Texas heat wave is a good reminder that we are not ready for a warmer world

Texas is having a heat wave, and everybody trying to get cool has overloaded the grid down there, causing thousands of power outages. This isn’t anywhere close to the first time this has happened, but for some reason, the folks running the state can’t seem to actually improve things, so more people have to die. I wanted to share this video from Beau of the Fifth Column, who makes the very good point that even the US army doesn’t pretend extreme temperatures are something you can just “tough out”.

 

I also wanted to draw attention to the plight of prisoners in Texas. Prisons are already horrible places, but when something like a heat wave or a pandemic hits, even the most minor offender can end up with a death sentence.

After a week of scorching temperatures across the Lone Star State breaking records and hitting triple-digits, the Senate decision to reduce air-conditioning funding in Texas prisons has many concerns.

“Stifling heat has killed inmates and exacerbated employee turnover in Texas prisons,” the Texas Tribune reported. “But funding for air conditioning was whittled down in the draft budget released in May.”

Last summer, a report recorded that inmates incarcerated in Texas regularly live within 110-degree temperatures during the summer months, with a temperature of 149 degrees recorded in one prison unit, according to the Texas A&M University Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center.

The issue has resulted in a high number of employment vacancies at Texas prisons resulting in secondary problems such as low and overworked staff, according to the Associated Press. While reports vary on how many deaths contribute annually from the heat in Texas prisons, the numbers are difficult to track because of possible underlying health issues, according to reports.

It is noted that during a record heat wave in 2011, multiple deaths were reported in response at Texas prisons.

In 2017, U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison in Houston stated the Texas prison system was “deliberately indifferent” to heat risks and subjected inmates to “a substantial risk of serious injury or death.” Ellison’s comments came as part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by inmates at one unit.

A perception among Texas lawmakers is that air-conditioning is a luxury, TIME recently reported on Texas prisons after funding was halted during this year’s legislation.

As I’ve said before, in a rapidly warming world, air conditioning is a vital necessity in ever-growing parts of the world. Texas is one such place. When the weather gets hot enough, especially if it’s not what people are used to, air conditioning is as necessary as heating in the winter. The US prison system is already a crime against humanity, but as the temperature rises, that’s going to keep getting worse.

Our society is riddled with pockets of corruption and institutional violence that have been allowed to fester for generations. These sorts of problems tend to grow when a society is placed under strain, and it sure looks like the powers that be are increasing police powers, and increasing the criminalization of left-wing political activism. Given the sadism of the US law enforcement system, this heat is going to become yet another way to torment prisoners, well beyond any simple sentence of imprisonment. In addition to being a reason for us to take climate change seriously, this is also a reason to work away from viewing people as disposable or broken, and towards prison abolition.

Take care of yourselves, and take care of those around you, if you have the ability. Since people are the base of any movement for a better world, caring for each other is caring for the foundations of what we want to build.

Hill Article Twists Research to Blame Scientists for Climate Inaction

Quite some time ago, I had the realization that as the warming of our planet became too obvious to deny, those who made their money denying, downplaying, or ignoring the problem, would switch to blaming others for failing to convince them. What I didn’t realize, at the time, was that this message would not necessarily come from those exact same people. I’m sure it will, at some point, but the most recent example came from a fellow writing for The Hill, whose main focus is climate reporting. Specifically, his article’s headline reads, Catch-22: Scientific communication failures linked to faster sea level rise.

Scientists failed for decades to communicate the coming risks of rapid sea-level rise to policymakers and the public, a new study has found.

That has created a climate catch-22 in which scientists have soft-pedaled the kinds of catastrophic risks most easily headed off by cutting emissions.=

While scientific communication has improved in the 2020s, this trajectory led policymakers to make decisions based on risks that are better understood, easier to quantify — and also easier to write off as an acceptable long-term risk.

