Is Water the New Oil… Worth Fighting For?

 

“[You] are, literally, in a race to the bottom.” Richard Damania, a lead economist at the World Bank

Lakes, reservoirs and rivers/streams are losing water in some of the most water-depleted areas on earth. But what we do not see is making water shortages so much worse. “More than two-thirds of the groundwater consumed around the world irrigates agriculture, while the rest supplies drinking water to cities. These aquifers long have served as a backup to carry regions and countries through droughts and warm winters lacking enough snowmelt to replenish rivers and streams. Now, the world’s largest underground water reserves in Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas are under stress. Many of them are being drawn down at unsustainable rates. Nearly two billion people rely on groundwater that is considered under threat…

“As regions and nations run short of water, Damania says, economic growth will decline and food prices will spike, raising the risk of violent conflict and waves of large migrations. Unrest in Yemen, which heavily taps into groundwater and which experienced water riots in 2009, is rooted in a water crisis. Experts say water scarcity also helped destabilize Syria and launch its civil war. Jordan, which relies on aquifers as its only source of water, is even more water-stressed now that more than a half-million Syrian refugees arrived.” National Geographic, July 14, 2016. If water issues were bad when this article was written, they are whole lot worse today. Technology was the beginning of the problem. Climate change made is much worse.

When wind pumps were how farmers extracted water from aquifers, rainwater and other forms of runoff usually replenished what was removed. But beginning in the 1930s, high-capacity diesel pumps gradually began to rise to become the gold standard for many farmers. Slowly, an increasing number of vital aquifers went dry, including parts of the massive High Plains Aquifer and its underground tributaries (running from the northern Midwest right down into Texas). Sequential aquifer failures in many Western states followed, with particular acceleration in the last two decades as global warming reduced rainfall and snowmelt, melted glaciers and temperatures rendered increasing acreage into desert. The level of water extraction from these Western aquifers continues to be, bottom line, unsustainable.

While water may be plentiful in some regions, that does not help areas facing deepening desertification. Pumping water across vast distances is even more than the cost of building pipelines or aqueducts. If you have ever picked up a bucket of water, you know it is very heavy (a 5 gallon bucket of water weights over 40 lbs!). Moving that water across vast distances requires electricity to power the necessary pumps, and if you have to pump water up hills, well you need even more power. While you can generate electricity on the downhill section of pipelines and aqueducts, there is a net lost of energy of about 15% in the up-down process. Old oil pipelines could be used, but they need to be relined for that purpose. But as we shift to alternative energy, water may indeed be more valuable than oil.

The world is shuddering from staggering oil prices, as well as a dearth of fertilizer and foodstuffs from a combination of climate change and Putin’s war against Ukraine. Pretty much, you ain’t nuffin’ yet. Water shortages cause mass migrations of people and animals trying to survive… wars… Water availability is so important, that governments everywhere are adding that issue to both domestic and foreign policy. Case in point, from the June 2nd Associated Press:

“Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday [6/1] unveiled a White House plan to tackle water security as a foreign policy priority in light of ever tightening global water supplies… The plan pledges U.S. leadership in the efforts to ensure there is enough water to support food supplies and healthcare systems. Under the initiative, the U.S. government will also spearhead ways to defuse potential disputes over access to water, Harris said.

“Conflicts over water are becoming more common across the globe as supplies come under increasing pressure from climate change, urbanization and population growth. Research has shown that global warming is intensifying the water cycle, leading to more severe droughts and floods.

“‘Water insecurity makes our world less stable,’ Harris said at the White House, noting water scarcity makes it more difficult for communities to produce food, protect public health and drive economic growth. ‘Many of our most fundamental national security interests depend on water security.’” Those uncontrolled floods don’t solve the problem. They wash away topsoil as the destroy homes… and people. In many areas, they don’t get rain, much less flooding.

If you doubt the political significance of water, that “destabilization of Syria” noted above left about a million Sunni farmers in Syria (pictured above) and Iraq watching their farms blow away in cracked earth and dust. They begged the Shiite controlled governments in Baghdad and Damascus for aid but were rebuffed. That’s when ISIS stepped in and offered those farmers power against their Shiite masters… and gave them hope that they might topple leaders who opposed any aid for religious reasons. The rest is history.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as water literally vaporizes and disappears, the axiom that life without water cannot exist gets very personal to billions of people around the world… increasingly desperate people.

National Priorities Be Gone! States Now Rule!

 

Remember when Donald Trump actually got the COVID vaccines manufactured and available in large quantities with his Operation Warp Speed initiative? A triumph. And then, instead of getting shots into the arms of the Americans who desperately wanted to be immunized against this horrific killer, instead of deploying federal personnel (the military?) to deploy the vaccine, the President shrugged his shoulders and pointed to state governments, many with coffers seriously depleted from COVID shutdowns that had cut off vital state tax revenues. "The Federal Government has distributed the vaccines to the states. Now it is up to the states to administer. Get moving!" said Trump. There was no plan to administer the vaccines, it seems. The roll-out was lethargic, uncoordinated and effectively left for the Biden administration to figure out.

We have witnessed a Trump reconfigured Supreme Court that is deeply hostile to what right-wingers have called the “administrative state,” and what conspiracy theorists generically refer to as the “deep state,” a federal bureaucracy that purportedly subverts the genuine will of the people. Conveniently, the genuine “will of the people” somehow always revolves around the beliefs of a rather distinct minority of right-wing extremists. Based on two US Senators per state, large or small, we already know that the Constitution already tilts heavily in favor of rural vs urban regions of the country. This harsh fact was born in our Founding Fathers’ deep mistrust of city-slickers (concentrations of population) and an elevation of the salt-of-the-earth farmers and farm owners. In 1789, when the Bill of Rights was passed, the nation was 94% agricultural.

Indeed, if you want guide posts on how to evaluate the likely outcome of any case appearing before the Trump reconfigured 6-3 radical right-wing Supreme Court, there are three overriding principles that the Court tries to justify even if that requires a material distortion of the Constitution and tossing out prior rulings that conflict: evangelical values, the policies of the National Rifle Association (enjoying the results of their intensive and well-paid lobbying, extracting in 2008 a ruling of a basic right of gun ownership after nearly two centuries with no such right recognized) and states’ rights (as exemplified by the 10th Amendment in the Bill of Rights, noted above).

On June 23rd, cow-towing to the gospel according to the National Rifle Association, the right-wing 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court – in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc vs Bruen, Superintendent Of New York State Police – ruled that New York’s requirement of reasonable justification to secure a concealed weapons permit was unconstitutionally overreaching. Then Dobbs vs Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which reversed Roe vs Wade on June 24th with another 6-3 majority, presented an example of the Court’s backing two of those principles: evangelical values and states’ rights. Almost immediately thereafter, that same 6-3 right-wing majority made it very clear, in West Virginia vs Environmental Protection Agency, that Congress needed to make a much better statutory case to empower the federal government to allow an administrative agency to govern fossil fuel emissions within any state. A states’ rights case on steroids. Days later, evangelical values usurped the Constitution’s separation of church and state (First Amendment). In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, that 6-3 radical right-wing majority held that a public school district could not discipline a high school coach who held Christian prayer circles on the 50-yardline after games.

