But what about those people gathered around him in the Oval Office? Therein lies a tale. As it turns out, they were automobile executives, joining Trump for a happy moment where he told them that gasoline would be the fuel of the future. As he explained in his usual thoughtful manner. The greatest scam in American history, the Green New Scam, is a quest to end the gasoline powered car. This is what they wanted to do even though we have more gasoline than any other country by far. It should surprise no one that these auto executives stood there simpering while the president launched into his racist diatribe. Black workers have, of course, been central to Detroit’s success. They faced discrimination from the start—among other things they were often sent to work in the fume-filled paint rooms of the big plants—but still they persevered. Detroit was eventually home to the country’s biggest branch of the NAACP; Dr. King previewed his I Have a Dream speech in a wild June day in Detroit in 1963, with Rev. C.L. Franklin, best known now as Aretha’s dad, presiding over much of the action. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the chairman and CEO of Ford issued a statement saying “we cannot turn a blind eye” to racism, but that’s just what current Ford CEO Jim Farley, and all the other executives in that room, did yesterday.

But perhaps it might surprise some that they were standing there applauding as Trump rolled back fuel economy standards, from 50 miles to the gallon by 2035 under the old rules to about 35 miles a gallon. Those higher mileage standards were the tool the Biden administration was using to help nudge Detroit towards electric vehicles; without them, it will almost certainly backslide towards irrelevance. That’s because they will slow down their process of innovation; as the Times put it, the new policy “frees automakers to sell more pickups and sport utility vehicles, which are usually much more profitable than smaller cars. It will be difficult for carmakers to resist pressure to sell these gas guzzlers.” Here’s Lenny LaRocca, who leads the automotive practice at consulting firm KPMG:“I would anticipate that more focus would be on the larger S.U.V.s and pickup trucks.”

So—more gas for consumers to  buy (the cost of owning an EV is far lower than the cost of owning an internal combustion car), more carbon and particulates in the air, more people being run over by absurdly sized vehicles. And much less chance that Detroit will ever be a leading force in the auto industry again. That was already seeming unlikely: China’s carmakers grow more dominant by the quarter. But the IRA support for EVs was the last real possibility, an infusion of funds to help underwrite the retooling for the world to come. But instead of fighting for that, these executives have truckled to the president, and sold the future of their companies for a few more years of turning out Escalades. At some level these guys know what they should be doing.......read on   https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/pouring-literal-gasoline-on-the-flames?utm_source=substack&publication_id=438146&post_id=180734400&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=mwxsy&triedRedirect=true

While it’s unlikely evacuation will happen any time soon, Tehran’s water crisis is not made equal. When the taps run dry, more affluent Tehranis purchase mineral water or rely on water tankers, a prohibitively expensive option for many. The rest must rely on charity, or they will die of thirst. Water use in Tehran is quite high, even for cities. But Iran’s water problems go deeper than this record-breaking drought. The country is uniquely isolated and subject to numerous sanctions, crippling the economy and making it very difficult for Iran to obtain state-of-the-art water technologies. It’s an enemy state to many of its neighbors, as well as regional leaders in desalination technologySaudi Arabia, and theUnited Arab Emirates. But desalination is t in an Iranian context, often coming at a water mafia”—a shadowy and well-connected network driving these megaprojects for their own gain. “Iran faces water bankruptcy, with demand far outstripping supply,” Kowsar wrote in Time. “The collapse of water security in Iran has been decades in the making and is rooted in a mania for megaprojects—dam building, deep wells, and water transfer schemes—that ignored the fundamentals of hydrology and ecological balance.”

Iran is also particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change: Over 82 percent of the country is arid or semi-arid, and Iran is sixth on the list of countries most prone to natural disasters. The country grows thirsty crops, and its quest for food security and self-sufficiency is a tremendous driver of its water bankruptcy. The agricultural sector comprises up to 90 percent of the country’s total water withdrawals. But Iran’s environmental crisis does strain existing geopolitical tensions both inside and outside of the country. Water is sometimes transported from one region of the country to supply another, driving fears that certain ethnic populations are intentionally being deprived at the expense of others. Yale University historian and Iran expertArash Azizi, who is also a contributing writer for The Atlantic, told me that despite the tremendous humanitarian cost of continued sanctions, they are very unlikely to be removed in response to the water crisis. 

