We live, simultaneously, in two different worlds. Ultimately, we live in the World of Nature, a world that we did not create and the world upon which all life depends. Most immediately, we inhabit a "human world" that we create ourselves. Because our human world is the result of our own choices and actions, we can say, quite properly, that we live, most immediately, in a “political world.” In this blog, I hope to explore the interaction of these two worlds that we call home.
Gary A. Patton
I was an elected official in Santa Cruz County, California for twenty years, from 1975 to 1995. Now, I am an environmental attorney, practicing law in Santa Cruz County. If you would like to contact me, send me an email at gapatton@mac.com.
Picture #3 is from a news story by Frances Robles, who is said to be "reporting from Florida." I take this disclaimer to indicate that civic breakdown in Haiti makes it too dangerous for Robles, as a reporter for a U.S.-based newspaper, actually to report from Haiti itself. Robles' story is titled, "How 360,000 Haitians Wound Up Living in Empty Lots and Crowded Schools." The picture I have selected depicts "a woman carrying a sack with her family’s belongings and leading two children. They were among many residents who fled homes in the Lower Delmas section of Port-au-Prince because of violence."
How are these three stories related? Well, of course, they are all "climate change" stories - although I prefer to call them "global warming" stories, since "global warming" is the cause of the weather-related events being reported, and the "climate change" being documented is just the effect of global warming.
Picture #1 should help make clear that tornados in the United States are a growing concern. They are powerfully destructive, and you can click this link to see some evidence of that. Picture #2, obviously, is another warning about the impacts of "global warming," with the focus on Brazil, and with "flooding," not tornados, being the type of destruction portrayed. Picture #3, which comes from a story focused on the total breakdown of political, social, and economic life in Haiti, has a "global warming" connection, as well. Hurricanes and other "weather" related disasters in Haiti have profoundly affected that nation for years, and have undermined its society, politics, and economy.
In fact, I have presented these three pictures from that May 9th edition of The Times in order to make this point: the economic and physical destruction caused by global warming leads to social and political breakdown - and the United States is not exempt.
But what about the United States? I would like those who are reading this blog posting to take seriously the idea that the continuing damages that we can expect in our country, related to globsl warming (tornados, clearly, and hurricanes, and flooding, and wildfires, to name ones we all know about) are going to challenge the social, political, and economic resilience of even the United States.
When the electricity doesn't work anymore, when water supplies fail, when wildfires destroy whole towns, when food insecurity is a basic fact of life for thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people, when our schools start closing down, when flooding eliminates the homes of thousands or tens of thousands of people in local communities around the country.... social, economic, and political breakdown ensues. People with guns will start showing up in your street.
Yes. That can happen even here! Haiti is ahead of the curve, but the social breakdown witnessed there, documented in that article in The Times, is not a threat or possibility that is unique to Haiti.
The challenge of our times is NOT to figure out how to grow our economy by using "Artificial Intelligence," or otherwise, to MAKE MORE MONEY. Let's keep our eye on the ball. We need to mobilize ourselves, primarily at the local level, to build the human/political and social connections that can help us survive the kind of social, political, and economic breakdown that these three pictures should convince us may well be coming our way. If you prefer to get your advice from The Guardian (not a bad source, in my estimation), click right here for what The Guardian says, in an article published on May 8th.
I am really not kidding. We need to take seriously the possibility - the likelihood, in fact - that our failure to deal with global warming will undermine the social, political, and economic cohesion that we want to "take for granted," and that we assume is a "given," but which is not, actually, any kind of a "given," at all.
I have recommendedParable Of The Sower before. If you haven't read it, please do. And then....
According to the BBC, Prince Harry's autobiography is "the weirdest book ever written by a royal." I have to confess: while Prince Harry's book has been available for sale (and in the library) for over a year, I still haven't read it. I am probably not going to read it, either. I am not much of a royalty fan. Didn't Americans get over that about 250 years ago? If not, in my opinion, we should have!
