Odd Things That I'm Seeing In The News

Well, of course, Trump has been trying to bully the new Ukrainian president to give a report of what Joe Biden's son Hunter was doing in the Ukraine, in case it was illegal.  This is just Trump fooling around with public opinion.  This is the sort of thing that his followers think is perfectly all right, you see, whereas it will drive the Democrats crazy, and make impeachment almost certain.  Then what happens?  Trumpees begin to scream: what? Impeaching because of a minor thing, like getting help from the president of the Ukraine?  What's the big deal, you big babies?  And they will (Trump assumes) turn up in droves for the election.

This is quite unrelated, but Trump has a sense of humor.  Not a very well-developed one, but which his followers get, but the Late-Night TV comedians pretend not to get.  We like to laugh at Trump every chance we get (well, not I, personally, but my friends, certainly) but this feeds the belief of the Alt-Right that Left-Wing comedians are a bunch of nitwits that don't have a sense of humor after all.

Now this Iowa Caucus business.  For various reasons, Iowa was allowed, by the Democrat leadership in time immemorial, to have a sort of primary very, very early, which, it turns out, influences strongly which candidate is favored in most subsequent primaries.  But, the newspapers say, Iowa is 91% white.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On one hand, if black and minority voters turn out strongly for many subsequent primaries, that will erode the stranglehold that the Iowa Caucus has on the candidacies for the future.  But it does leave a bad feeling in the mouth, that white voters have such a great apparent advantage in selecting the Democrat nominee for president.

A funny thing I'm seeing is that many candidates are promising the media that they will have such-and-such a number of campaign staff working in Iowa, or New Hampshire, or wherever.  What is that all about?  How are voters to respond to that?  Should voters respond to that?  Why do candidates need to boast about how many staff they're going to have?  This seems to me another instance of the US tendency to believe that more is better in almost all cases.

Regardless of Nancy Pelosi's belief that impeachment proceedings against Trump will increase Republican voter turnout next fall, I think impeachment is almost inevitable now.  Unfortunately, whether impeachment happens or not, Trump is going to be happy, because: if they do start impeachment proceedings, which of course will not succeed, Trump will go about crowing that They tried to impeach me, but of course they could not succeed!  If they do not start impeachment proceedings, he will dance about crowing about something else, equally silly.  He is a silly man, and he tries to force his opposition to play silly games, to drag the entire federal government into the clown's ring with him.  Someone has convinced Trump that discrediting government is its own reward.  Why is this?  Because unity is strength for workers and people at the bottom of the economic ladder, whereas for the 1%, they believe that they can go it alone.  (They actually can't, very easily; they need to cooperate, too.  It all depends on a certain vision of how the economic elite can operate once the federal government stops functioning well.  It is by no means clear that things are going to go well for the rich.  What is certain is that things will not go very well at all for the poor if the effectiveness of the federal government begins to decline.)

Many of the rules of thumb that the Machiavellis of the conservatives knew and understood, when they laid down the rules of how to destroy the power of workers, were laid down before our economy was so globalized.  For their plans to work, they need to have the economy less globalized.  But that's not easy; many of the richest families depend of foreign labor, and foreign buyers to maintain their relative position in the hierarchy of affluence; it won't be easy for the Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame) to replace their Chinese sources with sources from somewhere else.  (They probably meet at a Bible-Study somewhere to explain to each other how all this is going to benefit them.)

Have we anticipated all the shenanigans that the GOP and the Alt-Right has up its sleeves to perpetrate during the election, and after the election?  Perhaps the Armed Forces will have to intervene, to prevent utter foolishness following a bad result for the GOP.  This has never happened in the past, and the DOD does not know its way around a coup in the US, though we've watched coups so many times in other countries.  Nobody likes those things; they're almost an admission of the failure of free and fair elections.  But the GOP are turning out to be such a bunch of scofflaws, that anything is possible.

Finally, the reason that every candidate is desperately asking for money is that they need to run TV ads to counterattack negative messages.  (Now that PACs and other organizations can play in the political game, it becomes almost impossible for TV networks to give "Equal Time" to candidates.)  So the big winners, it seems, are TV networks.  Who'd have thunk it?  I can't stand the thought of dishing out money week after week, only to discover that I had been backing a losing candidate all along.  The way I think, though, I would indeed probably back a losing candidate .

Well, be of good cheer, as Charlie Brown would say!

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Thinking Rationally About Climate: The Youth Viewpoint

Before we go into the main topic, which centers around a lawsuit brought against the administration by a group of young people, I want to speak briefly about the somewhat widespread animosity by liberals and The Left against the current president.