Water use in Tehran is quite high, even for cities. But Iran’s water problems go deeper than this record-breaking drought.The country is uniquely isolated and subject to numerous sanctions, crippling the economy and making it very difficult for Iran to obtain state-of-the-art water technologies. It’s an enemy state to many of its neighbors, as well as regional leaders in desalination technology—Israel,Saudi Arabia, and theUnited Arab Emirates. But desalination is largely irrelevant in an Iranian context, often coming at a high environmental cost. According to water issues analyst Nik Kowser, Iranians are under the thumb of a >water mafia”—a shadowy and well-connected network driving these megaprojects for their own gain. “Iran faces water bankruptcy, with demand far outstripping supply,” Kowsar wrote in Time. “The collapse of water security in Iran has been decades in the making and is rooted in a mania for megaprojects—dam building, deep wells, and water transfer schemes—that ignored the fundamentals of hydrology and ecological balance.”.......read on   https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2025/11/tehran-iran-water-shortage-rationing-evacuation-desalinization-drought-middle-east/  

Agricultural disasters can be devastating both locally and globally. I have met relatives of drought-hit farmers pushed to suicide and others forced to migrate across borders. I have heard from flood-hit British farmers who lost entire harvests and were left saddled with debt. The impact on food prices can be widespread. Food inflation in the UK rose to 19.1% in 2023, significantly adding to the cost of living and pushing some on the poverty line into malnutrition. The price of orange juice more than doubled after Florida’s citrus belt was hit by hurricanes at the end of last year; olive oil soared in price after heat and drought hit olive trees, making it the most shoplifted item in Spain. 

Disasters impoverish people and they are costly for nations, especially when multiple disasters hit the same country. Last year, Brazil suffered catastrophic floods across its southern states that displaced more than half a million people. The same year, prolonged drought and heat triggered devastating fires across the Amazon and Pantanal region. Often, one disaster cascades into others, such as when Pakistan was hit by unbearable heat and drought in 2022, before violently destructive flash floods displaced 33 million people in a week, only to be followed by landslides that destroyed key infrastructure. Technological resilience must be combined with social resilience, and that comes from investing in society  In this post-global heating era, we can expect more severe and frequent extreme events. Disasters will affect you and the people you care about over the coming decades. We must accept and factor this new reality into our plans......read on   https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2025/feb/15/extreme-weather-new-reality-wildfires-floods-droughts

The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything. But according to science journalist Peter Brannen, that dismal view is far too narrow. In his first book, The Ends of the World, Brannen chronicled Earth’s five major mass extinctions, charting the deep history of our planet’s greatest catastrophes. For his second, The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything (Ecco, 2025), he has higher ambitions, taking readers on dizzying jaunts through deep time to reframe our understanding of what may be the most vilified and misunderstood molecule on Earth.Scientific American. Inspired and informed by conversations with leading planetary scientists, Brannen’s central argument is that CO2 is not merely an industrial pollutant but a key player in the four-billion-year-old drama of life on Earth. It is the molecule that built our planet, forming the global carbon cycle that has regulated climate, shaped geology and powered evolution for eons. He shows how the ebb and flow of atmospheric CO2 across Earth’s vast history has played a role in, yes, practically everything under the sun—from the primordial origins of life to the development of human civilization and our global economic system. From the ancient past to the present day, Brannen makes the case that to understand CO2 is to understand the very fabric of our world.When we talk about carbon dioxide, the narrative is almost always that of a modern-day morality play. We hear about gigatons of CO2 emitted, about rising global temperatures and about the dire, unheeded warnings of climate scientists. In these tales, CO2 often seems less like a mute, inert molecule and more like an evil supervillain—a malevolent force that has been plotting for centuries to wreak havoc on our planet and ruin our lives. But according to science journalist Peter Brannen, that dismal view is far too narrow.

In his first book, The Ends of the World, Brannen chronicled Earth’s five major mass extinctions, charting the deep history of our planet’s greatest catastrophes. For his second, The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything (Ecco, 2025), he has higher ambitions, taking readers on dizzying jaunts through deep time to reframe our understanding of what may be the most vilified and misunderstood molecule on Earth. Inspired and informed by conversations with leading planetary scientists, Brannen’s central argument is that CO2 is not merely an industrial pollutant but a key player in the four-billion-year-old drama of life on Earth. It is the molecule that built our planet, forming the global carbon cycle that has regulated climate, shaped geology and powered evolution for eons. He shows how the ebb and flow of atmospheric CO2 across Earth’s vast history has played a role in, yes, practically everything under the sun—from the primordial origins of life to the development of human civilization and our global economic system. From the ancient past to the present day, Brannen makes the case that to understand CO2 is to understand the very fabric of our world. Scientific American spoke with Brannen about what’s in his new book, how he came to see a simple gas as a character in a planetary epic and what the long history of CO2 can tell us about our precarious present moment—and our uncertain future. [An edited transcript of the interview follows.]       

How did this book come to be? That’s always a great way to start.......My previous book, The Ends of the World, was about the five biggest mass extinctions known in Earth’s history. And when paleontologists look at those events what they’ve found is, yes, a space rock seems to have triggered the most recent one, the Cretaceous mass extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. But the evidence is sparse for asteroid or comet impacts causing the others. Instead the other four—the Ordovician, the Devonian, the Permian and the Triassic mass extinctions—as well as the dozens of other minor mass extinctions in the fossil record, are most associated with major biogeochemical events, usually involving big spikes in atmospheric CO2.And these gigantic CO2 spikes are followed by extreme global warming and ocean acidification and all the other nasty climate change effects we’re understandably worried about today......read on   https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-dioxide-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/