What I have read is an article that appeared in the May 15, 2023, edition of The New Yorker. This article, by J.R. Moehringer, is a "Personal History," outlining the personal history of Moehringer, and not so much the personal history of Prince Harry. Moehringer's article is titled, "The Ghostwriter." Moehringer has written a follow up article, too, titled, "Notes From Prince Henry's Ghostwriter." You can try reading that one, too, as well as the first, if you want to go all in on the Moehringer-Prince Henry relationship.
Today is Mother's Day, and I am remembering something from that original New Yorker article - something that both Moehringer and Prince Harry had in common. Reporting on his growing rapport with Harry, Moehringer tells us this:
In the summer of 2020, I got a text. The familiar query. Would you be interested in speaking with someone about ghosting a memoir? I shook my head no. I covered my eyes. I picked up the phone and heard myself blurting, "Who?"
Prince Harry.
I agreed to a Zoom. I was curious, of course. Who wouldn’t be? I wondered what the real story was. I wondered if we’d have any chemistry. We did, and there was, I think, a surprising reason. Princess Diana had died twenty-three years before our first conversation, and my mother, Dorothy Moehringer, had just died, and our griefs felt equally fresh.
Still, I hesitated. Harry wasn’t sure how much he wanted to say in his memoir, and that concerned me. I’d heard similar reservations, early on, from authors who’d ultimately killed their memoirs. Also, I knew that whatever Harry said, whenever he said it, would set off a storm. I am not, by nature, a storm chaser. And there were logistical considerations. In the early stages of a global pandemic, it was impossible to predict when I’d be able to sit down with Harry in the same room. How do you write about someone you can’t meet?
Harry had no deadline, however, and that enticed me. Many authors are in a hot hurry, and some ghosts are happy to oblige. They churn and burn, producing three or four books a year. I go painfully slow; I don’t know any other way. Also, I just liked the dude. I called him dude right away; it made him chuckle. I found his story, as he outlined it in broad strokes, relatable and infuriating. The way he’d been treated, by both strangers and intimates, was grotesque. In retrospect, though, I think I selfishly welcomed the idea of being able to speak with someone, an expert, about that never-ending feeling of wishing you could call your mom (emphasis added).
Maybe I should read Prince Harry's book. Or, get in touch with him directly. He lives just a few hours away, in Montecito. It would only take me about four hours, or so, to drive down the coast, and I have that same never-ending feeling that Moehringer reports.
Facebook has delivered the following listing to my computer screen. The list comes from a labor/community activist at the University of California, Santa Cruz:
As witnessed by the picture at the top of this blog posting, showing an encampment at UCSC, and published online on May 2, 2024, that Facebook listing, immediately above, is only a "partial list." The UCSC encampment pictured didn't make it to the listing, although a number of encampments at other UC campuses do appear.
Partial or not, that's an impressive list, it seems to me, with the list claiming that there are encampments at "120+ Universities."
According to Students 4 Gaza, which has a constantly updated listing, online, there are actually 183 encampments ("and counting"). That number was provided as of the time I am writing. You can click that updating link to see what has happened since about 9:00 a.m. on May 10th.
Some have portrayed the encampments as "antisemitic." Is this true? I haven't been in any of the encampments, and I don't watch any kind of television or online "news." I do, however, read a lot of newspapers, and I am convinced that while some people in or associated with the encampments have attacked Jews verbally (and maybe even physically), the main thrust of the encampments is not to be "against Jews," or even to be "against Israel," but to be in favor of a ceasefire, and protection of the Palestinian people living in Gaza.
There have been statements made, in some of the encampments, that the nation of Israel should be eliminated. There must undoubtedly have been, I feel certain, both regrettable and unjustifiable actions, and outrageous and unjustifiable speech, coming out of some of the encampments. A horrific war is going on in Gaza, and there is a tendency for those who see wrong things done on the one side to decide that those wrongs justify, and in fact demand, that the very same kind of wrong things be done on the other side, too. That is, it seems obvious to me, a self-defeating set of behaviors, and while I believe that the impetus of the "encampment" effort is to bring a ceasefire and peace, there is the ever-present possibility that the actual impact of the encampment movement will be to escalate division and conflict.
