Climate Lynx

China Must Be Thrilled Donald Trump was elected to manage borders and curb left-wing wokeism, but his right-wing wokeism—attacking electric vehicles and renewable energy because they don't fit MAGA ideology—is equally senseless and against national interests. Ironically, his own base benefits from renewables. The five states with the largest share of wind power are red states, generating at least a third of their power from wind. This is about geography, not politics. Rural America has vast solar and wind potential and is already capitalizing on it, regardless of voting patterns. More critically, Trump's "drill, baby, drill" approach at a time when artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and autonomous technology are advancing will not make America great again. Instead, it risks making China great again. Trump once boasted about sending Americans to Mars. The real question is whether a Chinese astronaut will greet them there, asking, "What took you so...

 The United States recently joined an exclusive climate club.  Before disclosing its members, let's examine the big climate picture. In 2023, we had an El Nino year that set new warm temperature records. The El Nino is when ocean surface temperatures are warmer than usual.  This pretty much shut down winter recreation in the U.P., except for the downhill ski areas making snow. Many people said we should not worry, as it was just an El Nino year, and we could expect a cool La Nina year in 2024.  I held my tongue because the ten previous years were very warm, setting new records nearly every year.  These have been the warmest temperatures the Earth has ever seen since homo sapiens started walking upright. Rising planetary temperatures mean more extreme weather, but how does that relate to human well-being? A group of climate scientists painstakingly analyzes extreme weather events to see if they can be attributed to climate change. The organization is called t...

A Link between Slavery & Big Oil   Noam Chomsky, one of the world's most quoted authors, expresses his opinion of the Big Oil misinformation campaign: "I don't know what word in the language—I can't find one—that applies to people of that kind, who are willing to sacrifice the existence of organized human life, not in the distant future, so they can put a few more dollars in highly overstuffed pockets. The word 'evil' doesn't begin to approach it." Was there another time in US history when evil ruled?  Let's look at the United States before the Civil War. In the South, there were 4 million enslaved people. The slaves, or their parents, or grandparents, or someone in their lineage had been kidnapped, shackled, and shipped to the Americas to spend their lives with no freedom whatsoever. This criminal operation started in 1619 and accelerated until the Union forces ended it. The black humans had no rights and were conveniently labeled as les...