Month: May 2025

Not sure who this guy is, I’m missing it on his channel description, but he seems well informed and brings together many of the observations that I have heard from other observers.

Description:

Over the past week, rock slides have loaded a glacier above the Swiss village of Blatten with a large overburden of rock debris, destabilizing the glacier under the weight. A larger mass of rock adjacent to the rock slides has also shifted, indicating large-scale instability that could send a huge volume of rock and ice into the valley below, threatening the village of Blatten. This video talks about where the slide is happening, why it is happening, and how glacially-sculpted landscapes can be quite unstable.

The administration is following the Project 2025 blueprint for a criminal theocracy. One of the directives is to do away with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA.
Some insiders, including, reportedly, puppy-killer Kristi Noem, former Governor of South Dakota and now Director of Homeland Security, are, rightfully, feeling a little hinky about totally doing away with something that does fill an irreplaceable function in event of disaster.

NBC News:

Publicly, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said the Federal Emergency Management Agency needs to be reoriented or even done away with altogether. 

“We are eliminating FEMA,” Noem said at a televised meeting of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet in March.

But with hurricane season about to start, Noem has been quietly pushing behind the scenes to keep key employees in place and to approve reimbursements to states previously hit by disaster, sources familiar with the situation told NBC News. 

Trump himself talked about possibly “getting rid of” FEMA shortly after he was inaugurated for his second term, while he was touring North Carolina to see areas of the state damaged by Hurricane Helene. There has been no public indication that his administration, including Noem, is reconsidering that stance — indeed, the administration’s original acting FEMA administrator, Cameron Hamilton, was removed from the job one day after he testified at a congressional hearing that he does not think “it is in the best interests of the American people to eliminate” FEMA. Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, has told NBC News that the move was not a response to his testimony.

Continue reading “Project 2025 Says Kill FEMA. Are Insiders Trying to Save It?”

Above, yes, we are seeing more strong hurricanes. We have enough data now to show it.
The clip comes from this week’s 100 hours of Live Streaming presentations in support of NOAA researchers now under attack, which ends today.
(looks like the stream is being posted, it’s like a great grad course in climate meteorology)
I managed to capture part of Kerry Emanuel’s invaluable presentation, I’m hoping the rest of the stream will be archived. Hope Kerry doesn’t mind me using this clip.
Dr. Emanuel reminds us of recent research completed by IPCC lead author Jim Kossin, who I have interviewed several time, and have inserted an excerpt below. His message:

“Whether or not you have more storms or less storms, When you do have a storm, it is more likely to become a major hurricane than it was 40 years ago.”

Michael Lowery in New York Times (gift link):

But as we head into what NOAA forecasts will be another active Atlantic hurricane season, the Trump administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency are downsizing the agency, which houses the National Weather Service, the hurricane hunters and many other programs crucial to hurricane forecasters. Without the arsenal of tools from NOAA and its 6.3 billion observations sourced each day, the routinely detected hurricanes of today could become the deadly surprise hurricanes of tomorrow.

The National Weather Service costs the average American $4 per year in today’s inflated dollars — about the same as a gallon of milk — and offers an 8,000 percent annual return on investment, according to 2024 estimates. It’s a farce for the administration to pretend that gutting an agency that protects our coastlines from a rising tide of disasters is in the best interests of our economy or national security. If the private sector could have done it better and cheaper, it would have, and it hasn’t.

Continue reading “On the Eve of Hurricane Season, Brutal Cuts to Readiness”

MAGA, and all authoritarians, hate scientists, because science reveals natural laws and physics that cannot be overruled or intimidated by an Executive Order, or a tweet, and are often inconvenient for, say, fossil fuel oligarchs.

American economic power and political influence have been heavily reliant on having the best scientific and engineering institutions in the world – all being dismantled now under MAGA.

Historically, the record of civilizations that have turned away from science, openness, pursuit of knowledge and encouraging diversity, provides some cautionary tales.

New York Times (gift link):

For decades, Bangalore, India, has been an incubator for scientific talent, sending newly minted Ph.D.s around the world to do groundbreaking research. In an ordinary year, many aim their sights at labs in the United States.