Still, despite the definite danger that the encampment movement may exacerbate divisions, instead of promoting reconiliation, it is my belief that most of the students who have interrupted their education to create and maintain an encampment in support of Gaza, are hoping that they can dramatize the suffering and destruction that is going on - that is continuing to go on - and are saying that this must stop.
At least 40 babies, some beheaded, found by Israel soldiers in Hamas-attacked village
Sixteen children were killed during the Israeli bombardment between 5-7 August 2022.
Scenes from Gaza amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas
Violence and destruction will never create a "path to peace." I believe that the encampment movement is trying to dramatize this, and that we, the public, should respond to this call, and should demand that our nation listen to the "better angels of our nature," to employ the words spoken by the sixteenth president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, in his First Inaugural Address.
David Brooks, The New York Times' columnist, authored a column that appeared on May 10th, as I typed up this blog posting. What he said, in that column, titled, "How To Create A Society That Prizes Decency," restates the lessons I learned during my own time in college, when action against the Vietnam War, and in support of the struggle for Civil Rights, gave invaluable lessons to me, and to other young people who came together in protest, just as young people are coming together in encampments, today.
Have we learned anything? Has the song so beautifully sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary made no impression at all? Are we actually content to "never learn"?
I am not willing to ignore the truth that war and violence will only bring more of the same. Dead babies in Israel will mean more dead babies in Gaza. That is, unless and until we (finally) learn. I am glad that young students, in 183 encampments ("and counting"), are trying to get our nation to "learn."
And thanks to David Brooks, too!
ooOOOooo
How to Create a Society That Prizes Decency
DAVID BROOKS
May 9, 2024
In 2020 Joe Biden ran on the theme of saving the soul of America. Once he was president, he used the power of his office to help direct hundreds of billions of dollars through the infrastructure law and the CHIPS Act to the people and places that had been left behind. At the time, I hoped that these programs would not only create jobs and give people a sense of financial security but also be seen as a sign of respect, a sign to the unseen and the alienated that America had their back.
These policies were successful in economic terms, sparking a torrent of additional investment and lifting real wages, but economic progress has not produced social or spiritual progress — less alienation, higher social trust. American society, at every economic level, is still plagued by enmity, distrust, isolation, willful misunderstanding, ungraciousness and just plain meanness. The pain in America resides in places deeper than economic policies can reach. So how can we create a society in which it is easier to be decent to one another?
To answer that question, I returned to Howard Thurman’s magnificent 1949 book, “Jesus and the Disinherited.” Thurman, a Black theologian, was a contemporary of Martin Luther King Sr., at Morehouse and had a strong influence on the activism of his son Martin Luther King Jr.
Thurman argued that the first step toward reconciliation comes when we redefine the people on both sides of these power equations. When status categories are frozen, people in different groups meet as enemies. But you can scramble status categories by asking deeper questions of one another: How have you decided to live your life? What are the questions you have had to answer? These inquiries begin the process of seeing others in their full dignity. They initiate a process of sharing mutual worth and value.
Then comes my favorite sentence in the book, “There cannot be too great insistence on the point that we are here dealing with a discipline, a method, a technique, as over against some form of wishful thinking or simple desiring.”
A discipline, a method, a technique.
To be a good citizen, it is necessary to be warmhearted, but it is also necessary to master the disciplines, methods and techniques required to live well together: how to listen well, how to ask for and offer forgiveness, how not to misunderstand one another, how to converse in a way that reduces inequalities of respect. In a society with so much loneliness and distrust, we are failing at these social and moral disciplines.
