a word to the wise: my letter to president trump

November 20, 2018

President Donald Trump

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Trump:

You call yourself a nationalist. People on the left, of course, think that nationalism is a bad thing in and of itself, but I think it depends what purpose nationalism is harnessed to. If it were harnessed to the cause of dealing effectively with climate change, it would be a very good thing indeed.

The problem is, you don’t acknowledge the reality of man-made climate change, and as long as you don’t, other countries—notably China—will corner the market on the emerging technologies that deal with it, many of which we actually invented. Is that really what you want?

No, instead, we should try to control the commanding heights of these environmental technologies ourselves. We should dominate the market in them. We should also emphasize environmental nationalism rather than military nationalism. If we limited our military to a truly defensive posture—just enough to make sure that nobody tangles with us or our allies— we could devote a significant portion of the savings to research and development for renewables, energy conservation, carbon removal, maybe nuclear power.

You should summon up all of the nation’s intellectual, economic, and social resources to deal with this crisis. In the wake of the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite in 1957, President Eisenhower proposed and Congress approved, on a bipartisan basis, the National Defense Education Act. The purpose of the act was to train more scientists and mathematicians to meet the Soviet challenge. Later, President Kennedy set the goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. This was an explicitly nationalist goal, yet it wasn’t criticized on that account. Although Kennedy never lived to see it, the goal was realized in 1969. Rather than a National Defense Education Act, we need a National Climate and Energy Education Act to train the nation’s youth to address the climate crisis. Beyond that, we need to marshal all the nation’s resources to meet this challenge.

Toward that end, we should create a Climate and Energy Research Projects Agency (CERPA) based on the model of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

You should become an environmental nationalist. Then the adversary wouldn’t be ‘the climate’—that’s too abstract. No, the adversary would then become China. Everybody can understand that. I certainly don’t want the Chinese controlling these technologies. Do you?

You pride yourself on being a realist, but you’re not being realistic about this at all. You’re being woefully, willfully ignorant about the reality of man-made climate change. You should take a tip from the medieval English king Canute. In order to counter the assertion of some flattering courtiers that he was above even natural laws, Canute set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the incoming tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet of course the tide continued to rise as usual and dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. So King Canute leapt backwards, saying, “Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws.” In other words, nobody—not even you—can defy the laws of physics and chemistry.

A word to the wise, pal.

Yours etc.,

Jonathan Greenblume

the trouble with the green party

The trouble with the Green Party (USA) is that it's not green enough. If you go to their website:

http://www.gp.org/

you'll find that 'Ecology' is just one of their 'Four Pillars'-- and it's not even first! (The others are 'Peace,' 'Social Justice,' and 'Democracy.' One may or may not agree with their positions on these various other issues, but the main problem is that they're just spreading themselves too thin. Especially given the direness of the climate crisis, they need to be concentrating on this issue alone.

I also have a bit of a problem  with perennial candidate Jill Stein. I fear her shtik is getting a bit old; she's a little too pleasant and inoffensive. We need somebody with more fire in the belly, our own Bernie Sanders. Dr. Stein should go back to being a physician, rather than trying to have a career running for an office she will never-- and may not even want to-- win.

environmental nationalism

 I know, you don't expect to see those two words in the same sentence, let alone the same phrase.  People on the left think that nationalism is bad in and of itself. But I think it depends what purpose nationalism is harnessed to. And if it’s harnessed to the purpose of dealing effectively with the climate crisis, that is a very good thing.

We should control the commanding heights of environmental technology. Summon up all of the nation’s intellectual, economic, and social resources to deal with this crisis. We want to dominate the market in these technologies.

We should emphasize environmental nationalism rather than military nationalism. If we limited our military to a truly defensive posture—just enough to make sure that nobody would screw with us— we could devote a significant portion of the savings to research and development for renewables, energy conservation, carbon removal, maybe nuclear power.

In the wake of Sputnik, President Eisenhower proposed and the Congress approved, on a bipartisan basis, the National Defense Education Act, to train more scientists and mathematicians to meet the Soviet threat. Later, President Kennedy set the goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. This was a specifically nationalist appeal, yet no one criticized it on that basis. Although he never lived to see it, the goal was realized in 1969. Rather than a National Defense Education Act, we need a National Climate and Energy Education Act to train the nation’s youth to address the climate crisis. Beyond that, we need to marshal the nation’s resources to meet this challenge.

will wonders never cease?

A Republican carbon tax? I know, it's hard to believe, but here it is, put forward by the Climate Leadership Council headed by Reagan-era luminaries George Shultz and James Baker, backed by Larry Summers, Christine Todd Whitman, and Janet Yellen. They don't call it a tax, of course, but a 'fee' or something. That's what it is, though.

https://www.clcouncil.org/

delhi

Delhi, India, from space (2014):

Delhi/Jaipur region (2012):

and the Indian subcontinent (2016):

climate voters

Some groups that represent voters interested in climate change and environmental issues generally:

Environmental Voter Project

Climate Voters

League of Conservation Voters

money and fossil fuels

Clearly, the only thing these fossil fuel companies care about is money. Otherwise, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing. So we've got to try to hit them where it hurts-- in their wallets. This would involve:

1. a carbon tax, to drive their revenues down and their expenses up; and

2. an effort to get investors (particularly pension funds, universities, etc.) to divest themselves of fossil fuel stocks, thus driving down the stock price and so depriving them of the capital necessary to do their evil work.