As I have said before, there are many reasons why liberals and progressives are furious with the president.  Some are so angry that they refuse to give him his official title, and prefer to refer to him as 45.  There are numerous offensive cartoons about him and his actions, and his choices for secretaries of the various sections within government, and millions across the country are seething.  Millions, of course, have seethed against the presidents we've supported; conservatives have hated Obamacare, and to date it is something that unites the conservatives in hatred, though a few of them recognize that it is not only a difficult law to improve upon, it is the most business-friendly Healthcare reform possible.  Millions have hated other legislation Obama supported.  They hated the fact that he appointed Hillary Clinton, and that he supported her against many accusations of misconduct by Republican party members in and out of government.  Millions hated the bailout of Wall Street banks, and Millions more--some of them Democrats--hated that Obama bailed out the car companies.

But our hate is more reasonable!  (I say that in jest.)  But when we condemn, we must not stoop to insult.  Some of the late night comedians whom I admire are quite brutal in their onslaught against 45; of course, they're comedians, and provided they stop short of sexual harassment (something that brought Al Frankel down, to our dismay,) we can tolerate their viciousness as a necessary safety-valve.  But we should stop short of all of us trying to be safety-valves by demeaning the . . . demeaning 45.  Don't demean.  Vote.  Okay?  Thanks.

What we're seeing related to Climate Change
So far, here are some of the effects that Climate Change has resulted in:
1.  Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes.  These consequences would have taken place regardless of whether the warming of the environment was caused, or even hastened, by man.  So if anyone resists talking or thinking about the connection between Climate Change and extreme weather events simply from being defensive about human culpability, they should knock it off.  The warming environment is certainly the source of these events.
2.  Temperature extremes, e.g. hotter, dryer weather in the Northwest, cooler, wetter weather in the Northeast, which encourages major wildfires in the Northwest, and flooding in the East.  The chain of causes here is more subtle, but scientists are persuaded about the cause.
3.  Ocean Temperatures rising.  This makes it impossible for certain creatures to flourish in the oceans.  These creatures feed small fish, and the smaller fish are food for certain very popular sorts of ocean fish, eaten both by Westerners, and on which smaller Third World countries also depend for food.  In addition, the Oceans are getting dirtier, because warmer water washing into rivers and oceans bring more grime.  Warm water also encourages bad sorts of algae.
4.  Ocean Levels are rising.  Typically, people who live close to the sea are financially disadvantaged, and already, when ocean levels rise for temporary reasons, such as a storm surge, it is poor people who lose their homes, and become refugees.  This is part of the reason why Climate Change is a Social Justice issue.  As ocean levels continue to rise, people will continue to be displaced.
5.  Farmland is being turned into desert.  The implications are obvious.  Of course, certain economic policies are not helping.
6.  The habitats of polar species are being destroyed.  This doesn't directly impact humans, but many of use consider the diversity of species as a part of our quality of life, at least in an intangible way.

That provides a backdrop to our discussion.  Bear in mind that, as conditions deteriorate further, more extreme and surprising consequences will impinge on us, but it is not necessary--yet--to draw attention to those more extreme results of Warming.


From The Perspective of Youth
Recently, a certain lawsuit, which is called Juliana, has drawn attention in the news.  The suit, brought by a number of young people against the Trump Administration, charges that the plaintiffs

... risk being deprived of their “rights to life, liberty, property, and public trust resources by federal government acts that knowingly destroy, endanger, and impair the unalienable climate system that nature endows."

As I understand it, they're accusing the Federal Government of putting at risk their ability to enjoy the usual pursuits of happiness, etc, enshrined in the constitution, by its careless actions.

We might agree with the point of view of the plaintiffs, even if we do not agree with the legal path they have taken.  (My own point of view is sympathetic to the young people, though I do not take it carelessly.)  By the time those who voted in the 2016 election are safely dead, the plaintiffs in this case, who are presently about the age of 20, are going to be deeply involved in the suffering that has been brought on not only generally, because of global warming, but specifically, because of the actions of the present administration.

Normally, a government cannot be hampered by the threat of lawsuits, particularly for actions conducted in good faith for the good of the populace.  But are the environmental actions of the present government in good faith?  Good faith with respect to whom?  Can we equate the benefit of various business interests with the benefit of the people at large?  Can we blame government foolishness on mere ignorance and wishful thinking, rather than malice?

From where we stand, of course, it looks malicious.  But it may, in fact, have been the Administration being kind and generous towards certain businesses, and firm and stern towards nature, and the tree-huggers that conservatives have despised for decades.

If the plaintiffs can prove that the government actions of the recent past were malicious and negligent, then at least certain parts of the demands of the plaintiffs ought to be allowed.

