Think of these “quarterly / seasonal” blog posts as kind of like a “blog within a blog.” It provides an easy-breezy format for periodically adding new material (of a miscellaneous nature). These will be subject to editing right up to when the next one begins. Don’t necessarily expect much in terms of ‘saving the planet’-type stuff, however, since I hardly ever see anything that’s anywhere near in the ballpark of where our thinking needs to be, if ‘saving the planet’ is to become a real possibility (that’s why I’m seeking funding, after all — to change that situation).
(1) (Sunday, September 13, 2024)
At the stroke of midnight
Another day bites the dust
Another day turns to rust
And like a phoenix
Rising from those “ashes”
Another Columbus Day
Rears its ignominious head
Today is a perfect day for sharing this little factoid. Throughout the years, I’ve periodically changed the wording for my ads. And a few years ago, I decided to go with this wording:
Columbus needed funding / Just as I do too / My goal is saving the planet / One backer, minimally, will do. / www.ecoideaman.com
Then, uh-oh, literally — and ironically — just as I finally decided to go with that wording (for a single issue of The Review), I heard over the car radio, on an all-news station, that a Christopher Columbus statue had been toppled. I forget where that took place. New York City? Some other city? I can’t recall. But as a result, I chose once again not to use that wording I had been considering using for years.
Oh, well. Long live Indigenous Peoples’ Day!
(2) (Sunday, October 20, 2024) Here’s an idea that just came to me while washing my dishes a little while ago (what may’ve planted this “seed” is I skimmed through an article last night from the NYT titled “Meet the Birkin Bag of the Book World: Collectible, Covetable and Priced to Match”): if you would like a limited edition copy (only one would be printed!) of a book that would include at least my top 20 ideas for saving the planet, plus at least another 30 from amongst my “52p52” list, then this might be for you! I could write it quickly (within five months, title it, get an ISBN for it, and have it bound with a beautiful hardcover of my choosing. The dedication page can be of your choosing (to whomever you wish). Price available upon request.
Note: I reserve the right to decline any offer to purchase said book, if I believe accepting might jeopardize saving the planet (I wouldn’t want these ideas to fall into the wrong hands).
(3) (Monday, October 21, 2024) I find it intriguing that finding the answer to what would appear to be a fairly uncomplicated question sometimes becomes unnecessarily complicated. I Googled to find out how many men were on that first voyage with Columbus, but got a variety of answers: 88; 86; 87; “about 90”; 150; 147. Whew! This would make a great trivia question. Anyhow, I think the answer is 86. Since one website actually listed all the names of those who were on the ships.
(4) (Monday, October 21, 2024) Do you happen to be in the market for a $50 million home? One of Billy Joel’s residences is up for sale. You can read about it in the Real Estate section of this past Sunday’s New York Times (Oct. 20).
Some of my favorite Billy Joel songs: This Is the Time; Scenes from an Italian Restaurant; Captain Jack; The Entertainer; and The Ballad of Billy the Kid. “An Innocent Man” isn’t one of my personal favorites, but it’s another fine example of how talented he is as a songwriter.
Someday, I hope to hear a tribute album with other artists covering his songs. I love tribute albums, when they’re well done. And I think many of Joel’s songs would sound better with different musical arrangements and stronger vocals.
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend the 1987 documentary “A Matter of Trust” (updated and re-released in 2014). In it, Joel talks about how having a child redirected his whole focus. And we also get to meet the clown (an actual circus clown) who inspired his song “Leningrad.”
Here’s a little know fact. Joel never graduated from high school. He overslept and missed a crucial English exam. Rather than take summer school, he decided to instead focus on his music career. Eventually, he did receive an honorary diploma from his old high school. The reason I happen to know this is I worked security there that day. I was there.
(5) (Tuesday, November 19, 2024) That didn’t take long. In my Nov. 10, blog post (“It Takes Grit to Live Off the Grid”), I pointed out I often “come across example after example of casual references to air travel that make my teeth grit.” And I found another perfect example. Just five days after I wrote that blog post, The Guardian published a piece about a woman who has traveled to every country in the world. In fact, it’s titled “I’ve been to every country in the world.”
Air travel has just exploded over the years. Phenomenally so. And tourism in general. And I believe it’s more of a contributor to environmental problems than people realize. For more reasons than I right now have time to get into.
Traveling in order to get to work (so you don’t find yourself homeless) or traveling to a grocery store to buy food (so you don’t starve) is one thing, but traveling thousands of miles just to spend money and have a good time is something else entirely. It’s just one more jarring and glaring example of how we’re not treating saving the planet like the emergency situation that it is.
Another perfect example: I live on what is the largest island in the contiguous United States, with many fine beaches, and yet, many of the millions of people who live on Long Island (which includes two New York City boroughs), think nothing of flying thousands and thousands of miles, just so they can lie on a beach!
And yet, it’s in just this sort of present world environment that I futilely find myself trying to get the message out that I believe I have the best ideas and strategies for saving the planet, but need funding to move forward. Does anyone care? Apparently not. Surprising? No.
Nevertheless, I will point out that I do have some very unique perspectives and big ideas specifically related to air travel; and if I ever receive funding, I just can’t wait to share them!
(6) (Tuesday, November 19, 2024) A few days ago, The Guardian published an article (“Guardian will no longer post on Elon Musk’s X from it’s official accounts”) stating that they have “more than 80 accounts with approximately 27 million followers” on X, but will no longer be using that social media platform.