This, in my estimation, is bullshit. Scientists have been warning about this for longer than I’ve been alive, they’ve been screaming about it for the last two decades, and they have been routinely dismissed as alarmists. Moreover, the paper in question isn’t focused on scientists, but on the IPCC, as you can see in the abstract:

Future sea-level change is characterized by both quantifiable and unquantifiable uncertainties. Effective communication of both types of uncertainty is a key challenge in translating sea-level science to inform long-term coastal planning. Scientific assessments play a key role in the translation process and have taken diverse approaches to communicating sea-level projection uncertainty. Here we review how past IPCC and regional assessments have presented sea-level projection uncertainty, how IPCC presentations have been interpreted by regional assessments and how regional assessments and policy guidance simplify projections for practical use. This information influenced the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report presentation of quantifiable and unquantifiable uncertainty, with the goal of preserving both elements as projections are adapted for regional application.

It’s a look at IPCC reports, their effectiveness at communicating uncertainties, and at efforts to communicate better. It does look at way in which past efforts fell short, but it’s ludicrous to say that’s to blame for faster sea level rise. Stepping outside the scope of this paper, I think that it is reasonable to say that IPCC reports have downplayed the dangers of climate change, but that’s not on the scientists. For those who are unclear, the IPCC is a political organization, formed by participating governments. Scientists play a major role in it, and we’d be better off if the nations of the world had better heeded that organization’s recommendations, but the scientists aren’t the only ones at the table:

Increasing evidence is emerging that the policy summaries on climate impacts and mitigation by the UN Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were significantly ‘diluted’ under political pressure from some of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters, including Saudi Arabia, China, Brazil and the United States.

Several experts familiar with the IPCC government approval process for the ‘Summary for Policymakers’ (SPM) reports – documents summarising the thousands of pages of technical and scientific reports for government officials – have spoken out about their distortion due to political interests.

According to David Wasdell, who leads on feedback dynamics in coupled complex global systems for the European Commission’s Global System Dynamics and Policy (GSDP) network, “Every word and line of the text previously submitted by the scientific community was examined and amended until it could be endorsed unanimously by the political representatives.”

This is just one part of the decades-long effort by the fossil fuel industry and their lackeys to mislead the world about climate science, which has also involved the demonization and harassment of climate scientists and other advocates. I think it also makes it clear that, since representatives of those governments were deliberately distorting facts, they knew the scale of the problem, they just didn’t want the general public to know it. The people with the power to act knew the scale of the problem, and tried to hide it. If any communication is to blame for sea level rise, it’s this stuff, and the tireless efforts of news corporations – not just Fox – to downplay, dismiss, or ignore the problem. There is plenty of blame to go around for the current crisis, but blaming it on scientists is inexcusable. It’s a shame, because after the first couple paragraphs, I think the Hill article actually provides a pretty decent overview. I honestly wonder whether the bit blaming scientists was added or mandated by someone higher up. You can check that out, or the research team’s press release, or you can check out Rebecca Watson‘s video on the subject, in which she goes over the paper, and provides some context of her own:

Video: Pinging the Depths of the Most Dangerous Stretch of Water in the World

I spent today catching up on housework, so today’s post is a video about the Strid at Bolton Abbey. This is a section of the River Wharfe where the river basically turns on its side. It becomes very narrow, and very, very deep. It’s often called the most dangerous river in the world, and while the sheer number of dead probably doesn’t support that, the history of the river does. Basically, if you fall in, you do not come out alive, and you’re not guaranteed to come out at all. The current is strong, and flows through caves as well as the main channel, and it has historically been difficult to get a clear notion of the Strid’s depth. This fellow on Youtube got a little sonar ball to see what he could find, and his equipment measured the Strid at 65 meters deep. For my fellow USians, that’s about 213 feet. That’s the height of a 20-story building, while being a couple meters wide.

I really hope, some day soon, someone is able to make a digital model of the Strid, because I’d love to see what it actually looks like down there.

Edit: I had missed a later video by the same fellow, which gave a slightly shallower reading of 56 meters, which is still astonishingly deep, for such a narrow bit of water.

Bridge Collapse Sends Traincars of Asphalt and Sulfur into Yellowstone River

Water intakes along the Yellowstone River have been shut off, following the collapse of a rail bridge, which sent several cars full of asphalt and sulfur into the water. Photos show crumpled, steaming tanker cars, and what appears to be bright yellow stuff roiling in the water. Pictures from Rawsalerts on Twitter:

The image is taken from the river banks downstream of the wreckage. Grass and shrubs in the foreground, then muddy, turbulent river water. The bridge and train run across the middle, and in the center, you can see yellow-white froth, where sulfur seems to be leaking into the water. In the background, forested hills under a partly cloudy sky.

