, susceptible minds and this doesn't only apply to "decieitful social media". Although the internet has exponentially increased the threat. There are no easy answers about establishing boundaries between propoganda and information, but self-reflection is a start.

The Times They Are A Changin

We now live in the era of distressed jeans. People save their money to buy clothes that come with the holes already in them. They buy "organic" food that costs three times as much, "craft beer" the same. In an article about how the Israeli military used AI to generate targets which were then considered "legitimate", such disavowal is explained thus: "There is also the active suppression of their own thinking." The trust in technology allowed them to avoid their own conscience and "pull the wool over their own eyes". Now we simply have to extrapolate and imagine this process happening on a meta scale. Speaking of Israeli military, soldiers in the West Bank were caught on video murdering two Palestinians who were attempting to surrender. As they have been doing for years. Israel promises to look into it. At a protest at a NY city synagogue, a group promoting settlement in the West Bank was met with chants of "death to the IDF". Everyone was outraged! Such language! Jews were afraid and Mamdani was forced to condemn the chants. Zionism is where fearful Jews take precedence over dead Palestinians. Who really wants to know what they are thinking? Hillary Clinton was asked in an interview why young people were turning against Israel and she said the Chinese control the algorithms on the social media they watch. What she sees is real, what you see is fake. The dead babies are manufactured. She is intelligent enough to recognize the absurdity of such a statement but prefers not to examine it, prefers to suppress her own thinking. This is the ludicrous, Kafkaesque, bureaucratic horror of Catch 22 taken to the next level. Thanks in part to the new technology mediating our direct experience, or as the poet Anne Winters put it so long ago: "a sift in the structure of experience." Young people prefer chatting with their AI companion to real humans.Some fall in love with their machines. But don't worry, soon we will have nuclear fission and free energy, genetic engineering and immortality and sentient AI to fuse with us. What me worry?