Environment Austerity
As I wrote in the previous post, acting in an environmentally responsible way could be considered inconvenient, and a nuisance.  You have to balance that against the hardship that being irresponsible will cause for many, mostly the poor and uneducated.  Bear in mind that some of the potential victims of our irresponsibility might themselves be far more irresponsible than we are!  (Isn't that always the way it goes ...)
* Minimize sending hot water down the sink, or into the sewer.  Minimize using water at all.  (I must confess that I use a heck of a lot of water, but I try hard to reduce it.)
* Minimize using air conditioning.  Apparently this is a huge factor in Warming.  In fact, using air conditioning makes it necessary for our neighbors to use air conditioning also.
* Spay and Neuter pets.  Pets place a burden on the environment.  Make no mistake: I love our pets, and I love everybody else's pets, too.  But some folks are irresponsible, and as soon as it becomes difficult to deal with their pets, they abandon them.  Some folks take them out to wooded areas, and throw them out; some give the pets to people who are clearly ill-equipped to take them.  Do not construe my remarks to mean that only wealthy pet-owners should be allowed.  Pet ownership involves patience and work, and yes, a degree of expense, especially since veterinary services are not free.  Much of this is avoided if pets are spayed and / or neutered, as appropriate.
* Minimize the use of grills.  Some people enjoy grilling their food more than almost anything else.  Ideally, we ought to give up grilling altogether, to make a maximum reduction on our environment impact.  But if everyone halved their use of grilling, that alone would be enormous, until the time comes, of course, when matters become desperate.
* Use Public Transport!  Greta Thunberg avoids use of motor-powered transportation almost entirely, but at the very least, we can travel by bus (or train) whenever possible.  For parents with young children, I recommend this highly; kids are far more likely to consider bus travel as adults, if they have experienced it as children, especially in the company of their parents.  In some places, bus travel is considered dangerous.  All the more reason to travel by bus.  We do not need to encourage unpleasant people and layabouts to take ownership of public transport.  Personal transport is the single biggest source of unwanted heat and Carbon Dioxide.

All environmentalists end their litanies of things to do with the exhortation: Don't go it alone!  Drag your friends with you!

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Thinking Rationally About Climate Change

The young woman from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, arrived in New York City, having been brought across the Atlantic on a racing yacht by a supporter.  I heard her speak in several clips from various websites, and the young lady is remarkably well-informed, and precise and articulate in her speech (moreover in English, which is not her native language).  I have hardly the words to describe how much I admire the young lady, her speech, and her determination.

I recently read a guest editorial in a major newspaper—to which I have lost the link, unfortunately—that asserts that the first step to realistically addressing the problem might be to admit that we may have passed the deadlines for action.

These deadlines are important, but they are not critical.  Lay people do not understand the meaning of a time deadline in a geological world; yes there are certain turning points, when irreversible change takes place, and you have to begin approaching matters using different methods.  But those different methods are useful even now, while we race ahead with high-tech solutions to try and halt temperatures from creeping up, putting numerous creatures at risk, and make their environment acutely uncomfortable, which is something that should bother us, quite apart from its impact on our food sources.

So I look on the world today in two ways.  One is: let's start working on the environment right now, whether we believe in climate change or not, and whether we believe that deadlines we're handed down from scientists are, or are not, critical.  We have been trained so hard (at least some of us) not to be easily persuaded, that making a decision takes years.

Two: doing some of this takes mental adjustment, and some of that mental adjustment has to take place in how businesses work, how laws are passed, and how we respond to various things which are seen as inconveniences.

Carbon Trapping

This phrase means that carbon in solid form is less of a problem than Carbon Dioxide, which traps heat in the atmosphere (the so-called Greenhouse Effect, where the heat is sent back down to the Earth, without being radiated away, as we want it to be).  The Greenhouse Effect is a major problem now.  Someday, it might not be, if we stop burning things for energy and for heat and comfort.

The most important way of trapping Carbon Dioxide, as far as I can tell, is to plant more trees, and slow down the cutting down of trees.  Unfortunately, cutting down trees is an easy way of tidying up the land; clear a lot, cut down trees too close to a house or building, and so on.  Utilities cheerfully cut down trees that grow too close to power lines or gas lines.  Many of our laws have been written to make things easier for utilities, but today we no longer worship utility companies as we did at one time, and the time may be right to insist that utilities conduct business that are environment-friendly, both in the short term, and the long term.

Plastics

A lot of American 'Ingenuity' has been based on plastic.  It truly is the wonder material, able to do extraordinary things, with great flexibility of use.  But unfortunately the use of plastic as a packaging material, and the problems with plastic packaging, is at the forefront of our attention today.  This sort of plastic waste used to be shipped out to Third World countries for decades, where we considered that it was now their problem.  But as political balances shift, as the bosses of those countries stop considering themselves as owing the US any favors, they simply stopped accepting plastics for recycling, and in many instances, sent the plastic bundles back to the US.