Then on June 30th, the Supreme Court brought back for re-hearing, for the fall term, a North Carolina Supreme Court ruling in Moore vs Harper, that the North Carolina legislature could not replace a redistricting map prepared by a voter-mandated independent commission. The legislature claimed it alone had that right. OMG, this could set the stage for incumbent legislatures to ensure a huge political advantage against their opponents. If the right-wing court indeed reversed the NC Supreme Court, who needs elections anymore? States’ “rights” beyond steroids. Severely gerrymandered districts could easily negate a majority vote. Perhaps, legislatures might even have the right to replace electors if they did not like the voter outcome in a presidential race. Where have we seen that tried before?

As pointed out by both David Lieb of the Associated Press and David Oliver (in Oliver’s Daily 202 for the July 5th Washington Post), gerrymandering has achieved such extreme levels in the United States that, “In some cases, a party can win every statewide race and still never capture the legislature. Much as with the electoral college, the majority does not rule… In 2018, Democrats won every major statewide office [in Wisconsin], including governor and attorney general, races where gerrymandering isn’t in play. But they have not been able to overcome heavily gerrymandered state legislative districts since Republicans won control of the statehouse during the midterm elections in 2010…

“‘Republicans drew Michigan legislative districts after the 2010 census and created such a sizable advantage for their party that it may have helped the GOP maintain control of the closely divided House, according to an Associated Press analysis. As in Wisconsin, Democrats in Michigan won the governor’s race and every other major statewide office in 2018 but could not overcome legislative districts tilted toward Republicans.’” Post-writer Robert Barnes, examining the issues in Moore vs Harper, warns that the 6-3 majority Supreme Court “will consider what would be a fundamental change in the way federal elections are conducted, giving state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for contests even if their actions violated state constitutions and resulted in extreme partisan gerrymandering for congressional seats.” Id. To visualize how effective gerrymandering can be, please visit my July 5th blog, Could this Be the United States Too?

With 74% of the newly configured Court’s decisions tracking radical, right-wing beliefs, you can be sure that evangelical and NRA values along with a notion of states’ having greater power than the federal government on domestic regulatory matters, will be determinative for many, many years to come. After all, the new Trump political justices have decades left in their lifetime appointments. This retrograde, anti-modern approach, denying climate change, religious neutrality and the explosion of criminal homicides from the unleashed proliferation of guns, is all directly attributable to a rogue Supreme Court, a de facto legislature with no checks and balances. This notion of political distortion, a feeling of total helplessness from now voiceless Democrats, has also resulted in a reluctance to try to change the nation… by voting

I’m Peter Dekom, and if anyone tells you that the United States is a representative democracy, please set them straight… and please vote!

Can Elderly World Leaders Implement Climate Change Requirements?

 

Can Elderly World Leaders Implement Climate Change Requirements?

Without Including Members of the Younger Generations Most Affected

Americans are notoriously callous to eliminating risks to their children, if there is inconvenience to the older generations. Noting that 2018 was a banner year for student shootings causing death or injury (the year of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School [Parkland, FL] mass killing), as of May 19th (according to tracking by NBC News): “Since 2013, 73 people have been killed and 132 injured in 50 school shootings, according to a school shooting tracker NBC News is making public. As of May 19, 2022, it has been 27 days since the last school shooting.” Gun laws in red states continue to be relaxed. But between “active shooter” drills and available Kevlar school backpacks, too many voters think that society has already done enough to save our kids from being shot in their schools. More would be inconvenient to gun advocates.

Swedish teenaged climate change activist, Greta Thunberg, has also taken up the mantle against an even bigger threat to the youngest and most vulnerable people on earth, many too young to vote in societies that allow voting. Children who are going to face the biggest impact of climate change. The searing heat in South Asia, devastating superstorms multiplying in both frequency and intensity, flooding all over the world, rising oceans about to swallow island nations, desertification destroying food-producing land and wildfires decimating forests everywhere… well, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Greta reminds us: “‘People are more generally aware now. The climate and the environment is a hot topic. But - and it's a big but: From another perspective, pretty much nothing has been done,’ she said… Citing parts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that came out in 2018, she said that if we are to have a 67 per cent chance of limiting the global average temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius [2.7 degrees Fahrenheit], we had on January 1st, 2018, about 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit in that budget. ‘... of course, that number is much lower today, as we emit, about 42 gigatons of CO2 every year, including in land use. With today's emissions levels, that remaining budget is gone within less than eight years’” as of 2022. BusinessToday, India. May 19th.

Again, older incumbent industries – particularly in the fossil fuel energy sector – and the politicians who rely on their campaign contributions, the workers in those industries, and the governments who rely on tax revenues from fossil fuel production… along with the consumers used to living well with fossil fuels… would be inconvenienced if we transition to alternative energy sources as quickly as natural science conclusively tells us we must. That there are millions of jobs waiting to be filled in the new side of industrial “non-fossil-fuel” growth, well, that transition would still be inconvenient.

That billions of people will suffer (with many deaths) in the immediate future, perhaps hitting irreversible tipping points, is such a shame, but stopping greenhouse emissions quickly is just too inconvenient. Picture the vast tundra (permafrost) that melts every year, eliminating sun-reflecting ice along the way, releasing methane (23 times heavier than carbon dioxide) which has begun to create a vicious circle of melting, releasing methane, thus melting more, and so on.

Indeed, the rising demand for electric cars this year is less motivated by environmental concerns than it is from the inconvenience of skyrocketing prices at the pump. Younger generations, accurately assessing that the major political parties around the world aren’t about to inconvenience older generations (a demographic that includes most of the politicians capable of implementing the necessary change) with an accelerated transition to alternative energy, don’t vote anymore, even when they can. Frustration at the do-nothing process. See my May 4th Is Politics a Solution or Disease? - Ask the Rising Generation blog. We stupidly use terms like “by the end of the century” for climate change statistics, which pushes change off the table for voters over 40. Kick that can down the road! The problems we face today often address an immediate disaster separately without linking it as an obvious result of climate change.

Since it would be inconvenient for politicians around the world to force the existential changes to our approach to energy, the band aids just keep flowing. And things just get worse. Superstar academics, Giovanni Maggi, Yale University, Howard H. Leach Professor of Economics & International Affairs and co-author of a climate study, Robert W. Staiger of Dartmouth, put it simply, writing about the inadequacy of global climate treaties for a report from the Yale Economic Growth Center (May 19th summary): “One of the main points of the paper is to call attention to a limitation of international agreements that have not been highlighted by previous academic research: the simple fact that they are contracts between countries within a generation. By necessity, future generations are excluded from these contracts.”

The authors believe that serious action will take place only in one of two scenarios: “One we call the ‘Common Brink’ scenario. Here, the whole world faces a common brink of catastrophe. All countries stand or fall together. The other one is a scenario where there are more and less vulnerable countries. They differ in their risk and vulnerability, so some would collapse before others if the climate keeps warming.”

The problem, of course, is that what older people implement now will irretrievably impact all future generations, who are not part of the decision-making process. While Maggi and Staiger may disagree, the presumed intergenerational “altruism” of parents caring for their children and grandchildren does not seem to be motivating meaningful climate change policies that are needed now… because it is inconvenient to those older generations and industrial incumbents.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I worry about the amount of climate-related devastation it will take for the world to save its children and their children… if it still can.

Distracted to Death

“They’ve created a candy store of distraction. And we are killing people.”

Psychologist David Strayer, director of the university’s Center for the Prevention of Distracted Driving.


