Author: Mark J. Heinicke

Giving up on Natural: Do We Need Intelligent (Human) Design?

A ‘State of Nature’ Has Been Lost Forever

[Source for this essay is a Washington Post article by Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis in June 2016: see here.]

“‘Let’s get back to that natural environment with humans out of the picture. . .’—that’s a chimera, a false hope. . . it’s too late for that,” declares Melinda Zeder. co-author of a paper published last year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper, stuffed with anthropological, paleoecological and archaeological evidence, establishes that humans have been modifying the natural environment for many tens of thousands of years. Well, we knew that. . .  and we’ve also been exposed to this line of thinking, if not for tens of thousands of years, for long enough to have drummed into our heads the idea that returning significant portions of the Earth to Nature is a doomed hope.

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Trump Speaks, Many Cringe

This country is rubble and needs to be rebuilt

During Trump’s inauguration address, I was reminded of his observation, many months ago, that “the generals are rubble.” Essentially, our whole country is rubble needing to be rebuilt, was the message he sent today, with a litany of bad stuff and the newly minted term “American Carnage.”

The strangest part of the speech was when he said that the education system has caused our children to be “deprived of all knowledge.” Education Secretary nominee Betsy DeVos is set to reverse this situation by informing us that public education is a fraud, which is the one piece of knowledge that will get driven into our empty heads.

So, from rubble and absence of knowledge, shall we rise?

That’s not such a good bet, considering how he just excoriated a lot of the people who will be working for him.

Trump Nominees’ Climate Playbook

Fossil Fuel Advancement Playbook Employs the “Climate Change is Real” Admission

In the current week of Senate hearings for Trump’s nominations to head  the EPA, the Department of Interior, and the Department of Energy, we have heard variations on a seemingly surprising theme, to wit: Climate Change is real and human activity has something to do with it. Surprising coming from them anyway—Scott Pruitt (EPA), Ryan Zinke (Interior), and Rick Perry (Energy)—all of whom had not so long ago belonged to the Climate Change Denial faction of the Republican Party.

The three are following the same playbook, a series of moves that lead us from the concern that fossil fuels might be messing up our climate, to the conclusion that fossil fuels are the remedy for the potential ills of climate change.  Something along the lines of fighting fire with fire, a kind of global homeopathy. Here’s the play:

(1) Admit Climate Change science is not a hoax,

(2) Acknowledge Climate Change may actually be occurring.

(3) Acknowledge, that human activity might contribute in some way to Climate Change.

(4) Question whether the change is happening as quickly as most climate scientists fear.

(5) Question whether, even if it is happening quickly, is it all that dire.

– here between (5) and (6) is the move from hypotheses into policy –

(6) (a) if it is not dire, then other priorities such as economic development with fossil fuels should take precedence over costly efforts to minimize emissions; or (b) if it is dire, then we should move forward on adaptation, for which we will need the economic development made possible by fossil fuels.

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Best Read on Trump Appeal in The Guardian

Tom McCarthy writes an insightful article on Trump’s appeal to the working class in The Guardian here. (BTW, Those who do not subscribe to The Guardian may find themselves blocked if they have read too many articles in a given month.)

McCarthy writes with great deftness but without showing off. I especially like his metaphor, that Trump’s victory felt to many people “as if a trapdoor in history had clumsily sprung open and the country fallen through.”

His piece speaks for itself, but there’s one note that I’ve heard rung not only in Northampton County, PA, but elsewhere in the U.S.: that the expression ‘Merry Christmas’ had, while recently under a cloud, had made a welcome comeback. Despite the number of times Obama said ‘Merry Christmas’ (MSNBC played a collage of about ten instances of Obama wishing ‘Merry Christmas’ in various settings), during the last few decades a sense of shame had gotten attached to the expression among Christians who have felt themselves under siege. People got used to saying ‘Happy Holidays,’ but all along have been feeling a loss as well as resentment against the ‘Political Correctness’ that had taken the away the merriment.

Scott Pruitt: No, No, No, and No

SEND THIS FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY STOOGE BACK TO OKLAHOMA AND PRAY FOR OKLAHOMA.