What we have to realize is that plastics are trapped carbon.  There might be a great temptation to incinerate the plastic, just to get it out from underfoot.  The landfills in many poor neighborhoods of some states are filled with plastics, and citizens must be discouraged from burning plastic with great effort, because getting rid of plastic waste by burning it must be an enormous temptation.

Not just plastic wrapping, either.  Think of the letters we get, with plastic windows.  Think of the junk mail we get.  In some businesses, their "productivity" is measured by how much junk mail they send out per week.  As far as the little plastic windowed envelopes are concerned, the technology has made it unnecessary to print the addresses on the insert itself; addresses are easily printed right on the envelope.

I am not an expert, but I think we have to look at technology that simply bundles plastic, with a view to stacking it somewhere out of the way.  Across the country, there are countless malls that are no longer used.  Could they be used as cemeteries for carefully baled plastic?  Of course businessmen want to make use of them for something that will make money for them, such as to convert them into shooting ranges, or fun fairs, or flea markets.  So there will always be business standing in the way of some environmental action.  To make business and the environment push in the same direction, it becomes necessary to make environmental action profitable, or make it legally necessary, by passing laws that require responsible disposal of plastics (or anything) a requirement.  The escalating volume of junk mail across the nation is gradually making the environments of poor citizens unbearable.  The main point is: we must treat existing plastic with some respect, because after all it is trapped carbon.

Incineration

We must strongly discourage incineration as a means of disposing of corpses.  Up until recently, I was almost determined to have my body incinerated, because I did not want it cluttering up the ground anywhere, and I did not want it placed in a coffin soaked in anti-insect poison, as coffins often are, in order to prevent it from being eaten away by natural decaying processes.  People are often unreasonably picky about what happens to their mortal remains after they're done with them.

Convenience

Convenience is an assumption in the American Way Of Life.  The Alt Right is up in arms against the California proscription against plastic drinking straws.  That strikes me as being perversely petty.  This is, at present, just a political issue; the GOP is putting forward a plastic drinking straw as the face of progressive Democrats.

Personal Transportation.  Plastic grocery bags.  Plastic bags of all sorts!  For instance, if you get medicine at the supermarket, as we do, they put the medicine in a plastic container; that container goes in a plastic bag; several of those bags go in a grocery bag.  Some of those bags are for the sake of convenience: to group all your medication in a single container.  Others of those bags are for 'privacy', so that people can't see what medication you're getting.  Yet others are to signify that you have paid for this merchandise.

The principle of keeping plastic solid does not negate the principle that the less plastic is manufactured, the better.  Plastic takes energy to manufacture, which produces heat, and which often releases Carbon Dioxide, which (at the moment) is practically Public Enemy Number One.

Keeping Oceans Clean, and Cold

As far as I remember, keeping anything clean has been a tough sell.  We like to make things as dirty as we like, and then clean them, using really strong detergents, which unfortunately screw up the rivers and the seas.  The clever young people of the future must find ways of minimizing the energy, the chemicals, and the water we use to clean up things.  Rivers and streams and oceans are already at the point of being unable to take any more crap.  Yes, water utilities everywhere clean up the effluent water.  But that itself generates heat, and indirectly releases Carbon Dioxide into the air.

Well, that's all for now, but bear in mind that anyone who cares about the environment is going to be bringing unpleasant facts to the people.  It is the easiest thing in the world to resist this push to saner lifestyles, because ordinary, unthinking, consumer-oriented conservatives hate any sort of discipline.  Having to be careful with anything rubs them the wrong way.  It is going to be an uphill battle to do things for the good of our neighbors, because they will not perceive these actions as benefiting them in the least.  Truckers on the road glare indignantly at hybrid and electric vehicles, though they make gasoline available to them at a lower price!  If all the hybrids and electric vehicles on the roads are magically replaced with gas-guzzling pickups, the price of gasoline would soon inch upwards.  Many conservatives have not been strong in quantitative reasoning.

Kids are usually on board with being careful with things.  They will throw their wrappers in the trash, they will sort the plastics according to type, they will make sure that glass goes in the glass recycling container.  It is the parents and other adults who resent the discipline imposed by the needs of the environment.

Whether or not it is too late to prevent Global Warming from getting to the runaway stage, we may as well begin to plan to minimize its impact.  The future may be horrific, but it will be less horrific if we just dig our heels in, and work to lessen the impact of Climate Change for post-critical-point civilization.

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