The image is taken from the river banks downstream of the wreckage. Grass and shrubs in the foreground, then muddy, turbulent river water. The bridge and train run across the middle, and in the center, you can see yellow-white froth, where sulfur seems to be leaking into the water. In the background, forested hills under a partly cloudy sky.

The image is taken from the riverbank, near one end of the ruined rail bridge. You can see grass and yellow flowers in the foreground, with the river, bridge, and train in the middle. The tanker cars are twisted and crumpled, with steam hovering over them. If you look closely, you can see yellow in the water near the wreckage. In the background, a forested hill, under gray clouds.

The image is taken from the riverbank, near one end of the ruined rail bridge. You can see grass and yellow flowers in the foreground, with the river, bridge, and train in the middle. The tanker cars are twisted and crumpled, with steam hovering over them. If you look closely, you can see yellow in the water near the wreckage. In the background, a forested hill, under gray clouds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This will keep happening, until the US government can stop kissing capitalist asses long enough to actually do its job, and overhaul the infrastructure of the whole damned country. The rails need to be nationalized, with profits from their use re-invested in maintaining, improving, and expanding the network. It seems that Montana’s had enough rain recently, that the stuff pouring into the river is pretty diluted, so cleanup workers are supposedly not at any risk. I have my doubts, obviously, but that’s what’s being reported:

COLUMBUS, Mont. — A bridge that crosses the Yellowstone River in Montana collapsed early Saturday, plunging portions of a freight train carrying hazardous materials into the rushing water below.

The train cars were carrying asphalt and sulfur, said David Stamey, Stillwater County’s chief of emergency services. Officials shut down drinking water intakes downstream while they evaluated the danger. An Associated Press reporter witnessed a yellow substance coming out of some of the tank cars.

However, Stamey said there was no immediate danger for the crews working at the site, and the hazardous material was being diluted by the swollen river. There were eight rail cars in the river or on the part of the bridge that collapsed.

The train crew was safe and no injuries were reported, Montana Rail Link spokesman Andy Garland said in a statement.

Railroad crews were at the scene in Stillwater County, near the town of Columbus, about 40 miles (about 64 kilometers) west of Billings. The area is in a sparsely populated section of the Yellowstone River Valley, surrounded by ranch and farmland. The river there flows away from Yellowstone National Park, which is about 110 miles (177 kilometers) southwest.

“We are committed to addressing any potential impacts to the area as a result of this incident and working to understand the reasons behind the accident,” Garland said.

In neighboring Yellowstone County, officials said they instituted emergency measures at water treatment plants due to the “potential hazmat spill” and asked residents to conserve water.

The cause of the collapse is under investigation. The river was swollen with recent heavy rains, but it’s unclear whether that was a factor.

Oh yeah, that’s the other thing – unless the US takes this seriously, climate change is going to keep putting more stress on its already-crumbling infrastructure. I don’t think climate change is the biggest factor here, given the overall neglect of the nation’s roads, rails, and bridges, but it’s more of a factor every year, and there’s no good excuse for not working to keep ahead of it.

I’m glad Yellowstone National Park won’t be directly affected, but while it’s a lovely place, all the other ecosystems along the river, including the river itself, also merit our concern. Obviously, there will be some human costs associated with this spill, but it’s hard for me to predict those at this stage. If you live downstream from this, along the Yellowstone river, or the Missouri river downstream of where the Yellowstone joins it, it’s probably a good idea to stock up on water, if you haven’t already.

Video: Beau of the Fifth Column on updates in Russia

As most of you are no doubt aware, Wagner Group, a private Russian army claiming to have 25,000 troops, has attacked Russia. The Group’s leader hasn’t declared war on Putin, per se – he’s claiming to be after corrupt leaders in the military. That said, I think it’s a distinction without a difference, at least right now. As usual, I think Beau has a good take on this – the outcome will probably depend on the Russian people, and whether or not they decide to get involved. Given the Wagner Group’s cuddly relationship with neo-Nazis, it seems unlikely to me that their rule would be much different than Putin’s, so it’s not a change that I’d personally be willing to fight for.