There are so many reasons for us to transition to self-driving cars. We could manage traffic congestion and flow when a car-based sophisticated computer system with links to an artificially intelligent central tracking array to maximize our existing road system – without necessarily building more roads to accommodate demand. Perhaps to take dangerous drivers away from controlling their vehicles. To adopt driving practices to reduce energy usage. Or how about this one: drivers today are just too busy to drive.

Too many bells and whistles, with carmakers tripping all over themselves to best their competition. The military learned the hard way that information overload can actually impair an otherwise sharp and well-trained mind. Russ Mitchell, writing for the July 6th Los Angeles times, explains: “In the late 1980s, the U.S. Army turned to outside experts to study how pilots of Apache attack helicopters were responding to the torrent of information streaming into the cockpit on digital screens and analog displays. The verdict: not well.

“The cognitive overload caused by all that information was degrading performance and raising the risk of crashes, the researchers determined. Pilots were forced to do too many things at once, with too many bells and whistles demanding their attention. Over the next decade, the Army overhauled its Apache fleet, redesigning cockpits to help operators maintain focus.

“The cognitive overload caused by all that information was degrading performance and raising the risk of crashes, the researchers determined. Pilots were forced to do too many things at once, with too many bells and whistles demanding their attention. Over the next decade, the Army overhauled its Apache fleet, redesigning cockpits to help operators maintain focus.

“Cognitive psychologist David Strayer was among those called in to help the Army with its Apache problem. Since then, he has watched as civilian cars and trucks have filled up to an even greater extent with the same sorts of digital interfaces that trained pilots with honed reflexes found so overwhelming — touch screens, interactive maps, nested menus, not to mention ubiquitous smartphones. In his lab at the University of Utah, he’s been documenting the deadly consequences…

“Everything we know from pilots being overloaded we can apply to motor vehicles,” Strayer said. But rather than apply it, makers of smartphones and automobiles largely have ignored the research, persistently adding popular but deadly diversions… To be sure, new automotive technology also includes innovative safety features such as lane-departure warning and blind spot detection. Yet, despite these and other crash-prevention systems, the highway death count continues to rise… After decades of falling fatality rates, U.S. roads have become markedly more dangerous in recent years. In 2021, motor vehicle crashes killed nearly 43,000 people. That’s up from about 33,000 in 2012, and a 16-year high.”

Car ads often refer to the driver’s seat as a “cockpit.” For those in professional or management jobs, or for those addicted to the phones, being in a car does not untether you from overconnected reality. And admitting you were distracted can carry some legal ramifications as well. “Reported fatalities due to distracted driving have remained flat for the last 10 years, 3,000 to 4,000 a year. But there is good reason to consider those figures a major undercount, as they rely on people admitting they were distracted, or a police officer or someone else witnessing a driver with phone in hand before a crash.

“‘It’s against people’s self-interest to say, ‘I was on the cellphone’ or ‘I was using the infotainment system’ ’ after a crash, ‘because there can be serious consequences,’ said Cathy Chase, who heads Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety… ‘I don’t think we’re getting an accurate picture of what’s happening on the roads,’ she said.

“Other measures point to a much higher toll. In early 2020, the National Safety Council said cellphones were involved in more than a quarter of crashes. A poll by Nationwide Insurance shows its agents believe 50% of all crashes involved distracted driving. And safety experts say the problem has only grown worse since the start of the pandemic.

“Pretending that the toll is only a few thousand people a year makes it more difficult to change policies that could improve safety, Mark Rosekind said. He ran the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the Obama administration and is now chief safety innovation officer at driverless car company Zoox… ‘People will use those low numbers as a way to minimize this, that it’s not a big problem,’ he said.

“Most people know distracted driving is bad — 98% of those polled told Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety they are extremely or very concerned about it as a safety issue. But most do it anyway. More than 63% of polled drivers said they use their cellphones while driving. That increased to 73% of people who use their cars for work.” LA Times. When the boss or a demanding client or customer calls, they expect to connect! Job. Client. Family member. BFF. Or life… not just your own. Self-driving cars? Back to the drawing board! We actually need that! Or live with the notion that getting into a vehicle is always putting your life at risk, even if you are a perfect and attentive driver. How long are we going to continue to accept this avoidable reality?

I’m Peter Dekom, and how many near misses have you experienced behind the wheel?

“They’ve created a candy store of distraction. And we are killing people.”

Psychologist David Strayer, director of the university’s Center for the Prevention of Distracted Driving.

There are so many reasons for us to transition to self-driving cars. We could manage traffic congestion and flow when a car-based sophisticated computer system with links to an artificially intelligent central tracking array to maximize our existing road system – without necessarily building more roads to accommodate demand. Perhaps to take dangerous drivers away from controlling their vehicles. To adopt driving practices to reduce energy usage. Or how about this one: drivers today are just too busy to drive.

Too many bells and whistles, with carmakers tripping all over themselves to best their competition. The military learned the hard way that information overload can actually impair an otherwise sharp and well-trained mind. Russ Mitchell, writing for the July 6th Los Angeles times, explains: “In the late 1980s, the U.S. Army turned to outside experts to study how pilots of Apache attack helicopters were responding to the torrent of information streaming into the cockpit on digital screens and analog displays. The verdict: not well.

“The cognitive overload caused by all that information was degrading performance and raising the risk of crashes, the researchers determined. Pilots were forced to do too many things at once, with too many bells and whistles demanding their attention. Over the next decade, the Army overhauled its Apache fleet, redesigning cockpits to help operators maintain focus.

“The cognitive overload caused by all that information was degrading performance and raising the risk of crashes, the researchers determined. Pilots were forced to do too many things at once, with too many bells and whistles demanding their attention. Over the next decade, the Army overhauled its Apache fleet, redesigning cockpits to help operators maintain focus.

“Cognitive psychologist David Strayer was among those called in to help the Army with its Apache problem. Since then, he has watched as civilian cars and trucks have filled up to an even greater extent with the same sorts of digital interfaces that trained pilots with honed reflexes found so overwhelming — touch screens, interactive maps, nested menus, not to mention ubiquitous smartphones. In his lab at the University of Utah, he’s been documenting the deadly consequences…

“Everything we know from pilots being overloaded we can apply to motor vehicles,” Strayer said. But rather than apply it, makers of smartphones and automobiles largely have ignored the research, persistently adding popular but deadly diversions… To be sure, new automotive technology also includes innovative safety features such as lane-departure warning and blind spot detection. Yet, despite these and other crash-prevention systems, the highway death count continues to rise… After decades of falling fatality rates, U.S. roads have become markedly more dangerous in recent years. In 2021, motor vehicle crashes killed nearly 43,000 people. That’s up from about 33,000 in 2012, and a 16-year high.”

Car ads often refer to the driver’s seat as a “cockpit.” For those in professional or management jobs, or for those addicted to the phones, being in a car does not untether you from overconnected reality. And admitting you were distracted can carry some legal ramifications as well. “Reported fatalities due to distracted driving have remained flat for the last 10 years, 3,000 to 4,000 a year. But there is good reason to consider those figures a major undercount, as they rely on people admitting they were distracted, or a police officer or someone else witnessing a driver with phone in hand before a crash.

“‘It’s against people’s self-interest to say, ‘I was on the cellphone’ or ‘I was using the infotainment system’ ’ after a crash, ‘because there can be serious consequences,’ said Cathy Chase, who heads Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety… ‘I don’t think we’re getting an accurate picture of what’s happening on the roads,’ she said.

