Why are humans so violent to each other?

When caterpillars descend on a tomato plant and start eating their leaves, the tomato has a satanic way of defending itself.

"The tomato plant will inject something into its leaves that makes the caterpillars look up from their chewing and turn to eye their fellow caterpillars. Soon, the leaf becomes irrelevant. The caterpillars begin to eat each other."

- Zoe Schlanger, "The Light Eaters", HarperCollins, 2024, p. 106.

Have the world's trees being relentlessly chopped down throughout human history evolved a similar strategy to defend themselves? Could they be emitting compounds into the air that make people more suspicious and less tolerant of each other, so they turn from housing each other in the skeletons of trees to fighting among themselves and slaughtering each other in gunfights, mass killings and wars?

What Motivates the Billionaires Backing Trump?

It can't be just money. Trump's plans, which are spelled out in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, would kill off most of their customers. The creators of Project 2025 are neither stupid nor ignorant, and must know perfectly well that climate change is caused by fossil fuel emissions. If so, then why do they want to ramp up fossil fuel emissions and dismantle FEMA, NOAA, and other agencies whose alerts protect people from floods, fires, and violent weather events made worse by climate change? And why do they want to shred social safety nets and deport immigrants back to places that are likely to kill them?

All their intentions make it obvious to me that they want people to die. Lots of people. Maybe even most. Maybe they believe the world is overpopulated and Project 2025's unwritten goal is to depopulate the Earth, leaving its resources to people rich enough to protect themselves from global warming, a population small enough to live sustainably on Earth's limited resources.

How can demands that they stop selling out our futures in so many ways possibly change their behavior? Selling out our futures is exactly what they're trying to do, and they know Trump's totalitarian takeover leaves us powerless to stop them.

Our only hope is for the House to introduce another article of impeachment against Trump every time he commits another high crime or misdemeanor, which is practically every day. Eventually House Republicans will get tired of going on record all the time defending his treason, and they will eventually vote to impeach him. Republicans in the Senate will get tired of going on record defending his treason, and eventually convict him. If Republicans in Congress want to improve their chances of keeping their jobs, Trump will be impeached and convicted before the midterm elections.

Why did Elon Musk Bribe His Way into the White House?

On occasion I am compelled by some outrage to ponder how and why it could be happening. This is one such occasion, and one of the few for which I can report having formed a convincing hypothesis.

The Outrage

Elon Musk bribed his way into the Trump White House, and is calling the shots on where and how tax money should be spent, dismantling programs to combat climate change, disease and pandemic prevention, and government support for millions who need it at home and abroad. Why is he doing this?

My Hypothesis

Musk has persuaded enough politicians and billionaires to help him establish a city on Mars, as insurance against one or more impending global catastrophes (climate change, plastic pollution, loss of biodiversity, pandemics, supervolcanoes, asteroid collisions, etc.) that can render the Earth uninhabitable. They will collectively throw 99.99% of the human race under the bus, so that 0.01% can emigrate to Mars on his fleet of space buses.

Supporting Evidence

1. Musk is determined to realize his "inspirational idea", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT65zFgnHtg

2. He built up SpaceX, Tesla, Solar City, Neuralink, and The Boring Company, which developed some of the technologies needed to build a liveable city on an otherwise hostile planet. SpaceX is building its Starlink constellation of tens of thousands of satellites for global internet, to help fund his Mars ambitions.

3. No Democrat would have gone along with his cockamamie plan, but Musk realized that Trump could be bought, so in 2022 he switched parties. He bought Twitter (now X), which was instrumental in spreading enough disinformation and propaganda to get Trump elected President in 2024, and he spent at least $277 million of his own money on Trump and the GOP, just to make sure. 

Prospects for Success of Musk's City on Mars

Zero, according to Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society,

https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-mars-dream-is-back-how-to-go ,

and according to most scientists,

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/125084292-a-city-on-mars .

So if Elon Musk succeeds in realizing his "inspirational idea", the human race will be left with no habitable planet.

What Does Elon Musk Have in Mind?

I had trouble sleeping last night, pondering the mind of Elon Musk. Why is he hijacking the Dept. of the Treasury? To divert however many trillions it will take to build his refugee city on Mars? I tried to look at the bright side of that scheme and finally fell asleep.

This morning while reading Alton Frye's "Nazi Germany and the American Hemisphere 1933-1941" (Yale University, 1967), Elon's mind started to make sense. On page 12 Frye quotes what Frederic William Maitland, the "patron saint of historians", once said:

"It is very hard to remember that events long past were once in the future."

Reviled as he is today, Elon Musk is thinking of those future days after he has built his city on Mars, when he shall be hailed as the prophet who foresaw the catastrophes that would engulf the Earth, and built a fleet of Arks to deliver humanity (it's richest 1% at least) to a safe haven.