To have Scott Pruitt heading the EPA is not so much a matter of hiring a fox to guard the henhouse as it is to hire a demolition crew to bulldoze the henhouse and crush the detritus to a pulp. 

At least the damage Jess Sessions will inflict as Attorney General may potentially be reversed.  But the damage Scott Pruitt can do to the environment as head of the EPA—to include pretty much dismantling the organization itself, as he has already attempted to do as Oklahoma Attorney General—can cascade down for decades.  Toxins such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic released by coal burning are natural elements that can poison air and water for eons to come. Not quite as permanent is atmospheric carbon dioxide (it is a compound, after all, not an element), but it naturally persists for centuries, plural.*

I’ve thrown in some links below ⇓ to pump up your level of outrage and hope you’ll ask your Senators to send Pruitt back to the fracking-riddled, earthquake-rattled state of Oklahoma whence he came.**

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Two-and-a-Half Reasons Not to Confirm Rex Tillerson That Will Not Work

Rex Tillerson: the Man and the Phenomenon

FIRST: Rex Tillerson, most obviously, represents the interests of Big Fossil. No matter how much he divests financial holdings, the social proclivities of human nature ensure his bias toward his longstanding friends, and thereby a tilting of the international energy field toward fossil fuel. No one, not even the Pope, is immune to the psychological influences of friends.  It’s not just Tillerson’s personal bias, it’s the fact of his being in the position itself that declares to the world: We Like Fossil Fuels.

SECOND: Not quite so obvious is the signal of the nomination of Tillerson not as a person, but as a phenomenon.  It’s the tacit agreement that a captain of a key international industry naturally belongs as chief diplomat of the world’s most powerful nation, no matter what industry s/he is connected with. The nomination of Satya Nadella (current CEO of Microsoft) would send the same signal. It’s the signal that we’re now unquestionably in the era of what David Korten wrote in When Corporations Rule the World, first published two decades ago.*

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How Much Does Elephant Slaughter Matter?

Every 15 minutes, a poacher kills an elephant for its tusks.

Does one elephant matter? Check it out:

https://www.paulallen.com/china-takes-aggressive-steps-to-close-ivory-trade/#1545-2

Previously I raised the issue of, how much do we want to pour resources into the protection of “charismatic” species such as the elephant, when more humble unnoticed creatures (and plants) go  ignored at the planet’s peril?  Not to mention the multitudes of suffering human beings.

It’s a serious question, but let me be irrational for the moment, since it seems that a little irrationality can go a long way toward positive outcomes, where sheer logic falls short (read Antonio Damasio).

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Secession: Has Its Time Come?

Tell me you haven’t been thinking about it.

Secession.

I.e. a “Blue” withdrawal from the paradoxically named “United” States.

[sorry Barack, your farewell speech was laudable, but as your mom said, Reality has a Way of Catching Up with You.]

I realize there are many practical obstacles to this split, of which the two biggest are:

(A) Geographic.  North Dakota, Montana, and a finger of Idaho break up a Blue Northern Arc extending from Virginia to California. Boundaries could be especially problematic there. If the other side started building walls, access between regions might be managed through Canada.

(B) Asymmetry of Resources & Money:

  • The non-Blue portion of What Was the United States (WUSS) has most of the physical resources: oil, coal, natural gas, solar, and land-based wind energy, and most important—if push came to shove—most of the armaments, from handguns to ICBMs.
  • The Blue Arc has most of the financial wealth, intellectual property, and potential for innovation.  You can see where the above-mentioned asymmetry would interact with this one. But, with enough tribute paid to the non-Blue states—continuing an existing de facto practice—the Blue Arc could minimize the use of force. The Blue Arc, if it joined NATO, would shine among the other NATO countries, in actually paying its way.

Think I’m joking? I’m not sure. I actually don’t believe Secession’s time has come. Yet. But it is time to start thinking about it so that future generations might not have to endure the charade of creating a More Perfect Union from the schizophrenic nation that exists now.