Indigenous Knowledge Leads to Likely Treatment for Episodic Ataxia

I was hanging out with some neighbors the other night, and the subject of gaming came up, along with the fact that the first guild I was in, playing WoW in my college years, was called “Ataxia”; my neighbors, being doctors, did a bit of a double-take. For those who don’t know, ataxia is basically a set of neuromuscular symptoms associated with a few different neurological conditions. I don’t remember why the guild’s founder had chosen that name. The term covers balance issues, coordination issues, sensory problems, and more. It’s pretty broad, and from what I can tell, even if the underlying condition isn’t especially dangerous, those symptoms that are called ataxia are a problem all by themselves. That means that being able to make them go away can be a huge victory – it lets the patient regain control of their body.

I mention all of that, because researchers from the University of California – Irvine have found that plant extracts used by the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations in the Pacific Northwest are a viable treatment, specifically for type 1 episodic ataxia. This is something that could help people all around the world, and it’s a good reminder of the importance of biodiversity, Indigenous knowledge, and Indigenous rights. I’ll get into that stuff a little, but first, let’s hear from the researchers:

“Episodic Ataxia 1 (EA1) is a movement disorder caused by inherited mutations in the human KCNA1 gene, which encodes Kv1.1, a voltage-gated potassium channel essential for normal function of the human nervous system,” said Geoffrey W. Abbott, PhD, vice dean of basic science research and professor in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the UCI School of Medicine. “We found that extracts of stinging nettle, bladderwrack kelp and Pacific ninebark can all correct function of the mutation-carrying proteins causing a specific form of ataxia.”

Abbott’s research team also found that two compounds contained in these plants, tannic acid and gallic acid, are each able to rescue activity of the EA1-linked mutation-carrying ion channel proteins.

“The plant compounds are the first known compounds to rescue the activity of Kv1.1 carrying EA1-linked loss-of-function sequence variants,” said Abbott. “Gallic acid in particular is of therapeutic interest because it is already available over the counter as a nutritional supplement and is very well tolerated in toxicity studies.”

Individuals with ataxia exhibit abnormal gait, slurring, eye movement abnormalities, difficulties with balance and walking, tremors, and disruption of fine motor skills.

“These mutations can cause other disorders, including epilepsy, and so there is therapeutic potential for those conditions as well,” said Abbott. “We have discovered that where modern synthetic drug development techniques have failed to produce a drug that directly rescues EA1-linked mutant channel function, traditional botanical medicine developed by North American First Nation peoples has succeeded.”

Further research is now needed to explore the efficacy of the plant-derived compounds in preclinical and clinical studies.

“We have made a mouse model of a relatively severe form of human EA1 so that we can test the efficacy and safety of gallic acid and also whole plant extracts,” said Abbott. “If the preclinical studies go well, our goal is to move to clinical trials. Concurrently, we are synthesizing and testing other plant compounds and derivatives to discover other compounds with potential for treating EA1 and related disorders.”

This is really neat, and I hope clinical trials go smoothly and quickly, for the sake of everyone this could help. I also hope, if this bears out, that the researchers get due credit.

That said, I have a couple thoughts. The first is that, as I said earlier, this underscores one of the many reasons why biodiversity is important to us, as humans. There are lots of those reasons, but the fact that we keep discovering new medicines in our fellow organisms is nothing to sneeze at. That is also why Indigenous rights and Indigenous land management practices are so important. As with biodiversity, this isn’t the only reason those things are important. It shouldn’t need to be said, but these days, it feels like it’s better to be explicit, so: Indigenous people deserve rights and autonomy because they are people. Beyond that, Indigenous land management practices tend to shape ecosystems to be beneficial to humans, while actively maintaining and promoting ecosystem health and biodiversity.

This is also why it is absolutely fucked that this discovery will probably end up being the private property of some pharmaceutical corporation, for the prescription version, and some big supplement corporation for the herbal version. I feel like I should apologize for always coming back to capitalism, but it’s hard to talk about big problems in this world without mentioning the economic system that dominates most of the planet.

