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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS Wear a sweater for Jimmy Carter
“Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, has died at age 100. Born in Plains, Georgia on October 1, 1924, Carter became the oldest living former president when he surpassed the record held by the late George H.W. Bush in March 2019. “He wore a cardigan sweater to go on TV and address the country about the need for a national energy policy that emphasized conservation. He backed up his words, creating the Department of Energy and cutting the country’s oil imports by half. On the international front, he normalized relations with China, signed the Panama Canal treaties and made human rights a cornerstone of U.S. foreign affairs. “He’s likely to be remembered for forging the Camp David Accords, which set the table for a historic peace treaty in 1979 between Israel and Egypt that still holds today. And he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his decades of work in advancing international peace, democracy and human rights. “Carter warned Americans against reelecting Trump. ‘I think it will be a disaster to have four more years of Trump’, he said. The former president wanted to live long enough to cast a ballot for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. He did just that.” More at – Remembering Jimmy Carter: Life and legacy of the man from Plains | Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Jimmy Carter, a one-term president who became a globe-trotting elder statesman, dies at 100 | CNN, and Jimmy Carter, former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, dies at age 100 | CBS News. “Mump Regime” – Who’s on first? What’s on second?
“For a new world we need new words. Facing the coming Musk-Trump regime, we will have to be creative. Opposition requires clarity and clarity requires concepts. ‘Mump regime’ is one I propose. The people who are active in the Mump regime are mumpers. The people who go along are mumpets. “The ‘Mump regime’, Musk+Trump, keeps the two men in the proper order. Musk matters more than Trump. He is the one with the money, the one to whom Trump owes debts. Musk also has a much more lively sense of his own interests and more energy generally. When the two men’s ideas clash, as over China in the recent shutdown dispute, Musk gets his way. “Americans have never broken through to a universal health insurance system. And the associated disease, death, fear and poverty is a central problem for our democracy. Now the mumpers and the mumpets are threatening to take away vaccination, which could kill millions of people. One of the diseases it would bring back is — precisely — mumps. Some of the others are far worse. “Some people talk of being the change they want to see in the world; the mumpers are the catastrophe their ideology tells them is inevitable. And ‘Mump regime’ prepares us mentally for the very real possibility that this form of politics can go on without Trump. Musk himself is obviously completely unconcerned by the results of elections; it means nothing to him that people voted for Trump. As Musk once tweeted, ‘we will coup whoever we want’. Whoever we want.” More at – Why is Musk-Trump the “Mump Regime”? | by Timothy Snyder. NOTE from editor: I was alerted that I was incorrect to say that the hereditary name of “Drumph” had been changed to “Trump” by El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago’s father. In fact, it was changed by a more distant ancestor. Regardless, thanks to Timothy Snyder, there now is a more accurate and dismissive moniker, that of “Mump”.
Orange juice from afar out of reach?
“The price of frozen orange juice is skyrocketing. Fruit-borne disease and extreme weather, amplified by a warming climate, are throttling orange-producing regions in Brazil and Florida — curbing harvests and driving up citrus prices. October floods devastated vast tracts of farmland in Spain’s Valencia region which accounts for nearly two-thirds of citrus fruit production in Spain – the world’s top exporter of oranges. “There’s no cure for citrus tree disease, and it takes years for farmers to recover from weather disasters. Citrus greening swells the channels that move water within the tree. Before the tree eventually dies, the clogs in those channels force the tree to drop fruit early, which can’t be processed. “Last year, sales of orange juice represented about half of sales of all juices in the US. Orange juice frozen concentrate average retail prices have spiked 42% to an all-time high of $4.28 in April, from $3.01 per 16 ounces a year ago. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that the 2024 orange production in Florida remains the lowest harvest in 90 years. ‘Food prices are a very tangible way to talk about climate change’, said Uriyoán Colón-Ramos, an associate professor at George Washington University.” More at – Disease, extreme weather push up orange juice prices | VOA, and Orange juice prices jump as producers grapple with shortages in Brazil, Florida | Axios, and Bitter harvest for Spanish farmers as floods swamp fields | Reuters, and Inflation is cooling. So why is orange juice so expensive right now? | Yahoo. Indigenous wisdom episode #4: with Galina Angarova
“This podcast is about bringing forward the perspectives of Indigenous communities as we reckon with the consequences of a global, industrial society built on growth, extraction, and colonialism. “Have you ever felt a yearning to learn more about living in a culture that is not based on extractivism, commodification, acquisition, and exploitation? It was this question that led me to Galina Angarova from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia. She said ‘It’s living the best way that I can, allowing life to happen to me, guided by my heart, caring for others, leaving behind something important after I’m long gone’. “In our conversation, Galina talks about the critically important role of ancestors and of Indigenous women during this time of crisis on planet Earth. Galina believes Indigenizing is the antidote to colonization, and that the traditional knowledge of Indigenous people that came directly from the land itself is our only hope for a future. “Galina Angarova is a Buryat woman from the Lake Baikal region of Siberia. In addition to being the Executive Director of Cultural Survival, an Indigenous-led NGO that advocates for the rights of Indigenous peoples around the world, Galina is a climate activist and a land rights activist.” Listen at – Holding the Fire: Episode 4. Understanding Suffering and Knowing Our Place with Galina Angarova | Resilience. Modernity as unintended result of unfit mental modeling