Similarly, to create social change, it is necessary to have good intentions, but it is also necessary to master the disciplines and techniques of effective social action. The people in the civil rights organizations in the 1950s and ’60s spent a lot of time rigorously thinking about which methods would work and which would backfire. Thurman’s emphasis on methodological rigor and technique influenced King’s brilliant and often counterintuitive principles of nonviolent resistance (emphasis added):
1. It is not a method for cowards. It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.
2. It seeks not to defeat or humiliate the opponent but to win his friendship and understanding in order to move toward a beloved community.
3. The attack is directed against the forces of evil rather than against the people who happen to be doing the evil.
4. One must have a willingness to accept suffering without retaliation, to accept blows from an opponent without striking back. Unearned suffering is redemptive.
5. It avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of the spirit. It is a refusal to hate.
6. Nonviolent resistance is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. It has a deep faith in the future.
There are obviously times when this nonviolent strategy is inappropriate — in a state of anarchy or war, when the very existence of your people is under threat. But these techniques did work in Birmingham, Selma, Chicago and beyond. Most important, they altered people’s souls, fortifying the state of consciousness of the disinherited, undermining the state of consciousness of the dominators and elevating the consciousness of those who looked on in awe and admiration.
These thoughtful techniques are a long way from the tit-for-tat crudities that now often pass for public discourse, the tantrums of the merchants of rage, the 57 percent of Republicans and the 41 percent of Democrats who regard people in the other party as their enemies.
As many have noted, we’re not going to solve our problems at the same level of consciousness on which we created them. If the national consciousness, the state of our national soul, is to repair, it will be because people begin to think as deeply as Thurman did and begin to be intolerant of the immoralities of their own side.
I was impressed this week by Georgia’s former lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan. A conservative Republican, he announced his decision to support Biden, and he rebuked those other conservatives who are appalled by Trump but still vow to vote for him. Duncan’s reasoning was straightforward: Character is more important than policy. Or to put it more grandly, the soul of our democracy is more important than whatever the future top tax rate might be.
Beginning in 2014, and continuing to last year, I taught a Legal Studies course at UCSC that focused on "Privacy, Technology, And Freedom." If you click that link, you'll be able to read one of my earlier blog postings, from 2015, which discusses the course. My past involvement with that UCSC "Senior Seminar" is what must have garnered me the honor of acting as the moderator for an upcoming, online examination of "Privacy," in the context of recent actions by local governments in Santa Cruz County.
The "Community Conversation on Surveillance and the Expectation of Privacy," over which I am slated to preside, will take place on Monday, May 20th, from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The discussion is being hosted by the Santa Cruz County Chapter of the ACLU of Northern California. This community discussion will focus, most specifically, on the use of "Automated License Plate Readers" by Santa Cruz County law enforcement agencies.
If your schedule permits, please join our online discussion on May 20, 2024, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. I will be moderating. Click right here to register.
Participants in this community discussion will include Tracy Rosenberg, the Executive Director of Oakland Privacy; Nick Hidalgo, staff attorney for the ACLU of Northern California, head of its "Technology and Civil Liberties Program"; Matthew Guariglia, Senior Policy Analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Mike Gennaco, who serves as an independent Police Auditor for the City of Santa Cruz, and serves, also, in the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office of Inspector General.
Again, I hope you'll sign up and join in because this is an extremely important topic, and we all need to know what's happening, and to understand the implications of what's happening for both our "privacy" and (ultimately) our "freedom," as automated license plate readers are deployed throughout our local communities. Here's that link, one more time:
That guy pictured above, Lee Brokaw, is someone whom I would call a "community activist." Lee resides in my own hometown, Santa Cruz, California. He's a general contractor, too, which background often informs his public engagements. You can click right here, for instance, to see what Lee has to say about the quality and sustainability of newly constructed downtown buildings in Santa Cruz.
Coming, as I do, from a tradition of "environmental activism," with a particular focus on "Growth Management," I am not used to finding general contractors who have similar political views. In fact, I am not so sure that Lee and I would always come down on exactly the same side on the kind of issues with which I tend to get involved. Lee is, though, definitely someone who wants our local community to be "in charge" of its own future - and of its own present! We are definitely in agreement on that!