And so, in addition to biodiversity and Indigenous rights, this is also a good reason to end capitalism. This knowledge comes, in part, from people who were nearly erased in support of capitalism, and the medicine comes from wild plants, and the ecosystems they inhabit. I have no problem with the notion of some sort of socially born price for the work that goes into turning plant into medicine, but that should never be a barrier to access for those who need it. Likewise, capitalism has proven to be disastrous for biodiversity and ecosystem health. We will never know exactly what we’ve lost, in the wanton, profit-driven destruction of so many ecosystems, but looking at discoveries like this, it seems certain that it’s not nothing. This world has so much to offer us, and we can enjoy its bounty, as well as marvels of our own invention, without destroying everything in the process. The path we’re on will lead us to lose everything, but if we have the courage to take a new, and different path, we stand to gain everything despite how close we stand to oblivion.

Thank you for reading! If you liked this post, please share it around. If you read this blog regularly, please consider joining my small but wonderful group of patrons. Because of my immigration status, I’m not allowed to get a normal job, so my writing is all I have for the foreseeable future, and I’d love for it to be a viable career long-term. As part of that goal, I’m currently working on a young adult fantasy series, so if supporting this blog isn’t enough inducement by itself, for just $5/month you can work with me to name a place or character in that series!

Video: Meteorologist Resigns Following Right-Wing Threats Over Climate Change Coverage

For a couple years now, I’ve paired fighting climate change, with fighting fascism. There are a number of reasons for this, but the biggest one, from the climate perspective, is that fascists value power far more highly than the environment, and so they’ll happily continue denying climate science, and using fossil fuels. When it comes to crises that can’t be ignored, well, the recent refugee boat disaster, which I’ve seen some right-wingers celebrating, is a good example of the eco-fascist solution. In the meantime, they are actively terrorizing people just for reporting on what’s happening. An Iowa meteorologist named Chris Gloninger has been getting death threats, some bad enough to give him PTSD, and has decided to resign because of it. Mike Figueredo from The Humanist Report has more:

As a species, we cannot afford rich people.

Like most of you, I’ve been half-heartedly following the story some some obscenely rich tourists who went to look at the wreck of the Titanic, for funsies, in a submarine that has been described as sub-standard for such extreme conditions. That, plus a seemingly careless attitude from the CEO of the submarine tour company (the sub doesn’t even have an emergency beacon), meant I was actually surprised to see that they’d done this dive successfully at least a couple times since 2021. There have been comments about the appropriateness of using what amounts to a mass grave as a tourist destination, but that’s not something about which I feel particularly strongly.

Growing up, I read about the voyages of the submarine Alvin, and I very much wanted to go on a dive. Having learned more about what that entails, I’ve mostly lost interest in going down there myself, but I’m glad that other people do make such journeys, for the pictures, video, and information that they bring back. This was not that. The huge expense ($250,000 per passenger, apparently) wasn’t for gathering information with a few tourists along to help fund it. That’s an arrangement that makes sense to me, especially in a capitalist society. If bringing a billionaire along on your research trip makes that trip possible, then sure – take their money and bring them along, as long as they don’t get in the way. From what I can tell, this was all about a rich person making money by selling an experience to other rich people, similar to the recent billionaire space flights we heard about.

Very similar, in fact. It turns out that one of the missing billionaire tourists also went into space on Jeff Bezos’ novelty-shaped rocket. Apparently he’s used his wealth to pay for a number of expensive trips to remote locations, and has thus earned the title “explorer”. Regular readers will no doubt be aware of the huge amount of human suffering it costs to make a billionaire, so you may understand my general lack of concern about this. On a human level, I hope the people on that sub survive. Assuming they weren’t killed immediately, suffocating in a sealed metal tube sounds like a horrible way to die. While I do want to take away all of these people’s money, and actually do something useful with it, I would only condemn the actual people to suffer the same sort of life the rest of us lead, but with guaranteed food, housing and healthcare.