“Other measures point to a much higher toll. In early 2020, the National Safety Council said cellphones were involved in more than a quarter of crashes. A poll by Nationwide Insurance shows its agents believe 50% of all crashes involved distracted driving. And safety experts say the problem has only grown worse since the start of the pandemic.

“Pretending that the toll is only a few thousand people a year makes it more difficult to change policies that could improve safety, Mark Rosekind said. He ran the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the Obama administration and is now chief safety innovation officer at driverless car company Zoox… ‘People will use those low numbers as a way to minimize this, that it’s not a big problem,’ he said.

“Most people know distracted driving is bad — 98% of those polled told Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety they are extremely or very concerned about it as a safety issue. But most do it anyway. More than 63% of polled drivers said they use their cellphones while driving. That increased to 73% of people who use their cars for work.” LA Times. When the boss or a demanding client or customer calls, they expect to connect! Job. Client. Family member. BFF. Or life… not just your own. Self-driving cars? Back to the drawing board! We actually need that! Or live with the notion that getting into a vehicle is always putting your life at risk, even if you are a perfect and attentive driver. How long are we going to continue to accept this avoidable reality?

I’m Peter Dekom, and how many near misses have you experienced behind the wheel?

 

Remember the Main

           From CBS News

"To ensure destruction of all harmful bacteria and other microbes, water for drinking, cooking, and ice making should be boiled and cooled prior to use for drinking water or human consumption purposes… The water should be brought to a vigorous rolling boil and then boiled for two minutes." 

City of Odessa statement, Texas after a water main broke, causing a water loss for at least two days

"How can we boil water that we don't have?" A wise Odessa resident.

One thing the GOP-leadership in Texas loves to spend money on: finishing Trump’s border wall, stopping truck traffic from Mexico for roadworthiness inspections (after US Customs inspected the vehicles at the border, letting produce rot in a state where 35% of its produce comes from Mexico), enforcing anti-abortion, social media restrictions and anti-CRT laws (including legal cost to fight battles in federal courts), volunteering Texas National Guard to protect the border, fighting disease control limitations, expanding civilian gun-use and executing prisoners. But they hate, really hate, spending money on public schools and infrastructure that has long-since worn out.

The state’s latest bout with a 60-year-old water and sewage system during a horrific heat wave, from the June 14th The Texas Tribune: “More than 165,000 residents in Odessa have gone nearly 24 hours without water as a major water line break occurred in the West Texas town — and may need to boil water once service is restored.

“The break occurred at 6 p.m. Monday [6/13], and Mayor Javier Joven said it was difficult for maintenance crews to isolate the break, leading them to shut down the city’s entire water system… ‘Because of the critical nature of the loss in pressure, we were compelled to take the plant offline to begin the repairs that are ongoing,’ Joven explained during a press conference Tuesday [6/14]. ‘Crews have been on site since 6 p.m. Midland has been a big help. They have sent equipment and crews. We are in contact with the state and we have more water en route.’

“Ector County Judge Debi Hays issued a disaster declaration and a boil water notice as a result of the break. The system will be turned back on when the repair is fixed, which is expected to be around 9 p.m. The system will need at least 10-12 hours to fully restart. Odessa residents can pick up bottled water from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Ector County Coliseum, 4201 Andrews Highway. Each person will be limited to one case.

“There were reports throughout the day about nursing homes needing assistance and surgeries being canceled until the break is resolved… ‘We have assisted the hospital with some of their needs. We wanted to make sure we provided that water for them,’ said John Alvarez, fire chief for Odessa Fire Rescue. ‘We have delivered water to the nursing homes that needed it.’” Hey, that’s just one Texas city. Back in February of 2021, Texas experienced a statewide collapse of its entire grid system – with the exception of El Paso, Texas opted out of a regional agreement for neighboring states to cover each other during a power failure – during a nasty cold snap.

“In February 2021, the state of Texas suffered a major power crisis, which came about during three severe winter storms sweeping across the United States on February 10–11, 13–17, and 15–20. The storms triggered the worst energy infrastructure failure in Texas state history, leading to shortages of water, food, and heat. More than 4.5 million homes and businesses were left without power, some for several days. At least 246 people were killed directly or indirectly, with some estimates as high as 702 killed as a result of the crisis.

“State officials including Republican governor Greg Abbott initially blamed the outages on frozen wind turbines and solar panels. However, data showed that failure to winterize power sources, primarily those of natural gas, had caused the grid failure. Texas's power grid has long been separate from the two major national grids to avoid federal oversight; this disconnection made it difficult for the state to import electricity from other states during the crisis. Deregulation of its electricity market beginning in the 1990s resulted in competition in wholesale electricity prices, but also cost cutting for contingency preparation.

“The crisis drew much attention to the state's lack of preparedness for such storms, and to a report from U.S. Federal regulators ten years earlier that had warned Texas its power plants would fail in sufficiently cold conditions. Damages due to the cold wave and winter storm were estimated to be at least $195 billion, likely the most expensive disaster in the state's history. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the Texas power grid was ‘seconds or minutes away from’ complete failure when partial grid shutdowns were implemented During the crisis, some energy firms made billions in profits, while others went bankrupt, due to some firms being able to pass extremely high wholesale prices ($9,000/MWh, typically $50/MWh) on to consumers, while others could not, as well as this price being held at the $9,000 cap by ERCOT for allegedly two days longer than necessary; creating $16 billion in unnecessary charges.” Wikipedia. The Texas legislature still has not authorized sufficient upgrades and repairs to prevent this from happening again.

Red states seem obsessed with culture wars, promulgating policies that enthrall evangelicals and right-wing extremists but fly in the face of national sentiments. Climate change is a particularly favorite whipping boy, especially in oil and gas states, even as hurricanes are hitting primarily red states with unprecedented fury (frequency and intensity); coastal flooding is now an everyday occurrence (streets are flooded all the time in Miami and its environs), farms are drying up and blowing away and searing heat waves are taking lives and putting pressures on the power grid as AC becomes a necessity (for those who have it). They reject expanding the Affordable Care Act into their states, forcing millions of their citizens to live without meaningful healthcare. They’d rather react to the trillions of dollars of mounting damages obviously attributable to climate change than spend job-creating money to combat it.

Meanwhile, Texas billionaires are raking it in as oil prices negatively impact most of America. They benefit humongously as the global price of oil skyrockets, causing massive inflation in every sector. Are they offering Americans a price break at the pump? Seriously? Off course not, as these self-declared “patriots” continue to fund radical right-wing candidates who will do what it takes to stop those who are trying to tackle the ravages of climate change. Sell more oil and gas. Stop building alternative energy power generation. Censor social media. Are you watching Elon? Even as most large cities are very blue, the gerrymandered voting districts make sure those urban areas are diluted into oblivion into big fat red zones. Ever wonder why Texas residential real estate is so cheap? Location, location, location.

I’m Peter Dekom, as reality sinks into our daily lives, I wonder why we do not simply call that “right-wing” the “wrong wing.”

A Chili Reception

 

There’s nothing like a nice warm cup of java on a chilly morning… maybe even a warm morning. I am not sure if you have noticed, but if you add the Big Island (Hawaii) to the above map (from NOAA), every one of the above coffee-producing regions is losing land where coffee beans can be grown. And prices, particularly for premium beans, is skyrocketing. Kona Extra Fancy and Jamaican Mountain Blue and almost any “Peaberry” bean are double or triple the cost of just three years ago. It’s not subtle.