Now I wait for the armed forces to declare martial law, round up all the domestic enemies of democracy - Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Republican Party leaders and their billionaire financiers - and detain them for violating their pledges to defend the Constitution of the United States, and for endangering the lives of the 99%. They can be moved to Guantanamo Bay for their own safety.

History of the Future

 As Yogi Berra once said, "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future." Of course it's easy to make predictions about the future, but I think Yogi meant accurate predictions about the near future. The far future is easier to predict accurately, based on the laws of physics, so that's the history of the future outlined here.

For the sake of having a far future, let us assume that we make it through the near future by not blowing ourselves up, by preventing global warming and pollution from destroying the Earth's habitability, and by anticipating natural threats such as killer asteroids, and deflecting them away from collision courses with Earth.

Even without greenhouse gas emissions, Earth will continue warming as the sun brightens until it becomes uninhabitable in 1.3 billions years, if our descendants do not intervene. If I were them, I would deploy sunshades at Earth orbit's L1 point, about one million miles from Earth in the Sun's direction. More sunshades can be launched as the Sun warms up, just enough to let through the same amount of solar energy we have today. They would have to block 8% of the sunlight 1.3 billion years from now, and for every billion years after that at least an additional 6% of sunlight. Earth can remain habitable for another 6 billion years by adding more sunshades until they block half of the Sun's disk.

Shortly after that the Sun will balloon into a red giant and swallow the Earth, ending future history on Earth. By then Mars and a few other places will surely be inhabited by our descendants, enabling future histories to unfold.

Recent essays for Band of Writers

History's Dustbins and Ash Heaps

San Jose, CA: April 7, 2024

The life stories of most people living today, including my own I suspect, are headed for the dustbin of history. They are all recorded in official records of births, deaths, marriages, attendance at meetings and so forth.

A few people's lives are remembered long after their deaths and the deaths of their children and grandchildren. They are remembered for their accomplishments that affected many people on a local, regional or global scale, for better or worse. Some of their names and accomplishments inspire writers and editors to enter them into the body of literature we call history. But others are excluded or expunged from history by people with vested interests in alternate interpretations of events, especially after wars when history is written by the victors. The views of the vanquished are consigned to the dustbin of history.

In the fullness of time, historians, archaeologists, geologists and crime investigators can dig through the dustbins and ash heaps of history to resuscitate knowledge of formerly suppressed people and defeated communities.

Embrace being human in every way

Los Gatos, CA: May 12, 2024

Start when you're born by crawling on the floor and pulling the cat's tail to get your mother's attention. If she doesn't scold you for not recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of every cat, run away from home the first chance you get. You cannot expect anyone who disrespects cats to respect her own child, or any other mammal for that matter.

You now face your first fork in the road. If you ran away, seek a higher authority because you're going to need one to survive. The mayor's office would be a good place to start. Hitch a ride if it's too far to crawl.

If you stayed home, you're in good hands, probably a family of Unitarian Universalists, Hindus, Buddhists, or just plain cat lovers. Cultivate your natural curiosity and learn as much as you can by all means possible: reading, interrogating your elders, exploring the world, and engaging in physical activities. Don't let them foist a smart phone or other so-called mobile device on you before high school, or your developing brain and body will atrophy or get run over at a cross-walk while you're Googling. Leave your internet life at home with your stationary device when you venture out in the natural world and you'll learn more about it, you'll get more exercise, and you'll make more friends.

Prompt for 10-minute writing exercise:
What's your favorite company name?

United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Punctual Delivery Company. This Dickensian company name came from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens, published as a serial from 1838 to 1839. I wonder when somebody will start a real company with that name, so I can find out how improved hot muffins and crumpets taste. Ralph Nickleby is the founder of the fictitious company, so maybe somebody with that name will be inspired to start it.

Climate Restoration? Maybe, maybe not!

 I recently read Climate Restoration: The Only Future That Will Sustain the Human Race, by Peter Fiekowsky (Rivertowns Books, 2022, 259 pages). The author's thinking about climate change and what it would take to reverse it impresses me with its breadth and depth. He cites an armamentarium of technologies that can be deployed to task, but fails to include the one that I consider most critical for assuring success. 