I was pleased to learn that Lee liked one of my blog postings from the middle of last March, which was titled, "Answering An Important Question."
What was that important question, to which I suggested I might have a good answer? Here is how I put that question in my blog posting:
"Why do the rich have so much power?"
I answered the question as follows:
"The rich have so much power because the rest of us don't use our own."
Lee sent me a message, suggesting that I should use that response as a "signature line" on the emails I send - just to be sure, I suppose, that I don't forget what I said, and to remind others to think about that topic themselves.
That's a pretty good idea, and anyone who would like to append my question and/or response to their own emails is certainly invited to do so.
Lee himself, I note, has now incorporated my statement into his own signature line. Credit to Lee for his decision to employ the following, three-part closure to the emails he dispatches. They go out widely, and they go out often!
“Things are the way they are because filthy rich people think they don't have enough money” - M. Lee Brokaw
“The rich have so much power because the rest of us don’t use our own” - Gary Patton
“Activism keeps me young.” - Jane Fonda, 82 years old
Adam Schiff, Member of Congress and currently running for the United States Senate, showed up in Santa Cruz last Sunday, at the home of Fred Keeley. Keeley is the Mayor of the City of Santa Cruz, and Schiff stood on the Mayor's sunny front porch and spoke to supporters who were gathered in the Mayor's front garden. I took a picture.
As is evidenced by the photograph above, it appears that I managed to capture Schiff with his eyes closed. That could give you the wrong impression. I think I'd characterize Schiff's politics as "clear-eyed." He didn't come across as a "sleepyhead," either. Schiff presented a realistic view of where our national politics is today - and he made very clear that we are at an "inflection point." If you click the link in the first paragraph, the link mentioning Schiff's Senate campaign, you can make a contribution. Having been at the event at the Mayor's house - and having heard Schiff speak - I think that making a contribution to Schiff's Senate campaign would be an excellent investment in good government.
Schiff's remarks, recognizing the exceptional political moment in which we find ourselves, provided what I think of as some very good advice. I have his quote, below, in big type. Schiff spoke those words in a way that made me think of that World War II advisory to the people of Great Britain: "Keep Calm And Carry On." In fact, as Congress Member Schiff said, we are in serious times, and we need to address the very real dangers and challenges we face. Our "democracy," our democratic system of self-government, is facing a genuine "stress test." The challenges we face are very real.
Lest, however, we talk ourselves into panic, here is a message from Adam Schiff, speaking in Santa Cruz, and telling the truth:
"We Will Get Through This."
I think that's true. So, let's keep reminding ourselves that it is true, and let's do something to make sure that it will be true.
I have already commented on the recent film, Civil War. I expressed concern, in a blog posting published on April 21, 2024, that the film might be seen as a kind of encouragement of armed conflict, right here in the United States. Could this film portray a kind of "nihilistic wish fulfillment"? That is what I was worrying about, and I thought that maybe it could! As I said in that blog post, "I wouldn't want this new movie about "Civil War" to give anyone the wrong idea. I am just a little bit worried that it might."
It turns out that I am not the only one with this particular worry. Writing in the May 5, 2024, edition of The New York Times Magazine, in a movie review titled, "Gun Shy" (hard copy title), Ismail Muhammad, a story editor at The Times, speculates that the main message of the movie might be that "this could be pretty fun." Muhammad quotes François Truffaut, as follows: "Every film about war ends up being pro-war: Whatever a director points his camera at, even violence, becomes appealing."
Here is my appeal: Let's not bite into that attractive bait! As Muhammad's review says, the vision presented by the film "is almost entirely restricted to destroyed buildings and corpses." That is also exactly what we are seeing, every day, in images coming from Gaza.