Coffee originated in the Ethiopian highlands long before it migrated to the rest of the world. It first took hold in the Arabian Peninsula (hence the name Arabica for the predominant bean, which accounts for 70% of all coffee consumed). It is an essential and ubiquitous crop, one that embraces farmers and consumers in a big way.

As much as this blog is about coffee – and coffee lovers now consume more than 2.25 billion cups a day – it is also the story of what is happening to agriculture and global food production. This is not about high costs because of increased shipping (based on the high price of oil) or fertilizer; it is another “canary in the coalmine” tale of climate change woe. Coffee bean quality, availability and price are all going in the wrong direction. According to Climate.gov, “Coffee counts among the most valuable tropical export crops on Earth, cultivated across more than 27 million acres. Small-scale farmers produce about 70 percent of the world’s coffee, and as many as 120 million people depend directly or indirectly on coffee production for their economic survival…

“Optimal coffee-growing conditions include cool to warm tropical climates, rich soils, and few pests or diseases. The world’s Coffee Belt spans the globe along the equator, with cultivation in North, Central, and South America; the Caribbean; Africa; the Middle East; and Asia. Brazil is now the world’s largest coffee-producing country…

“If Earth’s climate continues to warm over the coming decades, obstacles to coffee cultivation will multiply… Arabica coffee’s optimal temperature range is 64°–70°F (18°C–21°C). It can tolerate mean annual temperatures up to roughly 73°F (24°C).” Ah, but those temperature-friendly areas are withering, and if we cannot find new regions or create new strains of quality beans, coffee just might not be part of our daily consumption rituals. And tea is not too far behind.

“With temperatures rising due to global warming, though, lands suitable for coffee growing will shift outside the traditional Coffee Belt [as reflected in the above map]. According to the 2018 World Coffee Research annual report, 47% of global coffee production comes from countries that could lose over 60% of suitable coffeelands by the year 2050. Compounding the issue even further, another study finds that 60% of wild coffee varieties could be at risk of extinction due to climate change…” Sprudge.com, July 15, 2021. Last November, the World Economic Forum also noted that as the world heats up, even those premium growing areas are experiencing less moisture, hotter sunlight, higher disease and insect damage as well as more carbon dioxide, all of which negatively impact flavor (read: quality) as well as growability. Oh, and we do not have to wait until 2050 for the pain. It is here in a big way… now.

Desertification has already caused migration and wars (e.g., the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria representing desperate Sunni farmers), but even as our western and midwestern farm states face lower rainfall, limited snowmelts and dwindling aquifers, relatively “rich” Americans are still able to buy their way out of much of the pain. We may complain about inflation, but so far, we just grit our teeth and pay more. But shortages of basics sneak up on us as Sing Yee Ong, writing for Bloomberg (June 10th), points out: “Brace yourselves, spicy-food lovers: The world is now facing a sriracha shortage… Huy Fong Foods Inc., the maker of one of the nation’s most beloved condiments, has been forced to suspend production of its iconic spicy sauces due to a shortage of chili peppers.

“The Irwindale [California] company confirmed Wednesday [6/8] that a shortage of peppers in its inventory had affected production of Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, Chili Garlic and Sambal Oelek… What appears to be a letter from the company to buyers of the products, dated April of this year, recently came to light online… ‘Currently, due to weather conditions affecting the quality of chili peppers, we now face a more severe shortage of chili,’ the letter reads. ‘Unfortunately, this is out of our control and without this essential ingredient we are unable to produce any of our products.’…

“Extreme weather, pandemic supply chain snarls and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have all taken their toll on food production this year. Sriracha is just the latest item on a growing list of foods in short supply around the world, which includes chicken, popcorn, salami and fries.” The baby formula shortfall was a product of misguided manufacturing policies and practices. That will be fixed. But can we fix the much, much, much bigger agricultural reality? Less productive farmland. More insects and disease impacting crops. A growing global population facing a massive contract in food production… from wars… and mostly climate change.

I’m Peter Dekom, and as we watch a continuing litany of doing vastly too little vastly too late, I wonder when we are going wake up and realize we really cannot afford the cost of not stemming climate change immediately.

Even with Low of No Tuition, Higher Education is Still Often Unaffordable

 

Post-high school education is expensive no matter how you look at it: “The cost of college has steadily increased over the last 30 years. In that timeframe, tuition costs at public four-year colleges grew from $4,160 to $10,740 and from $19,360 to $38,070 at private nonprofit institutions (adjusted for inflation). As costs have risen, so has the need for student loans and other forms of financial aid… Today, more than half of students leave school with debt… $1.75 trillion in total student loan debt (including federal and private loans) – [more than our aggregate credit card debt]… $28,950 owed per borrower on average.” Forbes.com, June 9th.

Students with advanced professional degrees (law, medicine and business) fare much worse. “[Such debt is] $66,300 for an MBA, $71,000 for a master’s degree, $145,500 for a law degree and $201,490 for a medical degree… It is regularly argued that graduate students take on more loans because they can expect to earn more, which is often true. Workers with master’s degrees earn $1,545 per week on average and workers with a professional degree (such as a JD or a MD) earn $1,893 per week on average, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates… However, those with a just bachelor’s degree earn closer to $1,305 per week and those with a just high school degree earn closer to $781 per week on average. Workers with advanced degrees also have significantly lower unemployment rates.”

However, high student debt is a disincentive to those willing to go into lower-paying jobs targeting aid to lower or impoverished Americans. The notion of forgiveness of student loans for those holding public service jobs for a decade or more vaporized under the Trump era, where Education Secretary Betsy DeVos simply disallowed that provision. We need more doctors, but with staggering debt, they are often forced to pursue money over service. Half the collective student debt is attributed to post-undergraduate studies.

Yet higher education, across the board, is one of the most significant foundation building blocks for innovation and higher-end, higher-paying jobs. Advanced education yields advanced technology which generates the jobs. We simply cannot remotely produce enough STEM students to meet the needs of hi-tech companies. They have come to rely on immigrants who account for the creation of a disproportionate number of the best jobs in the country, notwithstanding arguments to the contrary.

“‘The idea is that immigrants come to your community and they take jobs,’ says Ben Jones, a professor of strategy at Kellogg [School of Business, Northwestern University]. ‘That could mean that people already in the community could have more trouble finding a job or, by having to compete with immigrants for jobs, could get paid a lower wage.’… The logic is straightforward. Yet curiously, the economic data have not generally borne this out. Previous studies have not found lower local wages after influxes of immigration. In fact, regions of the U.S. that have historically seen more immigration have actually experienced higher gains in per-capita income. ‘They seem to be the outperformers,’ says Jones.

“So what is going on?... Jones and his colleagues wondered if economists and policymakers had been focusing too much on immigrants as employees in the labor pool—and not enough on the role they also play as job creators: entrepreneurs who might start and grow lucrative companies, ultimately employing large numbers of people. The conspicuously high number of immigrant founders in Silicon Valley, including prominent examples such as Sergei Brin and Elon Musk, suggests the potential importance of this view… ‘Ironically, the result [of immigration] is exactly the opposite of the usual narrative. It seems like immigrants actually improve the economic outcomes for native-born workers,’ [said Ben Jones.]” KelloggInsight.Northwestern.edu October 5, 2020. Bottom line, if you want better jobs with higher pay, seed that reality with affordable higher education.