Follow the money.

climate politics

There are a number of political groups dealing with climate change in the US, including a couple Republican groups (!), but they don't seem to have enough influence. Why is this? Maybe there needs to be some overarching coalition of these groups to be more effective. And, of course, in the US there is active political opposition to doing anything about climate change and a powerful  disinformation campaign. In addition, the mainstream media doesn't want to talk about it. It's not sexy enough, too long-term, etc. They'd rather talk about Stormy Daniels or these juicy allegations about Brett Kavanaugh. The fact that the US is a large (the largest?) energy producer as well as the largest energy consumer explains in large part why this issue is so much more contentious here than in other countries-- where it's just treated as, you know, science.

planetary council

The UN Security Council should change its name to The Planetary Council and should start moving in the direction of attaining some minimal level of global (planetary) sovereignty.

Meanwhile, the General Assembly should just be cut loose. It's just a talking shop anyway, a place for overpaid, underbrained diplomats to hold forth. Any body that purports to put the likes of Paraguay and Equatorial Guinea on the same footing as the US and China is absurd on the face of it and is totally undeserving of our support, financial or otherwise.

planetary emergency

The Planetary Council has declared a planetary climate emergency in view of the unacceptable level of carbon emissions and resulting climate change. This emergency will include three new policies:

1. CARBON TAX
A progressive carbon tax will be instituted immediately, to be raised at intervals until carbon emissions have leveled off and started decreasing.

2. POPULATION STABILIZATION
A 2 Child Max policy for couple (and 1 Child Maxine policy for single women) will be instituted immediately, to be continued at least until carbon emissions have started decreasing.

3. AN APOLLO PROJECT TO HASTEN THE TRANSITION AWAY FROM FOSSIL FUELS AND TOWARD RENEWABLE ENERGY
Funds will be dedicated to achieving zero carbon emissions in both the energy and transport sectors by 2050.

gradualism won't save us

From The Climate Mobilization: "Time's Up: 3 Reasons Why Gradualism Won't Save Us."

https://www.theclimatemobilization.org/science

the climate mobilization

Desperate times call for desperate measures. The Climate Mobilization calls for a WWII-type mobilization to meet the threat of climate change:

https://www.theclimatemobilization.org/

a planetarian manifesto-- I

the barest of bare bones of a planetarian manifesto:

1.         climate change: a carbon tax

2.         energy: renewables, energy conservation, carbon removal, maybe nuclear power.

3.        overpopulation: population control

*2 child Max, 1 child Maxine

*walls, floors, & ceilings

4.         eugenics: yes, eugenics--with a twist

            *bottom-up, parent-driven eugenics

            *emphasis on mathematical/logical ability (mla)

5.         odds & ends

*‘the future’: space exploration, etc.

*use the word ‘planetary,’ not ‘global,’ 

  ‘international,’ 'world,’ etc.

war and women

It occurs to me that women need to play a much bigger role in the 'defense' establishments of the various countries. Because they have to go through the actual child-bearing process, women feel a much closer connection to the children they bring into the world. They're much more loath than men to send them off to unnecessary death in some pointless war-- which most wars are.

Some wars-- really defensive wars-- may always be necessary, but far fewer than we have today. Will somebody tell me just what the bleep we're doing in Afghanistan after SEVENTEEN YEARS? You get the impression these generals just want these things to go on forever. Really! If there were more female generals and more female defense secretaries, we'd have far fewer wars. And that would be a good thing. Then we could spend all that money on something more useful.

the 'P'-word

This may seem silly at first, but I think it would make a big difference in people's thinking if we replaced the words world and international with the word planetary in the names of international--er, planetary-- organizations. Thus the World Bank would become the Planetary Bank, the International Monetary Fund could become the Planetary Financial Fund, the World Trade Organization would become the Planetary Trade Organization, etc. The biggie would be the United Nations, which could become the Planetary Council, and its flag would be a digital representation of the planet rather than the current pole-centered map.

There's a kind of science fiction aspect to this that I like. I think it would help move us into that science fiction future in which people really will think in planetary terms. Words matter, and one small word change might be a great leap for humankind.

exploring space

I've never been all that enthused about 'manned' space travel. (I guess we'll have to start calling it 'human' space travel.)  I'm more intrigued-- as I think most people are-- by these unmanned ('unhumanned'?) probes of Mars, Neptune, and beyond. The images coming back from these things are incredible! And I don't care about the International Space Station at all. It just seems like an accident waiting to happen-- they've already had a few close calls-- and at some point it will.

On the other hand, we'll be coming up on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing next year. Why haven't we been back? I think we should try to get back there every ten years or so, just to keep our hand in, so to speak, just to keep being able to do it. And at some point Mars-- maybe by midcentury? That's clearly the next step. But over the long haul-- the next four billion years or so before Earth becomes a cinder as the sun expands outward-- our artificial intelligence progeny will be better able to endure the physical rigors of space; they'll be designed to be.

the view from space

(No, just kidding.)

mars insight

Mars Insight Lander in pre-dawn launch from Vandenberg Air Base on the California coast.

'InSight will reach its destination in a little less than seven months, touching down Nov. 26 on a nice, flat plain just north of the Martian equator. After a series of checkouts, the stationary lander will then begin a mission unlike any ever undertaken in the annals of planetary exploration.

'InSight "will probe the interior of another terrestrial planet, giving us an idea of the size of the core, the mantle, the crust — and our ability then to compare that with the Earth," NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green said during a prelaunch news conference.'

Here's a great little video of the launch, from Space.com. Click arrows in bottom right to expand to full screen.

https://www.space.com/40498-nasa-mars-insight-lander-launch.html

tess

TESS-- the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, launched April 18, looking for planets like our own that might possibly support life:

https://tess.gsfc.nasa.gov/