The prevailing public understanding of climate change is that it can be stopped by reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gas emissions to their pre-industrial levels by mid-century. Peter Fiekowsky explodes that popular myth by casting emissions reduction as “Job 1” in a much more ambitious but necessary program to save civilization and bring long-term stability to the biosphere. Stopping at Job 1 does nothing to halt the warming baked in by past emissions, reverse ocean acidification, sequester carbon emitted in the past, or prevent catastrophic methane bursts from thawing permafrost in the Arctic. He outlines programs to accomplish these jobs by scaling up and commercializing existing technologies that mimic what the biosphere has done naturally in the geologic past, but doing it much more quickly. These include

• Synthesizing limestone from CO₂ for building materials.
• Sequestering CO₂ in the seafloor by (1) expanding kelp forests and (2) sprinkling tiny amounts of iron to trigger phytoplankton blooms. Both programs would also enhance marine biodiversity.  
• Enhancing atmospheric methane oxidation to suppress methane spikes.

Finally, Fiekowsky outlines a plan to bring global population down to 2 billion people before the end of the century, because the demand of today’s 8 billion people on Earth’s resources makes climate restoration impossible. I agree that reducing the human population may be necessary, but not nearly as drastically as he envisions.

What I find rather unfortunate is Fiekowsky's deference to Mark Jacobson, who claims that the energy sector can be decarbonized with renewable sources alone. When scientists criticized Jacobson's assumptions¹, he chose to sue them rather than defend his assumptions. That is the action of a propagandist for the fossil fuel industry, not an independent scientist. Renewables are the industry’s favorite zero-carbon sources because they are intermittent. When their output is down, wind and solar farms must burn fossil fuels to provide base load power. While batteries can store renewable energy to smooth their output, their capacity is woefully inadequate to liberate renewables from dependence on base load sources (fossil fuels and/or nuclear).

Jacobson is cited frequently by proponents of renewable energy who believe that nuclear power isn’t needed to decarbonize the energy sector. Most experts in energy and the environment disagree, and regard that belief as dangerous thinking. Climatologist James Hansen, for example, has argued since 2009 for ramping up nuclear power, and has been frustrated by antinuclear activists who have shut down nuclear power plants. In 2017 he said, "We cannot remain silent. If we sit back and say that in a few decades’ time it will become clear that phasing out fossil fuels will not succeed without nuclear power, we will be right, but by then, it will be too late! ... The opposition to nuclear power is truly insane. All these fears – about radiation, about waste, about accidents – have no basis in science. This aversion is quasi-religious and irrational." ²

Fiekowsky’s claim that a global population of no more than about 2 billion people can be sustained indefinitely on 100% renewable energy is probably right. Paul Ehrlich and Lester Brown came to similar conclusions long before him. The limit comes from the diluteness of solar radiation at Earth’s surface, just 100 watts per square meter. Sun and wind are free, but collecting their energy takes a huge mass of materials spread over vast areas. Nuclear energy is so much denser that nuclear plants require only 1/18^th the mass of solar farms and 1/11^th the mass of wind farms, for the same energy output. On a given parcel of real estate, a nuclear plant would generate 37 times as much energy as a solar farm, and 132 times as much as a wind farm. These facts make nuclear the most environmentally benign energy source. If Fiekowsky had included lots of nuclear power in his calculation, he would have estimated a much higher sustainable population limit.

I rate the book Climate Restoration Four Stars. Reading it raised my confidence that we can save civilization and restore the health of the biosphere on which it depends, by deploying technologies at our disposal today. The chapters on drawing down greenhouse gases to pre-industrial levels, preventing catastrophic methane bursts, and stabilizing the population to a long-term sustainable level, provide ideas and insights I had not encountered elsewhere in the climate change literature. I would have rated the book Five Stars if the chapter “Job One: Completing the Energy Transition” had included nuclear power, and the chapter “Population Restoration” had shown how the sustainable population limit increases with the percentage of nuclear in the energy mix.

I hope a future edition of Climate Restoration includes a chapter on the long-term consequences of restoring the climate to its pre-industrial composition. Temperature drops that have led to ice ages were not precipitated by atmospheric changes in CO₂ concentration, as Fiekowsky asserts, but by long-term variations in Earth’s orbit and axial tilt (Milankovitch cycles). For this reason, people before 1980 were more worried about global cooling and the next ice age, than about global warming. If CO₂ levels are reduced to 300 ppm by 2100, the Milankovitch cycles will again dominate temperature trends, leading to an ice age in about 50,000 years.³

But industries profiting handsomely from sequestering carbon over the next half century may want to keep going after they’ve outlived their usefulness and could become self-perpetuating “cash cows” (like today’s fossil fuel industries). If they cannot be stopped and reduce CO₂ concentrations below 250 ppm, they could trigger the next ice age much more quickly. I’d be interested in reading how Fiekowsky deals with this prospect.

References. If a link fails, copy it and paste to web browser.

1…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z._Jacobson#Critiques_of_100%_renewable_papers_and_court_controversy

2…https://www.replanet.ngo/post/climate-scientist-james-hansen-the-opposition-to-nuclear-power-is-truly-insane.

3...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#Present_and_future_conditions.