“I have difficulty listening to political rhetoric of any stripe, having the conviction that the entire modernity project is inherently incompatible with ecological health, and thus fated to self-terminate. Offering promises of more houses, more jobs, more money, more material comfort only moves us closer toward ecological collapse. “Political dreamers begin with the words: ‘if only’. If only we had full participation in the democratic process. If only voters were well informed. If only people voted in their economic self-interest. Notice the common theme: if only people were not what they actually are. Basically: for most folks, modernity isn’t the problem. It’s those gall-darned people who have always prevented it from achieving its theoretical potential. “I want to turn to the phenomenon of political fantasy, and how that connects to the entire fantasy of modernity. Brains are organs evolved and adapted to coordinate actions of an organism for fitness. An aside: fitness does not mean outcompeting all other life, but fitting well into a complex web of life. It is perhaps obvious that brains of increasing neurological complexity are able to construct mental models of increasing complexity. Yet, even the most sophisticated mental models are pared-down representations of inherently messier realities. “We begin to mistake our nifty, tidy models for the reality they attempt to capture — the classic blunder of treating the map as the territory. The point is that our culture has a long track record of working to replace natural, complex environments with simpler, artificial ones that better conform to simplified mental models. The same happens in politics, of course. The political frameworks populating modernity are fabrications – constructs that have no ecological, evolutionary vetting. “Yet, so many of us hold onto a fantasy of eventual perfection. Our tendency is to address the growing host of problems (imperfections) with more ‘solutions’. Only, the solutions have the unintended effect of unforeseen consequences. The inevitable result is an unwieldy tangle of brain-farts. That’s what modernity boils down to, folks: a motley collection of hair-brained notions divorced from ecological reality.” More at – Political Perfection | Do the Math. 2025 could be hottest in spite of La Niña cooling effect
“The Met Office outlook for 2025 suggests that it is likely to be one of the three warmest years for global average temperature, falling in line just behind 2024 and 2023. 2024 is expected to be the warmest year on record, now almost certain to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for the first time. This follows on from the record-breaking 1.45°C in 2023, the previous warmest year on record. “The Met Office’s Dr Nick Dunstone, who led production of the forecast, said: ‘A year ago our forecast for 2024 highlighted the first chance of exceeding 1.5°C. The first year above 1.5°C is certainly a sobering milestone in climate history’. The Met Office uses a 20-year average to assess the Current Global Warming Level, which is updated regularly on the Climate Dashboard.” More at – 2025 outlook: in top three warmest years on record | Met Office UK. Arctic had second hottest year since 1900
“The Arctic just experienced its second-hottest year on record. The last nine years in the Arctic have all had the highest average temperatures recorded since 1900. This year, sea ice was the sixth-lowest in the 45 years since satellites began measuring; sea ice extents have decreased about 50% since the 1980s. “‘The permafrost region contains about twice as much carbon as is in the atmosphere now and about three times as much carbon as in the aboveground biomass of all the world’s forests, so it’s a lot of carbon that’s at stake here’, said Brendan Rogers, an associate scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center. “And concerningly, the region’s tundra has transitioned from being a sink for carbon to a source of emissions as permafrost thaws, releasing carbon dioxide and methane. That dynamic is the result of a phenomenon called Arctic amplification. As the Arctic loses snow cover and sea ice, more dark-colored ocean water and rock emerge. Those dark surfaces reflect less radiation back to space, absorbing heat, instead.” More at – Arctic hit by high temperatures, melting ice and fires in 2024, NOAA report says | NBC. 2024 climate disaster costs at least $229 billion
“The world’s 10 most costly climate disasters of 2024 caused $229bn in damages and killed 2,000 people, the latest annual analysis of insurance payouts has revealed. Three-quarters of the financial destruction occurred in the world’s biggest economy, the US. In another first: all of the top 10 disasters racked up bills of more than $4bn. “Released at the end of what is almost certain to be another record-breaking year for global heat, the top 10 also included Typhoon Yagi in south-east Asia, which killed at least 829 people and wreaked $12.6bn of economic havoc; Storm Boris in Europe, which killed at least 26 and caused $5bn of losses; and the devastating floods in southern China, Bavaria, Valencia and Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Said Dr Mariam Zachariah, ‘Most of these disasters show clear fingerprints of climate change. This report is just a snapshot of climate devastation in 2024. There are many more droughts, heatwaves, wildfires and floods not included that are becoming more frequent and intense’.” More at – 2024’s most costly climate disasters killed 2,000 people and caused $229bn in damages, data shows | The Guardian UK. Insurance wearing thin for natural catastrophes
“‘Nat Cats’ sound fuzzy and adorable. They’re not. Hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, extreme heat, and other natural catastrophes are now so common that the insurance industry has given them a cutesy nickname. In the year to September, the world experienced at least 51 separate Nat Cats that each caused a billion dollars or more in losses — nearly twice as many as a decade ago. “Adding up losses from Nat Cats and subtracting the amount that was insured gives your ‘protection gap’. A country with a small protection gap, like the UK at 21%, is well able to recover from climate disasters. But in India and China, with protection gaps of over 90%, those affected by disasters can have their wealth completely wiped out. The really worrying news is that protection gaps globally have widened by 20% over the last five years. “Andrew Hoffman from the University of Michigan said: ‘Seven of the top 12 insurance carriers have either cut existing homeowners policies or stopped selling new ones in the wildfire-prone California market, and an equal number have pulled back from the Florida market’. That has led to the emergence of ‘insurance deserts’, where commercial insurance is not available at any price. In the US, about 13% of homes have no insurance at all, and up to 40% in parts of Florida.” More at – Can insurance as we know it survive climate change? | Anthropocene Magazine. | 
