Dear friends,
I love the expression to run amok. In my staid little life, a bit of running amok seems appealing.
The literal meaning of run amok is to behave disruptively and uncontrollably. How ironic, then, that AMOC — pronounced amok — is the acronym for
And how troubling to learn that a new study done at van Westen, the Dutch national supercomputing facility, creates a climate model — not a projection, but a representation — based on observational data from the South Atlantic; this model shows that the regulating patterns of ocean circulation will reach their tipping point within the next 70 years.
In short, the circulation of ocean currents will run amok when the waters of the northern Atlantic Ocean become too diluted by rainfall, runoff, and meltwater.
[The study] confirms by using observational data that the Atlantic is “on tipping course”, i.e. moving towards this tipping point. . . . [as well as] past concerns that climate models systematically overestimate the stability of the AMOC.
It’s later than we think. The day before this was reported, we learned that the average worldwide temperature in 2023 was more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than it was prior to the Industrial Revolution. This threshold was identified in the 2015 Paris agreement as the level beyond which we do not want to go.
[T]echnically speaking, we’ll be sure we’ve passed them only after a certain number of years have gone by — even, perhaps, only after a decade. Researchers say we shouldn’t declare failure anytime the mercury bobs above 1.5 degrees for a day, a month or even 12 months. . . .That’s why scientists and diplomats often stress that, even if we someday heat the planet past 1.5 degrees of warming, it will still be worth trying to restrain temperatures from rising beyond 1.6, or 1.7, or 1.8.
If we aren’t declaring failure, then we must take action.
Lots of us with money to invest and spend, think hard about where we put our money, so as to avoid funding climate destruction. Ridiculously, Congressman Jim Jordan, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, is heading an investigation into climate-conscious investing.
Jordan has alleged that As You Sow, a group that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, is engaged in an
illegal conspiracy in the name of advancing a left-wing political agenda.
Tell Congress to Protect Climate Action and Shareholder Rights. This quick action is from Green America.
The Israeli military launched airstrikes on Rafah as part of an operation to rescue two Israelis held hostage; the airstrikes killed as many as 100 people. There are well over a million Palestinians in Rafah now, many of whom have been displaced from their homes repeatedly since the war began.
There are severe shortages of food, water, medicine and shelter, and the city has been described as a “pressure cooker of despair” by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Here in NYC, the vibrant, well-organized, and disruptive protests calling for a ceasefire are a near daily occurrence. On his first visit to the city since the Hamas attacks on October 7, Biden’s motorcade was blocked by a demonstration on Fifth Avenue.
Jewish Voice for Peace is one of the organizations coordinating the popular demands for a ceasefire and changes to US policy.
Tell the President to stop sending the IDF more weapons, facilitate an immediate ceasefire, and take action to protect Palestinians in Gaza.
If, like me, you’ve been counting on Biden’s reelection to save us from the end of democracy here and the total breakdown of the stable-if-insufficiently-just world order, this has been a rough couple of days.
The political shitstorm unleashed by a very partisan Special Counsel report last week, and the media’s contribution to said shitstorm, are not wholly responsible for the very real problems that Biden is facing as he seeks reelection.
Ross Douthat’s “The Question Is Not if Biden Should Step Aside. It’s How” offers a way forward for those of us who knew that the question of Biden’s age would eventually compound the substantial complaints about his handling of the war in Gaza.
Douthat suggests that Biden should accumulate delegates and then announce his withdrawal at the convention, turning the decision of who should hold the nomination over to the delegates. It’s an interesting suggestion, which would unburden Democrats of an aging and unpopular candidate and inject some excitement into a convention which promises otherwise to be altogether devoid of thrills.
There are so many ways for things to go off the rails this year. Hang onto your hats.
with love,
L