GLOBAL WARMING: SCIENCE vs PSEUDOSCIENCE

Before focusing this science Wednesday on global warming, a short analysis of what is happening with the presidential campaign.

• After all the bad-mouthing by Donald Trump about the next presidential debate, this ABC event is now again on track for Tuesday, September 10 at 9PM (EDT) at the National Constitution Center, where rests the Liberty Bell, in Phildelphia.  Moderators will be David Muir and Linsey Davis.  The ground rules will be the same as CNN's debate between Trump and Joe Biden.  There will be no third-party candidates nor audience.  In one corner, Donald Trump at 78 and in the other, Kamala Harris at 59.
• 
  Kamala Harris has gained the endorsement of so many former Republicans that I've lost count.
• More than 200 Republicans who previously worked for former Presidents George Bush, senior and junior. McCain and Romney.  Read their open letter urging voters to reject Donald Trump.
• Here are other notables.
• By November 5, this list, embarrassingly huge already, will only grow.
• 
  I sometimes wonder what logic is being used by the Republican Party to meet this challenge. 
• Or maybe there are no other options.
• But the only two former Democrats I see switching their allegiance to Trump are RFK Jr and Tulsi Gabbard, just adding to the weirdness factor for the Republican team. 

• 
  Can't add much more about Junior to what you already know, and he is most definitely in a class by himself as a weirdo.
• But Tulsi Gabbard was once a Congress lady from Hawaii, where I live.
• There are some attributes:  an Army Reserve officer, first part-Samoan-American member of House of Reps, only ever Hindu in Congress, served as fill-in host for Tucker Carlson Tonight, and has a bachelor's in business from Hawaii Pacific University.

• 
  However (and the title of this article is Trump's Circle of Weirdos Gets Even More Extreme With Endorsement from Tulsi Gabbard):
• Tulsi (and RFK Jr) have drawn praises from white supremacists and other extremists.  Apparently, a neo-Nazi website took credit for signing up people supporting Gabbard for president.
• Her web site was used for Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
• 
  Supports Putin over Ukraine.
• Campaigned for Republican election deniers (like Kari Lake in Arizona) in 2022.
• While in Congress, introduced a bill to ban abortion at 20 weeks, threatening jail time.
• Against same sex marriage.
• Serving as Kamala Harris to prepare Trump for the debate.  Makes sense:  female, Hindu, ah...there must be more here.

Let me start the topic of today with what I consider to be recent scientific reports about global warming.

• The Journal of the American Medical Association published new research indicating that heat-related deaths in the U.S. increased 117% between 1999 and 2023, from 1069 to 2023.
• Did this increase alarm Republicans?  No.  In fact, Democrats and the masses were also not phased.
• What happened in the USA is symptomatic of what is occurring around the world.  In other words, extrapolating to the world, our 4% of the population would mean that around 50,000 are dying from summer heat yearly.
• A doubling of deaths is troubling, but I've long felt that decision-makers would not take climate change seriously until many tens of millions are killed one hot summer.  
• A 100% jump in U.S. deaths over a period of 19 years went unnoticed in the country.
• That 50,000 dying worldwide in 2023 must jump by a factor of 200 to 10 million some time in the future for action to finally occur.
• 
  Yes, that's a personal surmisal, hardly worthy of any serious consideration, but is there a tipping point when there will be nothing we can do to save Humanity?
• Like others, I've advanced geoengineering solutions.  Read my Huffington Post article of 16 years ago. 
• But geoengineering remains a very controversial option, for things could worsen with the wrong "solution."  
• Yet, more and more schemes are popping up, some to address glacier melting and sea-level rise, others to brighten clouds to reflect more sunlight, and here is a report ranking more than 60 ideas to save the Arctic.
• The laggardness of decisions might just lead to a requirement for geoengineering.

• 
  Various locations around the world are actually taking steps.  This article counts 1500 climate policies aimed at reducing emissions.