If nothing else is presented to us, it might well be that a considerable number of people will think that it would be great for us to "join the fun." Our former president, candidate for president again, feeds those fever dreams, conjuring up visions of what he'll do if elected to the presidency once again. According to a Time interview, former president Trump is calling for exactly the sort of federal government action - emphasizing the use of armed military units under his command - that would, almost inevitably, bring us into the kind of world portrayed in the movie.
In one of the most powerful and provocative scenes in the movie, actor Jesse Plemons asks this question: "What sort of American are you?" That is before he starts killing the Americans who aren't white.
As I say (and I have said it before, too, in a different context), it is very important that we realize the seductive nature of what the film Civil War portrays. And it is very important that we "don't bite." Some of the actions that have come out of the Gaza protests, and this movie, make me think that we do need to warn ourselves off. We do need to "fight" for what's right, but I am personally recommending that we take our lesson from the Civil Rights Movement:
I have written, frequently, about global warming, and about the extreme dangers to which continued global warming is exposing human civilization. These dangers include, in the opinion of some, the possiblity that continued global warming is threatening the very survival of the human species. One academic suggests that it's likely that humans will be extinct by 2028. If you didn't read my blog posting from yesterday, and this extremely pessimistic prediction is news to you, please feel free to click that "Yesterday" link, and see what you missed.
Right after posting that blog commentary yesterday, I came across an article in The Wall Street Journal that indicates that some people are taking the threat of global warming seriously. The article, by Jeremy Freeman, was titled, "Let's Find Out if This Can Cool the Planet." That is the hardcopy title. Online, which is where the following link will take you (The Journal's paywall permitting, of course), Freeman's article is titled, "Scientists Resort to Once-Unthinkable Solutions to Cool the Planet."
What are those "once-unthinkable" solutions? In general, they are varieties of what is called, "geoengineering," or "solar geoengineering." As the MIT Technology Review tells us, "the basic concept behind solar geoengineering is that the world might be able to counteract global warming by spraying tiny particles in the atmosphere that could scatter sunlight." Jeremy Freeman and The Journal note that "momentum around solar geoengineering is building fast."
Given that I have called (yesterday) for rapid and dramatic changes to address the impacts of global warming, one might suppose that I would endorse the idea of deploying "geoengineering" solutions to help avoid the adverse impacts of global warming. In fact, though, I don't think geoengineering is a good idea. My analysis is that we have arrived at the place in which we find ourselves because of our belief that we do not have to pay attention to the limits imposed by the Natural World. Trying to "engineer" the way solar energy gets to the Earth is to continue the fundamental error that has gotten us into our present predicament.
We need to conform our "Human World" to the constraints and limits imposed by the "Natural World," and thinking that we can "engineer" around those limits is to perpetuate a mistaken idea. But what should we do, then?
Here is what I would suggest: Let's start figuring out how to do a lot less!
I am pretty sure that everyone who might be reading this blog posting knows all about AOC. I didn't really need to spell that out yesterday (although I did), and I don't think I really need to spell it out again, right here. However, I am not nearly as sure that people know about the AOMC. Thus, let me spell out that acronym, right now: Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AOMC).
A representation of the AOMC is found above. The AMOC is a system of ocean currents that circulates water within the Atlantic Ocean, bringing warm water north and cold water south. In the website I just linked, the National Ocean Service, a division of NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), provides the following, rather benign, statement about the possibility that the AMOC may be slowing down:
Is the AMOC slowing down?
As our climate continues to change, is there a possibility that the AMOC will slow down, or come to a complete stop? While research shows it is weakening over the past century, whether or not it will continue to slow or stop circulating completely remains uncertain. If the AMOC does continue to slow down, however, it could have far-reaching climate impacts. For example, if the planet continues to warm, freshwater from melting ice at the poles would shift the rain belt in South Africa, causing droughts for millions of people. It would also cause sea level rise across the U.S. East Coast.
This statement does not come across as too alarming, at least the way I read it (though it is certainly not good news that continued global warming could cause "droughts for millions of people"). And maybe it would make sense to be at least a little alarmed, since NOAA's home page on the internet (as of March 18, 2024) informs us that "Earth just had its warmest February on record."