Mainly, I’m just tired of rich people. I’m tired of a system that actively rewards people for ruthless, murderous exploitation. I’m tired of the way everyone in the world has to put up with the whims of these people. Astronomers warned that Musk’s Starlink system could devastate Earth-based astronomy, but they couldn’t actually do anything about it. Educators warned that Gates’ plan to “fix” USian education wouldn’t work, but they couldn’t stop him from messing with a generation of students. Most of the world wants to deal with climate change, but the petty greed of a handful of rich assholes has almost completely prevented us from saving ourselves. Trans people are just trying to live their lives, but on Twitter, Musk has decided to actively support his fellow bigots, and given what a petty man-child he is, it’s almost certainly because his trans daughter disowned him, and his ex-wife started dating a trans woman.

And a handful of billionaires go missing on their deep-sea joy ride, and the news breathlessly covers every detail. There has been news about the refugee ship that sank (possibly with the help of the Greek coast guard), but that coverage has been all but drowned out by the submarine story, and that’s just one of many such ships. Those refugees were just a few hundred out of the many millions who’ve been displaced in recent years, by neocolonial policies and wars, and by climate change. The displaced are just a hundred million out of the billions living and dying in poverty, and a huge portion of that suffering could be avoided, if our society even had the capacity to value life over profit.

How much money is being spent, right now, to find those rich tourists and their shitty submarine? US and Canadian coast guards are involved, as are the navies of those nations, and other branches, and an oil and gas corp. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of that effort would have been unnecessary if the submarine had had an emergency locator beacon, of the kind that’s been available for decades.

From what I can tell, the only thing of real value that we’ve gotten from this, is yet another demonstration that the meritocracy is a lie, and that building our society around that lie has had both devastating and ridiculous consequences.

On balance, I hope that the submarine passengers survive. I also hope that, if that happens, the guy running this submarine company has his toys taken away, because it’s very clear that he cannot play with them responsibly, and it is absurd to the point of offensiveness that the governments of two nations are involved in trying to find him and his shitty submarine, because he couldn’t be bothered to spring for a couple extra safety measures. How many times do we have to bail these people out, before we realize that they’re a wholly unnecessary burden? How many ways do we have to bail them out?

As a species, we cannot afford rich people.

Thank you for reading! If you liked this post, please share it around. If you read this blog regularly, please consider joining my small but wonderful group of patrons. Because of my immigration status, I’m not allowed to get a normal job, so my writing is all I have for the foreseeable future, and I’d love for it to be a viable career long-term. As part of that goal, I’m currently working on a young adult fantasy series, so if supporting this blog isn’t enough inducement by itself, for just $5/month you can work with me to name a place or character in that series!

Defeat By Small Victories

We all dwell on missed opportunities from time to time. Maybe there was a job you almost took, or a trip you almost went on. Maybe you regret going somewhere or doing something when you just wanted to have a little time to yourself. Maybe there was a company you should have invested in, or an investment you shouldn’t have made. For me, the one that nags me the most isn’t one from my own life, but the time that’s been wasted on climate change. What would the world be like if governments had acted when scientists and corporations all knew what was going on, back in the late 1970s, early 1980s? I think it’s entirely possible that we couldn’t have “solved” the problem, but there’s no question that we had a chance for a drastically different future. If we’d been making the kind of steady, deliberate change that was being called for, the planet would be a cooler and less chaotic place, today.

We had a chance, and it was squandered before I was born. Worse than that, the same choice has been made every damned day since then, and so now big changes are all that’s left. Either we change our entire society in a major way, or it will be “changed” for us by the rapidly warming climate. The oceans are doing scary shit right now, and it seems like the powers that be are moving ahead with their plans to use violent repression to deal with the crisis they’ve created.

But hey – fossil fuel lobbyists will have to identify themselves at the next conference that’s supposedly about responding to climate change:

The move by the UN to require anyone registering for the summit to declare their affiliation was heralded as a victory for transparency by campaigners who have been increasingly concerned at the growing presence of oil and gas lobbyists at climate talks.

Scott Kirby, a campaigner from Youngo, which represents youth campaigners at the UN climate talks, said: “When young people see the number of fossil fuel lobbyists present at UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conferences, it makes us question the ability this process has to solve the biggest challenge threatening our futures. This is why we welcome the step to increase transparency of observer interests in the talks.”

Many campaigners said the change to make potential conflicts of interest more apparent should be only a first step towards excluding fossil fuel companies from the talks, or from key parts of them.