Germany, the European Union economic powerhouse, provides a model for us to examine: “In 2014, Germany’s 16 states abolished tuition fees for undergraduate students at all public German universities. This means that currently both domestic and international undergraduates at public universities in Germany can study for free, with just a small fee to cover administration and other costs per semester… [One state, In autumn 2017 the south-west state of Baden-Württemberg reintroduced tuition fees for non-EU students]..

“While many students can study in Germany for free, living expenses are unavoidable. The cost of living in Germany is more expensive in some areas than others – Munich, for example, is considered the most expensive German city to live in, with living costs averaging about €12,000 (~US$13,900) per year. By comparison, the average annual living costs in Germany are around €10,200 (~US$11,800).” TopUniversities.com, December 20, 2021

The sharpest blade in that cutting edge of technological growth is graduate school. As the above suggests, tuition is only part of the cost of higher education. For those in grad school, even with tuition subsidies, the mere cost of living plus mega-expensive textbooks, is often softened by a paid engagement as instructors and teaching assistants, which is even more important for students (usually in STEM fields) from countries with very low levels of disposable income.

Writing for the June 12th Los Angeles Times, Parth M.N. and Liam Dillon, provide a common example: “When Sally Ireri moved to California from Nairobi, Kenya, five years ago, she didn’t expect life to be this difficult. Studying for a doctoral degree in mosquito genetics at UC Riverside, Ireri has had to borrow money and car rides from friends because she makes less than $30,000 a year from teaching.

She lives in a three-bedroom home with two roommates for $750 a month, a rent that’s well below average for the region but still one that eats up a sizable portion of her paycheck. After she graduates, Ireri wants to remain in California to be at the forefront of research that could assist Kenyans in fighting mosquito-borne diseases… But what she’ll need to pay every month to keep a roof over her head is holding her back… ‘I don’t know if I can afford to stay here,’ said Ireri, 28. ‘I’ve made a community in the past five years, and if I have to leave, it’ll be sad.’”

The Guardian (UK), March 30, 2022 adds: “For international students, they legally cannot work additional jobs while working as a graduate student worker. Simon Luo, a PhD candidate in political science at Indiana University Bloomington and international graduate worker, is paid just $19,000 a year… ‘This is thousands of dollars below the minimum living wage in Bloomington, Indiana. I’m constantly unable to make ends meet,’ said Luo. ‘Not being able to support myself financially means constantly confronting the financial anxiety brought by low income.’ [This fate applies to native born grad students, the bulk of such students.]

“Salaries for graduate student workers vary widely around the US. In January 2022, Princeton University announced raises for graduate worker stipends of 25% to about $40,000 annually and Brown University recently raised base annual stipends to over $42,000 annually, while many colleges and universities pay stipends of far less than $20,000 annually… Pay can often vary for graduate student workers depending on academic departments and alternative sources of funding and grants. This pay has remained low at universities and colleges around the US, despite university endowments soaring in 2021, with an average return of nearly 31%, the highest average returns since 1983. About 19% of colleges and universities that reported endowment returns in 2021 had endowments worth more than $1bn each.

“At the University at Buffalo in New York, pay for some graduate workers can be as low as $10,500 annually, noted Lawrence Mullen, a PhD student worker in the English department at the University at Buffalo and president of UB graduate student employees union. He cited an internal survey of graduate workers at UB conducted by the union, which found around 20% of graduate workers at the school were making less than $15,000 annually… ‘They are paying our graduate workers less than a living wage and in some cases, a third of what is the living wage in Erie county, which, according to the Economic Policy Institute, is about $35,000,’ said Mullen. ‘At UB, we have a food bank, and last semester, fall 2021, 80% of the people who used that food bank were graduate students.’” With the recent rising outright populist antagonism toward educated elites, we are shooting ourselves in the foot (and more) by not emphasizing higher education… if sustainable long-term economic success is our collective goal.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if the United States won’t invest in higher education, it will not generate the desperately needed return on that investment.

A Long Time Ago… Is It Beginning to Come Back?

 

It did not happen overnight, but the changes would make the most horrific post-apocalyptic films seem mild by comparison. Obviously, around 252 million years ago, well before the advent of human beings, the relevant apocalypse was caused by natural events: volcanic eruptions that set off a sequence of events that ultimately extinguished most life on Earth. Sealife dropped by 95%; those on land by 70%. Mammals, reptiles, fish, birds, plants… everything was impacted. Those species that that survived the rising global temperatures recreated the planet that we know today. It was logged in biohistory as the End-Permian Extinction, or the Great Dying.

Back then: “Average global temperatures likely rose 6 to 12 degrees Celsius (about 11 to 22 degrees Fahrenheit) near Earth’s equator and 10 to 14 degrees C (18 to 25 degrees F) near the poles. (For reference, climate scientists have cautioned that a 2-degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures today could kill 99% of the planet’s coral reefs and risk the collapse of the polar ice sheets.)

“In this hotter, drier climate, fire frequency increased faster than plants could adapt. They were no longer able to ensure the forests’ sustainability, and a crucial source of carbon storage disappeared… Life rebounded after the Great Dying, of course. A study of fossils in south China found that marine species able to burrow into the sea floor were among the first to recover after the long silence of the End-Permian Extinction. A paper published last week in Science Advances adds to the evidence that animals able to escape underground were best equipped to ride out the chaos.

“‘By studying the Great Dying, we find that it affected everything, as you might imagine,’ said David Bottjer, a paleoecologist at USC who worked on the study of the sea floor. ‘Of course, we do get to see how it recovers. But this recovery is over a long time, like a million years or more.’… The human-caused warming Earth faces in the foreseeable future isn’t yet as extreme as the temperature swings of the Permian period. But these anthropogenic [man-caused]-fueled changes happen faster than those brought about by nature alone.” Who cares? It happened so long ago, and it was clearly something beyond anyone’s control, not to mention that there were no humans back then.

Ah, but here is where it gets interesting… in the era of human existence. Floating molecules of carbon-base gasses stabilized at approximately 280 parts per million until the late 1700s, when after thousands of years, according to Earth.org, those carbon-based gasses (mostly CO2) quickly rose until they hit the present day 420 PPM. What those little PPMs do is reflect heat back down to the planet’s surface. Scientists are researching what happens with global temperature rise, particularly when it begins accelerating and hitting a point-of-no-return tipping point, after which the most dedicated efforts at stemming manmade contributions to greenhouse gases will no longer work. While experts are looking at the past, they are very concerned about the present.

Today, we already have vicious cycles of climatic events, triggered by excess greenhouse gases, increasingly clicking into a feedback loop that threatens to continue without end. Soon. Here’s a simple example. As permafrost (tundra) melts, it releases masses amount of methane (23 times denser, hence heat-capturing, than CO2), which rises into the atmosphere and in turn causes more permafrost to melt, etc. Vicious cycle. Knowing that darker matter absorbs and retains heat – as opposed to lighter colors that reflect heat away – when white ice melts (e.g., polar ice, glaciers, etc.), it reveals the darker substructure below. Earth and ocean water. That in turn causes more heat to be retained, and another destructive heat cycle begins. As you can surmise, when these cycles feed massively on themselves, that nasty tipping point becomes unstoppable. We are perilously close. Back to understanding the past.

So, let’s move forward from that End-Permian Extinction into the time when life was restored. “The Quaternary Period is the third and last of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era. You and I are living in this period, which began only 2.58 million years ago. This is less than 0.1% of all of geologic time!” Quaternary Period—2.58 MYA to Today, US National Park Service report. But the parts that are most interesting occurred about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.