Guy R. McPherson, who is a professor emeritus of natural resources and ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona, is much more alarmist than NOAA and the National Ocean Service. The headline on one of his recent blog publications asks this question: "Will AMOC Kill Us All?" Here is an excerpt:
It is no exaggeration to claim that the AMOC is critical to the continued retention of habitat for life on Earth. It is a complex tangle of currents that, among other things, works like a giant conveyor belt that transports warm water from the tropics toward the North Atlantic. At this point, the water cools and becomes saltier. It therefore sinks deep into the ocean before spreading south. Importantly, the AMOC contributes to the regulation of global weather patterns. Its collapse would trigger extreme winters and rising sea levels in western Europe and the northeastern United States. Further from home, a collapsed AMOC would shift the timing and magnitude of the tropical monsoon.
More than 12,000 years ago, the rapid melting of glaciers caused the AMOC to shut down. Within a decade, temperature fluctuations in the Northern Hemisphere reached 10-15 degrees Celsius, or 18-27 degrees Fahrenheit. The president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ... said the shutdown of the AMOC “would affect every person on the planet – it’s that big and important.”
Skipping to the final sentence of the Introduction in the peer-reviewed paper, we find this sentence: “In this work, we show that a transition of the AMOC is most likely to occur around 2025-2095 (90% confidence interval).” The 70-year range from 2025 to 2095 leaves a lot to be desired. After all, abundant evidence indicates we will lose habitat for human animals long before 2095 and also long before 2050. Evidence upon which I have depended for many years indicates we likely will not survive until 2030.However, if the predictions of an ice-free Arctic Ocean by renowned professors at Harvard and the University of California (San Diego) are nearly correct, then our continued survival likely will cease before 2026 (emphasis added).
Gee, game over by 2026! That gives us two years! That is pretty grim!
McPherson is well-known as a climate cassandra, having predicted the extinction of human life within ten years. Thus, his thoughts about the AMOC are certainly consistent with his overall views. McPherson, however, is definitely not alone in predicting some dire consequences related to the slowing down or failure of the AMOC. Richard Nolthenius, PhD, Chair of the Astronomy Department at Cabrillo College and deeply engaged with climate science, has recently written to climate activists at UCSC as follows:
I'm more and more convinced that we absolutely will shut down the global ocean thermohaline circulation. It's shut down in the past with much milder forcing. And coupled with the unprecedented rise in CO2 and Earth Energy Imbalance, is mass-extinction-level forcing unless we very rapidly reverse this. And I don't mean meeting mild, pro-economic promises which always seem to be a decade past the anticipated funeral (or deep retirement to his bunker in New Zealand) - of the promisers (emphasis added).
What's my point, here? My point is that we need to admit to ourselves that life "as we have known it" is almost certainly going to change, and change dramatically, and quite possibly change extrremely rapidly. If that is true - and my point is that this is exactly what we should anticipate - then this will make necessary a total reconfiguration of how we live. We have acted as though we could ignore the total dependence of our human world on that other world, the "World That God Made," the "World of Nature," and since Nature does "bat last," as Guy McPherson likes to say, we are going to have to be prepared to change our human arrangements to reflect the natural limits we have been ignoring.
Organizing ourselves to do that is a mammoth "political" project. Building our political capabilities is going to be required. Let's face that fact. It's time to start building our political ability to make the kind of truly significant social and economic changes that will be required (unless we're willing to stipulate to the Guy McPherson "we're doomed" view of the future of the human race).
I, personally, am not willing to stipulate that we're doomed. I hope you're not, either!
AOC is pictured above. While you can look her up by simply using her initials - just type "AOC" into your browser search bar - her full name is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. As perhaps everyone reading this blog posting will know, Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the United States Congress, first elected to Congress in 2018. She represents the 14th Congressional District in the State of New York, which includes a significant portion of the Bronx.