• Only 4% made any kind of difference.  In other words, 96% of them wasted their time, incurring costs.

• 
  These numbers mean nothing to you, but these successful steps did reduce 1.8 billion metric tons of carbon.  But to reach targets laid out in the 2015 Paris Agreement, emissions must fall by 23 billion metric tons by 2030, which is less than 6 years away.  All this time since when I was working for the U.S. Senate more than 40 years ago, and we have only made a  7% dent with 6 years to go.
• The problem with individual action is that the entities that try to do something, penalize themselves, for they lose out economically in the process.
• For global climate change remediation to work, the whole world has to work in unison.  This is not happening, and shows no sign of gaining any traction.
• 
  And, oh, what will all that cost?  Estimates range between $300 billion and $50 trillion.  The fact that the difference is more than a factor of 150 shows how much remains unknown....and again, 2030 is less than six years away.
• For the record:

• 80-90% of Americans are not worried.

• USA beliefs are linked to their political party:

• Scientists are concerned, but countries are mixed.

Then, there is pseudoscience, or just plain craziness.

• In 2022 Donald Trump called climate change a hoax.  He could well re-gain the presidency, and were you worried about losing democracy?  What about losing Humanity?

• 
  Similarly, the U.S. Senate had an energy committee chairman, Jim Inhofe, of course a Republican, too, longest ever serving senator from Oklahoma, who was a bona fide kook on this subject.
• Business Insider provides the 10 most-respected global warming skeptics.
• Wikipedia calls this climate change denial.
• Sometimes associated with the fossil fuels lobby, like the Koch brothers and most traditional energy companies, clearly a strategy used by the tobacco industry.
• ExxonMobile, through the Heartland Institute, calls for adaptation to an inevitability.

• They don't do any real research.  
• They cherry-pick data and come up with contradictory conclusions.
• Is Trump really ignorant of the science, or is he a pathological liar?  The psychiatric jargon is mythomania or pseudologia fantastica.  It's possible, of course, that he is both at the same time, but he does seem inclined to favor pseudoscience over science.

There has been a long history of pseudoscience:

• Astrology.  A Pew report indicates that 30% of Americans follow and believe.  Interesting, but this figure is only 3% for Atheists.

• I hesitated including this bit of pseudoscience linked to Donald Trump, but go read the entire article if you are curious.

• What worries me is that the trust Americans have in scientists is definitely declining.  Trump factor?

• 
  Religion and Creationist cosmologist?  Depends on your belief, but more Americans believe in the Bible version of how we came to be than evolution.
• Many still belong to some kind of flat earth society.  In fact, this poll further concerns me, as our younger generation seems to be going in the wrong direction.  Do you believe that the world is round?
• 55 years old      = 94%
• 25-34 years old = 76%
• 18-24 years old = 66% 
• 
  The Bermuda Triangle remains a site of interest to some.
• Biodynamic agriculture, a method of organic farming, is out there.
• GMO skepticism remains.

• 
  There are numerous Feng Shui acupuncture, aromatherapy, chiropractic, colon cleansing, colloidal silver, crystal healing, cupping therapy (seen on the body of volleyball players), faith healing, homeotherapy, Reiki, Scientology and eugenics practitioners.  Click on this for a full list.
• 
  2012 phenomenon.
• 21 December 2012 was supposed to be the date when cataclysmic transformative events would occur.  
• This was the end-date of a 5,126-year-long cycle on the Maya civilization.
• While many believed in this doomsday prospect, Mexican tourism did improve.

I do worry about global warming, and even more about losing Democracy if Donald Trump again becomes president on November 5.  But much of the above at least partly explains why this could happen.

Typhoon Shanshan was up to 130 MPH yesterday, but has weakened to 100 MPH today.  Made landfall over Kyushu, and the track will continue over the next day or two to Shikoku Island, then Honshu.  The eye will miss the major population areas.

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