“Many of the large mammals and some of the large birds of North America, South America, and Australia became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. This was a rather modest extinction compared to the other ‘mass extinctions’ discussed [the End-Permian Extinction above]. Nevertheless, this extinction was distinctive in that most of its victims were large, land-dwelling mammals weighing more than 90 pounds (40 kg). In North America 33 of 45 large genera (73%) died out. In South America 46 of 58 genera (80%) went extinct. In Australia 15 of its 16 large genera (94%) were lost. By contrast, Europe lost 7 of 23 large genera (30%), and only 2 of 44 (4%) died in Africa south of the Sahara. Clearly, extinctions were much more severe in the Americas and Australia.

“The cause of the extinction; the reason it was restricted mostly to large, land-dwelling mammals; and why it took place primarily in the Americas and Australia have been the subjects of heated scientific debate. According to one hypothesis, these animals died out because they could not adapt to rapid climatic changes at the end of the Pleistocene. A competing hypothesis, known as ‘prehistoric overkill,’ holds that human hunters killed off these large animals. Further study may show that the extinction resulted from a combination of many different factors. Populations that were already under stress from climatic changes were perhaps more vulnerable to hunting when humans began to occupy new areas…” Park Service.

What is particularly stunning about the contemporary aspect of climate change, and mankind’s profound reliance on fossil fuel-powered machines and transportation, is the stunning speed with which these changes are occurring, evidenced by the rising, post-industrial era PPM numbers above. “‘We’re warming up the world on the scale of hundreds of years, and there’s a good chance that when you increase temperatures and change the environment at such a rapid pace, that’s when ecosystems break down,’ [Chris Mays , a paleontologist at University College Cork] said. ‘The pace of change is actually really important. And that’s where we actually see quite a concerning pattern today.’” LA Times.

The operative word in the above is “today.” We keep speaking about what the turn of the century will look like if we don’t sufficiently address climate change soon. We speak about aridification and desertification by using the word “drought.” Drought is part of a cycle. Cycles end. Aridification and desertification are long-term/permanent. We do not need to pretend that the horribles simply a problem that only future generations will endure. Every story of wildfires, agricultural disaster from farmland that is no longer productive (land that is turning to dust), the most intense tropic storms in recorded history, increasing numbers of powerful tornados, storm surges invading and destroying coastal areas, massive flooding, the spread of insect-borne diseases from bugs having to move, water wars, people fleeing their desiccated farms causing unsustainable migration and spreading death… it’s all climate change related. It’s happening now.

I’m Peter Dekom, and nature simply does not care if every animal and plant on earth dies; she’s been here before!

It Moved from Being a Movie to Becoming a Political Communications Strategy

 

The 1938 film (based on a play) reflected in the above poster, won the Academy Award. It was a complex psychological drama in which a wealthy controlling British socialite was hellbent on convincing his wife that she was losing her mind. It was a form of marital abuse, where, for example, he would dim the lights but tell his wife they were not touched (she would be “imagining”). As Porter Braswell explains in the July 13th FastCompany.com, “The Victorian setting of the play is significant: This was an early era for psychology, when scientists began studying mental illness empirically and methodically. It was also the culmination of a much longer history of a (now-defunct) condition called ‘hysteria,’ which classified ‘abnormal’ behavior in women as a physical affliction of the uterus. From Ancient Greece to 19th-century London, countless doctors in the West claimed that women who deviated from ‘normal’ female behavior–i.e., being modest, sexually inhibited, submissive, subdued, unquestioning, religious, etc.–were in fact physically unwell.”

In 1938, the study of psychology was at a nascent stage, still evolving away from those Victorian roots. Audiences were fascinated with the newly discovered machinations of the mind… and how slowly to distort perceptions by this slow, steady convincing that an individual’s perceptions were simply wrong and thus, the victim had to rely on this external force to depict the truth. Hardly coincidentally, it also was the time of Adolph Hitler’s meteoric rise to power. His fiery speeches ignited and supported malignant conspiracy theories that excoriated Jews as the underlying cause of German suffering from horrific “reparations” extracted by the victorious WWI allies. He was a consummate gaslighter of masses of desperate zealots. But Hitler was just the beginning of the political effectiveness of mass gaslighting. Mao Zedong’s 10-year Cultural Revolution promoting “right thinking,” which ended shortly before his death in 1976, used the same technique, killing tens of millions of people. Zealot-driven gaslighters do love culture wars. Obviously, political gaslighting has not stopped.

Today, gaslighting has grown from one-on-one manipulation into an obviously effective tool for misguiding masses of people. Technically, “Gaslighting is a form of emotional manipulation, in which the gaslighter questions or denies the validity of their target’s emotions and perceptions. Psychologists most often cite it as a form of abuse in relationships, but it extends well beyond that. Nowadays, gaslighting is used to describe many more ways of questioning people’s experiences, whether it’s a U.S. president railing about ‘fake news’ or someone at work telling you you’re taking a racist or sexist comment ‘too seriously.’” Braswell.

Indeed, there is a touch of “emperor’s new clothes syndrome” where enough people signing on to fake news as if it were true – today amplified by conspiracy theories communicated within social media – convinces those who think they see the reality, eventually to replace that perception of reality with that mass, if false, perception. “What’s important to glean from gaslighting as a psychological concept is that it’s all about the gaslighter maintaining control in difficult situations. And they’re able to maintain that control by virtue of their importance in someone’s life. The gaslighter has to be important enough to the victim(s) that they are willing to question their own emotions. So, it’s never really about victims being mentally ‘weaker’ compared to their abusers. It’s about the gaslighter abusing their power in a relationship, and that power can come from any number of things: love, loyalty, prestige, trust, admiration, and so on.

“Gaslighting makes it easier for people who’ve done something wrong or hurtful to confront it. It’s a maneuver that allows them to sidestep their own self-examination by denying the reality around them. It is not the same as disagreement, which is natural and normal in relationships of all kinds and scales. It’s about negating someone else’s (uncomfortable or inconvenient) truth.” Braswell. In a sea of political complexity, it is often about outsourcing opinions to those accorded social, media or political status, regardless of the absurdity of the claims. Like religious zeal, those subject to this political gaslighting reinforce their reliance on the purveyors of falsehood, seldom actually seeking literal proof, by mutual affirmation within a defined peer group. Simple answers.

The length and depth of such “perception distorted” peer groups can be staggering. In today’s modern era, it is exceptionally easy to filter out information that may prove that the emperor is naked and relegate the stream of incoming information solely to that which affirms the “fake news,” often in statistically massive cohorts. From a few individuals to massive political movements of millions of adherents. After all, neither Mao nor Hitler had social media, just the Ministry of Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels for Germany, the Red Book for China, and their own dynamic speaking skills.

