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All within the last few weeks: In Greece 80 people died as fires raged in Mati, by the coast. In Sweden, temperatures north of the Arctic Circle hit above 90 degrees as more than 40 forest fires claimed more than 62,000 acres. In Finland, near the Russian border, forest fires have raged out of control. As a record heat wave scorched Norway, fires raged there as well, fortunately brought under control. A heatwave in Latvia has seen a 1,600-acre blaze roil through in a very inaccessible spot, threatening to grow quickly. We’re used to horrific forest fires in Australia, Canada and with its now year-round fire season, the United States. Major out-of-control fires in have claimed lives and homes all over the United States in July alone. Major swaths of California, north and south, have been effectively leveled by fires that, as of this writing, are still virtually entirely out-of-control (with firefighters and homeowners/families among the fatalities).

Still the right-wing climate change skeptics, most particularly in the “let business do whatever it wants” Trump administration, deny a linkage between man’s dumping of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere and the floods, fires, droughts, coastal sea rising and more intense super-storms that are plaguing virtually every corner of the earth. But the President is touting a “strong economy” and falling unemployment as the result of the President’s pro-business vectors, regardless of the consequences, as complete vindication for his anti-environmental stance. And even though there are vastly more alternative energy jobs than those in the now-obsolete coal industry, Trump continues to proselytize in favor of falling back to coal as a primary energy source. Nobody wants coal anymore!!!!

“Strong economy” is based on performance averages and the drop in unemployment fails to address the dwindling earning power for most Americans. Drill even slightly beneath the surface of these seemingly powerful statistics and you can quickly a much less positive picture of the American economy, one that should truly disturb us all. For more supporting financial analysis, please read by July 26^th The Rich Get Richer blog. That there is virtually no dissent from the scientific community that man-induced climate change is real and producing devastating impacts falls on deaf ears in a fact-averse government.

Which brings me to the single biggest impact that the Trump administration can have over the future of the United States, one that can linger for decades and change the basic character of this nation further from democracy to a horrifically pro-corporation plutocracy, continuing a vector of massive irreconcilable differences – polarization on steroids – will continue to rip us apart. Appointments to the federal bench, and, in particular, the Supreme Court. Today’s focus is obviously the environment, climate change, and the Trump administration’s policy of eviscerating the Environmental Protection Agency.

David Savage, writing for the July 29^th Los Angeles Times, brings it home: “In its most important environmental ruling of recent decades, the Supreme Court decided in 2007 that the greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet can be regulated as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act of 1990.

“It was a pivotal opinion that opened the door for the Environmental Protection Agency to impose new regulations on autos, power plants, manufacturers and others, to address climate change as well as the dirty air targeted by the original law.

“But it came on a 5-4 vote, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the four liberals, and over a fierce dissent by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

“Now as federal appellate Judge Brett Kavanaugh seeks to replace the retiring Kennedy on the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh’s 12-year record of skepticism toward such agency actions puts the landmark decision and other environmental protections at risk. Environmentalists fear that if Kavanaugh joins the court, he would vote to block anti-pollution regulations for decades, long after President Trump has departed.

“‘He would be a disaster for the environment,’ said Pat Gallagher, legal director for the Sierra Club. ‘He has a disdain for regulation, particularly from the EPA. Kennedy was the swing vote in this area. If we have to wait for Congress to act on climate change, we are doomed.’

“While serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court has been a steady ‘no’ vote on climate change regulations… When joined by fellow conservatives, he wrote opinions rejecting EPA rules to limit greenhouse gases or air pollution that blows across state lines. And when the majority upheld regulations, including limits on power plants that pump out carbon pollution or put toxic mercury in the air, Kavanaugh filed long dissents, usually arguing that Congress, not the EPA, is the only body with the power to take such steps.

“‘EPA’s well-intentioned policy objectives with respect to climate change do not on their own authorize the agency to regulate,’ he wrote last year in a 2-1 ruling that struck down a rule that required makers of air conditioners, refrigerators and aerosols to phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. These chemicals are powerful producers of heat-trapping gases, emitting about 1,300 times more than carbon dioxide. Safe substitutes are now on the market, the EPA says.”

This is not battle of political doctrine. It is a fight for our very lives, the sustainability of a Malthusian increase in human beings on a plant of limited resources and clearly radically altering patterns of harsh and destructive “natural events” that are anything but “natural.”

I’m Peter Dekom, and it unfathomable to me how cavalier about such a massively negative attack on our very lives.