“These are our students, and we want them to go and do something amazing,” said a professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, Raj Ladher.

But this is not an ordinary year.

When Professor Ladher queried some 30 graduates in the city recently about their plans, only one had certain employment in the United States. For many of the others, the political turmoil in Washington has dried up job opportunities in what Professor Ladher calls “the best research ecosystem in the world.” Some decided they would now rather take their skills elsewhere, including Austria, Japan and Australia, while others opted to stay in India.

As the Trump administration moves with abandon to deny visas, expel foreign students and slash spending on research, scientists in the United States are becoming increasingly alarmed. The global supremacy that the United States has long enjoyed in health, biology, the physical sciences and other fields, they warn, may be coming to an end.

Continue reading “American Scientific Leadership Wobbles under Trump Attack”

Also, he should have someone look at that shiner.

New York Times:

Mr. Musk, who joined the president’s inner circle after making a vast fortune on cars, satellites and rocket ships, has long been known for grandiose statements and a mercurial personality. Supporters see him as an eccentric genius whose slash-and-burn management style is key to his success.

But last year, as he jumped into the political arena, some people who knew him worried about his frequent drug use, mood swings and fixation on having more children. This account of his behavior is based on private messages obtained by The Times as well as interviews with more than a dozen people who have known or worked with him.

This year, some of his longtime friends have renounced him, pointing to some of his public conduct.

“Elon has pushed the boundaries of his bad behavior more and more,” said Philip Low, a neuroscientist and onetime friend of Mr. Musk’s who criticized him for his Nazi-like gesture at a rally.

And some women are challenging Mr. Musk for control of their children.

Continue reading “Musk’s Drug Use is a Black Eye”

This event might just be getting started.

This is one of the best reported stories on climate impacts I have ever seen.

I kept thinking, this is why you pay good scientists to do research, for when these things happen.

Thunderbolts was as good or better the third time.
Top five Marvel movie to me – and one reason is the score.

Katy Couric interviews some poor bastard who actually read the whole Project 2025 document, the Christian Nationalist game plan, now being implemented disastrously across the country.

The Project 2025 Lead Author is Kevin Roberts, formerly Director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation , an Austin, Texas “think tank” and vestigial mouth organ of the Oil and Gas Industry.
That explains the particularly greasy brand of “Christianity” that inspires the document.

Washington Post:

Wildfires in the Canadian province of Manitoba, which shares a border with the United States, have prompted authorities to declare a state of emergency and order tens of thousands of people to leave their homes.

The evacuation of 17,000 residents is “the largest evacuation Manitoba will have seen in most people’s living memory,” Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said during a news conference Wednesday evening.

Winds blowing north to south will likely push wildfire smoke into Midwestern states on Thursday and Friday. Northern Minnesota is at the highest risk for poor air quality Thursday, before a more expansive smoke plume moves southward Friday — with Milwaukee, Chicago and Detroit all potentially seeing a reduction in air quality and/or visibility in the afternoon and evening.

Boo hoo you bastard.
Nevertheless, the law of markets has not been revoked. Renewables remain King when it comes to price.
I’ve spoken to project managers for several proposed clean energy projects in recent weeks, and none of them was wringing their hands about the tax bill.

The Hill:

Outgoing administration adviser Elon Musk is criticizing Republicans’ signature policy bill to advance President Trump’s agenda as the he walks out the door, saying it moves too quickly to phase out Biden-era low-carbon energy tax credits.

Musk, in a post on the social platform X, reposted his company Tesla Energy’s post that warns against “abruptly ending the energy tax credits.”

The post states: “We urge the senate to enact legislation with a sensible wind down” of credits for low-carbon electricity companies and homeowners who want to install residential green energy such as rooftop solar.

In a separate post, Musk wrote “there is no change to tax incentives for oil & gas, just EV/solar” in the House-passed GOP bill, which faces calls from changes from multiple Republicans in the Senate.

The posts highlight fissures within the Republican Party on how to deal with the energy tax credits passed by Democrats in 2022.

Continue reading “Musk Criticizes “Big Beautiful” Cuts to Clean Power Incentives”