Donald Trump is considered one of most brilliant tacticians in the use of social media. Fox News became the functional equivalent of his propaganda arm. Or, as Braswell puts it, “And of course, the most famous example, the reason that the Oxford English Dictionary chose ‘gaslighting’ as a runner-up [to “toxic”] for word of the year, is Donald Trump. In 2018, President Trump was at the height of his manipulative powers, gaslighting the entire nation by constantly calling the trustworthiness of some of our most respected journalistic institutions into question. As one commentator remembers it, at various points Trump claimed:

“. . . that he watched thousands of people cheering on 9/11 in Jersey City (police say there’s no evidence of this), that the Mexican government forces immigrants into the U.S. (no evidence), that there are ‘30 or 34 million’ immigrants in this country (there are 10 or 11 million), that he never supported the Iraq War (he told Howard Stern he did), that the unemployment rate is as high as 42 percent (the highest reported rate is 16.4 percent), that the U.S. is the highest-taxed country in the world (not true based on any metric of consideration), that crime is on the rise (it’s falling and has been for decades), and too many other things to list here because the whole tactic is to clog the drain with an indecipherable mass of toxic waste. –Lauren Duca, Teen Vogue (2016)

“When, under closer scrutiny, Trump then claimed that he was the victim of ‘fake news’ and other media conspiracies, he forced millions of Americans to question whether they could trust news outlets they previously respected for their journalistic integrity. Even for those who understood that he was lying, there’s only so far you can go when the most powerful person in the country tells you it’s his word or yours.

“Trump got to power and maintained it in large part by gaslighting Americans en masse. (And he certainly was not the first American in power to do so.) But there are even more insidious forms of gaslighting that affect millions of people without the boost of a president’s word. Institutions and businesses, employers and educators–they’re all capable of gaslighting at scale. And the only thing that stopped Trump in the end was hard data: You can’t keep believing in someone’s denials when you have fact-checkers on your side.” If one cares about fact-checking.

So, a year and a half and half after claims of voter fraud, lots of recounts, audits and legal rulings later, there has been no proof of material voter fraud proves the sticking power of effective gaslighting. The Big Lie continues to be the backbone of a very large segment of GOP political candidates and constituency. Truth has left the building. The consequences are mounting, and we just may lose our representational democracy in the process.

I’m Peter Dekom, and look what it took to undo Hitler’s and Mao’s hypnotic hold on the their citizens to dissolve the gaslighting: Tens of millions of deaths.

A "Vatican" Solution?

 

“הר הבית בידינו” (the Temple Mount is in our hands). Israeli Lt. Gen. Mordechai “Motta” Gur, June 7, 1967

Al Aqsa Mosque (the “farthest mosque”) is part of a compound of buildings (Al Aqsa Compound or Haram esh-Sharif), theoretically under the supervision of Jordan, constituting the third holiest site in Islam. It was built several decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, who is said to have miraculously traveled to this site, overnight, to pray. It has been updated, destroyed and rebuilt over time and has been subject to major conflicts over the centuries.

Temple Mount is the holiest site in the Jewish faith, a site where two ancient temples once stood: the first built by King Solomon, son of King David, in 957 BCE. According to Jewish tradition and scripture, after its destruction by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE, it was replaced in 516 BCE by a second temple, which was destroyed by the Romans. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the third and final temple will be built upon the arrival of the Messiah. It is towards this site that many Jews pray, and it continues to hold a divine presence. According to the New Testament, it is also the Temple where, as a child, Jesus was taken to be presented and attend a Passover celebration and where, later in life, where he preached and where certain biblical events took place: Pentecost, Acts of the Apostles and the Cleansing of the Temple. It is among the holiest sites in Christianity.

As most of us know, this is a single area in the midst of Old Jerusalem, a site of ancient conflicts, the Crusades into the recent and continuing struggles between Jews and Arab settlers in the region. The buildings that stand today are the surviving Islamic structures built centuries after the death of Christ. The fact that this site is of such religious importance to each of the three major western faiths has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that most sacred part of the contested city of Jerusalem.

For a substantial part of the 20th century, Jerusalem was part of the Arab nation of Jordan. On June 7, 1967, the Israeli army captured the old city of Jerusalem, seizing it from the Jordanians. For the wars and regional conflicts against and within Israel that followed, the struggles over the Palestinian homeland, the anger over the Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the treatment of even Israeli-born Arabs as second class citizens, the Intifada, terrorist attacks in and against Israeli cities, the rockets lobbed by Hamas fighters in Gaza, and even the 11-day war between Hamas and Israel last year… are profoundly influenced by the religious importance of this focused area of Old Jerusalem.

To the delight of the evangelical community in the United States – who believe that an apocalyptic war in the Middle East will thus accelerate the Second Coming of Christ and the resulting rapture where only the most dedicated Christians will instantly be elevated into the Kingdom of Heaven – Donald Trump officially moved the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel to Jerusalem (hence recognizing that the disputed City of Jerusalem was now recognized by the US as the official capital of Israel). Even though the bulk of diplomatic activities remained in Tel Aviv, this gesture infuriated many in the Arab world and particularly angered local Palestinians who, as the above picture illustrates, still hold major services at the Al Aqsa Mosque on the holiest occasions.

April represented an uncommon confluence of Easter, Passover, and the beginning of Ramadan. A larger than usual Jewish contingent of worshippers thus ascended to the Temple Mount than would be normal, absent a religious holiday. The result was decidedly unholy. Violence between Muslims and Jews erupted, to the point where Israeli forces temporary curtailed Jewish visitors. But it was not enough. It was a sore reminder of the Jewish occupation of this holy site. Each side, of course, blamed the other. Israeli police then stormed the Al Aqsa Mosque.

“Palestinians and Israeli police have regularly confronted each other at the site over the last week [mid-April] at a time of heightened tensions following a string of deadly attacks inside Israel and arrests made during raids in the occupied West Bank. Three rockets have been fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas.

“The recent events have raised fears of a repeat of last year, when protests and violence in Jerusalem helped ignite an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas and communal violence in Israel’s mixed cities… Palestinian youths hurled stones toward police at a gate leading into the Al Aqsa compound, according to two Palestinian witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity out of security concerns. The police, in full riot gear, entered the compound, firing rubber bullets and stun grenades.

“Israeli police said the Palestinians, some carrying Hamas flags, had begun stockpiling stones and erecting crude fortifications before dawn. Police said that, after the rock-throwing began, they waited for early-morning prayers to finish before entering the compound.

“Video showed the police firing at a group of journalists who were holding cameras and loudly identifying themselves as members of the press. Police wounded at least three Palestinian reporters with rubber bullets… Some older Palestinians urged the youths to stop throwing rocks as dozens of young masked men hurled stones and fireworks at the police. A tree caught fire near the gate where the clashes began. Police said it was ignited by fireworks thrown by the Palestinians.

“The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said at least 31 Palestinians were wounded, including 14 who were taken to hospitals. A policewoman was hit in the face by a rock and taken for medical treatment, police said.” Los Angeles Times, April 23rd. The relative poverty of Israeli Arabs, the sense of isolation as some Arab nations have formalized diplomatic normalcy with Israel, combined with the religious symbolism of the Al Aqsa Mosque within a hostile Jewish state, ignited into that violence. The designation of Jordan as the mosque’s caretaker was not enough.

With Israel as one of our most vital allies, a nation of modern productivity and technology, American interests require that strong continuing mutually advantaged relationship. But desperate peoples (many local Palestinians), with nothing left to lose, create an exceptionally difficult challenge to world peace. There’s already enough at stake with Putin’s genocidal war in Ukraine.

By recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, however, the United States has effectively negated its potential role as a mediator between Palestinian and Israeli factions. Perhaps a better solution might be for the United Nations to suggest a Vatican-like status, literally an independent state helmed by a triumvirate of prelates from Islam, Judaism and Christianity, open to all worshipers… even if that only embraces the Al Aqsa Mosque/Temple Mount and its immediate surroundings... with guarantees of safety by all surrounding countries and the UN itself. We know one thing: the current model is not working.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there simply must be a better solution to modern day holy wars fought continuously in and around Israel.