As Wikipedia tells us, Ocasio-Cortez gained national recognition by defeating an incumbent, and not just any incumbent:
On June 26, 2018, Ocasio-Cortez drew national recognition when she won the Democratic Party's primary election for New York's 14th Congressional District. She defeated Democratic Caucus ChairJoe Crowley, a 10-term incumbent, in what was widely seen as the biggest upset victory in the 2018 midterm election primaries. She easily won the November general election, defeating Republican Anthony Pappas. She was reelected in the 2020 and 2022 elections.
Taking office at age 29, Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman ever to serve in the United States Congress. She has been noted for her substantial social media presence relative to her fellow members of Congress. Ocasio-Cortez attended Boston University, where she double-majored in international relations and economics, graduating cum laude. She was previously an activist and worked as a waitress and bartender before running for Congress in 2018.
The Wikipedia write-up from which I have just quoted outlines some of the reasons that AOC became so "famous" - virtually overnight, and on a national level - after defeating Congress Member Crowley in the 2018 primary election. Her youth, her educational accomplishments, her work experience in the service industry as a waitress and bartender, as well as her personal charm, and the fact that she defeated one of the leading members of the Democratic Party in Congress, all made her story a compelling one.
But let me suggest an additional reason.
Our system of government is based on the idea that we elect "representatives" who then act, and govern, on our behalf. A "representative" is a person who is given significant authority to speak for and/or to act for another, with the idea being that the "representative" will advance the interests of the person who is being "represented." Attorneys, for instance, are often called "representatives." When you tell someone you have been sued (or charged with a crime), a friend will almost immediately say, "Oh, dear. Who is going to represent you?" Members of Congress are also called "representatives." In fact, the so-called "lower house" of the United States Congress is officially described in the Constitution as the "House of Representatives." Of course, persons serving in the Senate, and the person serving as President, are also supposed to "represent" the voters who put them in office. All elected officials are supposed to do that! That's true at the state and local level, too.
While our government is based on the idea that we govern through our elected "representatives," who do, indeed, "represent" us, by taking action in our name, many people don't really believe that their "representatives" in the House of Representatives actually represent them at all - and they have a similar lack of faith in Senators and the President. People often conclude, and with good reason, that instead of actually working to advance the interests of those whom they officially "represent," elected officials end up representing the economic intersts of the corporations and the wealthy individuals that provide them, directly and indirectly, with huge amounts of campaign money.
The fact that this is an all too common feeling among voters is an indication that "we, the people" have lost a lot of faith in our government. It is this loss of faith in our "representatives" - which is so often a justified loss of faith - that has provided Donald J. Trump with an opportunity to be taken seriously as a candidate for the presidency. Trump says that the government isn't working for ordinary people. And, in fact, that is what lots of ordinary people actually believe - and correctly believe! If you are not paying close attention, Donald J. Trump can be seen to be a "truth-teller," worthy of the public trust, not as the psychologically damaged and dishonest person that he actually is.
I think AOC's instantaneous notoriety, occurring nationwide, came from the fact that she was seen as a genuine "representative" of the Congressional District in which she defeated a Democratic Party leader who was not seen as someone truly "representing" the voters to whom he was accountable. In other words, AOC's victory in 2018 gave people hope - all across the United States - that maybe our system of "representative government" can be made to work, after all.
I think "representative" government can work. It has worked, throughout our history. But representative government only works if we, the people who need to be represented, insist that our representatives actually do what we want. That means we need to be involved, and engaged, and "organized." I keep saying this because it's true. Self-government only works when we get involved in politics and government ourselves.
Ocasio-Cortez has a great deal of personal charm, but she wasn't elected because of her personal charm. She was elected because people organized in her district to put someone into Congress whom they believed would better represent them. And In 2018, Ocasio-Cortez wasn't the only woman working to bring better representation to the United States Congress. Here's the trailer for Knock Down The House. Check it out, if you haven't already seen the movie.
