Another slapdash post (fixing a transcript of a great interview, but there’s only so much you can do before you get, er, slapdash).
As per that song by Leonard Cohen “everybody knows” – that we’re heading for 3 or 4 degrees. That’s been clear to numerate people with even a cursory understanding of how the planet runs for a couple [or more] of decades now. But at last some of the clowns with spreadsheets and/or PhDs and “senior analyst” or “professor” in their title are beginning to say the quiet part out loud (1).
Saying Paris is dead? Banks are doing it, investment advisors are doing it. Even educated fleas are doing it. Fwiw (net zero) I said Paris was dead when Paris was new-born. It wasn’t the hardest prediction of all time.
Anyhoo, I’ve been watching some of the bewilderment about Trump and tariffs and “how can this be so?” in in the FT and so on. And people trying to explain why the economics is So Bad and Stupid remind me of people trying to argue with denialists (I did some of this for a couple of years, back in the 2000s). Because this wasn’t about the science (though the denialists wanted desperately to believe – and for others to believe- that it was. It was either about their cosmology (economic growth driven by capitalism is good) or their fear of change or their defense of their position within The System (“man”).
Now, there is perhaps a debate to be had about “laws of physics vs laws of economics”, but Imma sidestep that for now and simply point out that in the same way those engaging with denialists mistook what was at stake, what game was being played and to what ends, so too are “the tariffs will be hurt ordinary Americans” crowd not getting what is going on.
Whoever is actually in charge (Stephen Miller? The Heritage crowd? Lutnik? Putin? some combo of these?) aren’t all-powerful, but then they don’t need to be, because they’ve kneecapped the media, the Republican Party, Congress, the judiciary, some of the big law firms.
As per the bluesky thread from Senator from Connecticut, Chris Murphy, tariffs like these crash the economy, set up firesale conditions and give the state apparatus the whip-hand.
So where will it all end? Well, climate mitigation really is dead. I honestly wonder if the UNFCCCC/COP process will continue much beyond the one-after-Brazil (Turkey or Australia?). I mean, yes it is a gravy train, but it is a gravy train that runs on the rails of plausibility, and those rails are buckling in the heat. Trainwreck.
As for the rest of it? Economic depression, psychosocial depression as the realisation of spiralling temperatures and impacts gets into even the thick skulls of those ‘elites’ in academia, policymaking etc.
Crop failures, epidemic diseases, slow violence turning into quick violence etc. Breeders whining about how unfair it all is, how nobody warned them [Narrator: They were warned] and won’t someone think of the(ir) children.
Fugly fugly fugly.
Might be time to re-read Ben Elton’s novel Stark, tbh. Right after Middlemarch.
Marc, the litte ray of sunshine, April 4, 2025.
Footnotes
(1) Some of them have known for a while, but it was not career-enhancing to tell the truth, so they kept shtum. Others? Others are just dim (You can have a PhD and be dim, trust me on this). So it goes.
marchudson.net 
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