Hwei Mian Lim, of the Women and Gender Constituency, said: “We can only meaningfully tackle the climate crisis when we kick big polluters out. Fortunately, we have the real solutions, including gender-just climate solutions, and have the power in collective feminist movements to prevent untold suffering, in particular among women and girls in the global south.

“This is strengthened with weeding out the undue influence of big polluters that seek to undermine climate action. Cop28 is our best chance to start implementing them and we must do so in the most gender responsive, and effective and impactful way.”

Hey, we did it guys! We won!

In all seriousness, this is a good thing. It’s good that they will have to identify themselves, and it’s even possible that most of them will do it. My problem, in case it wasn’t clear, is that this is the kind of change that should have been made, once again, before I was born. We’ve gotten to the point where global warming is already displacing millions of people every year, and it’s worth a headline that fossil fuel lobbyists have to identify themselves as such at a conference that should be about eliminating their entire industry? At this rate, we’ll be celebrating their ban from the conference some time after the flooded ruins of Miami are finally abandoned.

I want to be clear – I have no problem with the people who fought for this rule change, and it’s clear from the article that they also view this as a very small victory, compared to the scale of what needs doing. If nothing else, their efforts are needed to show why it’s so important for people to organize and take direct action, rather than relying on a political and economic system that might as well be designed to drive us to extinction.

And hey, at least the conference will be limiting the influence of oil interests, right? That’s progress!

The change came as nations wrapped up nearly two weeks of talks in Bonn, where officials tried to lay the groundwork for Cop28, which starts on 30 November.

The event will be held in the United Arab Emirates, a major oil and gas producer, and chaired by Sultan Al Jaber, who is head of the UAE national oil company, Adnoc. The company is planning a large expansion of its production capacity, and last year it sent scores of executives to the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt.

Al Jaber attended the Bonn talks for two days last week and spoke only briefly in public. He said: “The phase-down of fossil fuels is inevitable. The speed at which this happens depends on how quickly we can phase up zero-carbon alternatives, while ensuring energy security, accessibility and affordability.”

He failed to give an assurance that a phase-out of fossil fuels would be on the official agenda at Cop28, despite a concerted push by many developed and developing countries for its inclusion. The UAE Cop28 presidency has insisted it is up to all the countries represented at the talks to make decisions on the agenda.

Anyway, remember what I said about organizing? I feel like it would be good if we didn’t have to rely corrupt governments to solve our problems. Having an organized and empowered working class won’t fix everything, but it seems pretty clear that it can’t be worse than giving power to people based on how good they are at exploiting others.

I feel as though I’ve spent my entire life hearing about small victories in one area or another, and each one will help us a whole lot, at some point in the future. They never seem to deliver on that promise. Some of those victories did pay off, by reducing emissions, but they’re hard to notice because they weren’t enough to stop overall emissions from continuing to rise. The majority seem to just be empty promises, or doomed half-measures like trying to offset CO2 emissions with forests, which definitely never catch fire or anything.

It’s frustrating, and discouraging. It reminds me of the many years now that I’ve seen articles and research reports promising revolutionary new batteries, or new ways to harvest power, or new, safer nuclear designs. Just a few more adjustments, and then everything will be fine! It reminds me of the fallacious incrementalism promised by centrist politicians over the years.

We have an abundance of small victories, and they will never be enough if we don’t demand big ones, and fight for them whether or not the people in power want us to. It says everything bad about our political leaders that fossil fuel companies and their lobbyists aren’t treated as pariahs for their decades of destruction, corruption, and misinformation. Until we have the power to actually bring things to a halt, and force change, these small “victories” are likely to be the best we get, as the world continues to burn. I used to like reading about things like this but these days, it just feels like a reminder of how little progress we’ve made.

Thank you for reading! If you liked this post, please share it around. If you read this blog regularly, please consider joining my small but wonderful group of patrons. Because of my immigration status, I’m not allowed to get a normal job, so my writing is all I have for the foreseeable future, and I’d love for it to be a viable career long-term. As part of that goal, I’m currently working on a young adult fantasy series, so if supporting this blog isn’t enough inducement by itself, for just $5/month you can work with me to name a place or character in that series!