Many individuals and organizations have already left X, or stopped posting on it, so that’s not surprising. In fact, one of the reasons why I created this quarterly “blog within a blog,” is precisely because Twitter (I prefer its old name, switching to the 24th letter of the alphabet was just plain dumb) has become so contaminated and toxic due to things Elon Musk has said and done. A lot of people don’t want to be associated with it in any way. Another thing I like better about using my own space here instead, is I’m not limited to just 280 characters — which is roughly equivalent to that short, two-sentence paragraph below this one.
Still, while I understand why someone would want to leave Twitter, this might be a good opportunity to share an idea — an alternative solution. Feel free to steal this idea, or share it, but help move it forward if you agree it’s a good idea!
I think of this as a “strategic ‘boycott.’ ” Here’s the idea. Continue to use Twitter, but under these conditions: you will never intentionally click on a Twitter ad or buy any product advertised on Twitter; you will never pay for Twitter ads or support Elon Musk in any way; and you will limit any tweeting that you do to just odd days or just even days, or just one (designated) day per week (or month), or — alternatively — to just Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That’s it!
You might say, well, don’t they go by the total number of users, for determining how much to charge advertisers? True. But if this strategy became highly publicized, and if it became glaringly obvious that many people were joining this strategic boycott, then what Twitter charges for ads would need to reflect that reality, won’t it? Plus, it would hurt Musk in another way: he would be footing the bill for all those “freeloaders” using his platform. Another advantage: completely abandoning ship would only make the platform that much more “airtight” in terms of sealing out progressive views. If it were to become just an echo chamber for Trump supporters, might that not cause them to become even more close-minded?
By the way, another reason I don’t post very much on Twitter is because I never really liked it much in the first place. Isn’t it mostly a waste of time? Just saying.
(7) (Thursday, November 21, 2024)
if you’ve read my website
then you would know
what i’d really like to be doing
is focusing like a laser beam
on my ‘saving the planet’ ideas
but that’s a ‘no can do’ without funding
so I’m stuck doing stuff like this
Here’s a songwriting idea I would like to share.
I think Missio’s song “Middle Fingers” is ripe for a song parody written from the point of view of someone pissed off about what transpired this past Election Day.
It looks like a fairly simple song to write a song parody based on. If you take out the “throwing middle fingers in the air” lines, all you have is five lines, plus five half lines. That’s it!
Personally, I’m not particularly keen on writing song parodies. If I had time for writing songs, I would prefer crafting original songs, not song parodies. But they are fun to hear and listen to on occasion and can sometimes be quite good!
You can find the lyrics to Missio’s “Middle Fingers” online. And you can hear the song on YouTube. In my opinion, it sounds much better than it looks on paper.
There are lots of ways of going about it. You might want to specifically use the word “Trump,” for instance. Or not. It’s possible to write it in such a way that people will know exactly what it’s in reference to, without being too explicit. Are you ready? I’ll help you get started.
These lines from the song:
“I used to drink whiskey, now I’m stuck with Perrier / I’m an alcoholic, middle fingers in the air”
could be changed to something like this (for example):
“I’d just like to kick him, in his big fat derriere / I vote democratic, middle fingers in the air.”
If you’d like to have a go at it, good luck. And feel free to use my alternative lines if you like. (But read the disclaimer below.)
Disclaimer: I’m no expert on copyright law. I’m not even sure if this qualifies as song parody, since it retains the “waving middle fingers in the air” lines — a major part of the song. It’s always best to secure permission first from the artist or copyright holder (e.g. record label), to avoid problems.
(8) (Sunday, December 8, 2024) I bought my Sunday New York Times after work — as I do every Sunday. But this one, too, I likely won’t have time to get to, until who knows when. For example, for weeks now, I’ve had my sights set on organizing a thick stack of songwriting notes. And I’ve hardly been able to find much time for that.
But the cover photo of the Notre-Dame Cathedral caught my attention. It’s a beautiful photo. The building is bathed in a pale blue glow.
Still, while beautiful, the image is also disgusting, in a sense. We have a planetary emergency situation that should be demanding our full attention; and yet, we keep creating more and more opportunities to waste energy. I count at least nineteen beams of bright blue light shooting out into the night sky from behind the cathedral. And their appears to be another thick glowing band of light (same color) right next to it, some distance away. Is that what’s melting the ice caps? No — and yes! Individually, no; collectively, yes.
Worse still, President-elect Trump flew there, on a private jet. Okay, it wasn’t just to mark the occasion of the cathedral’s re-opening. There are meetings planned for trying to find a way to end the fighting in Ukraine. That would be nice, but (a) I have as much trust in Trump finding a solution, as I have in Tucker Carlson finding a solution; and (b) those discussions could just as easily take place using secure landlines, rather than flying thousands of miles. That is, assuming Trump or any of his people actually cared at all about saving the planet. Which they don’t. Just listing all the air flights he and his family and closest advisors have taken, just during the past ten years, might fill up more pages than there are in a book the size of War and Peace.
Actually, it’s ironic. Trump was also just recently in my neck of the woods. (Which also required private jet air travel.) I didn’t know until the day after I narrowly escaped getting caught up in all the road closings related to it. Whew! To add more irony, Trump was there receiving an award (a “Patriot of the Year” award — another irony), while I once also received an award there (same building, different event). Small world.
Again, getting back to the cathedral bathed in light — something our sun provides for free on sunny days — I find it repugnant, given that our chances of saving the planet are already so slim, to waste so much energy on something like that. There’s a saying: “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.” That phrasing came to mind when I picked up my pen and jotted down this sentiment — which I’ll end with: Solve problems, don’t make problems worse, and stop creating more (new) problems.
(9) Tuesday (December 10, 2024) Here’s an article I found disturbing. “How Being an Influencer Became a New American Dream / Two preteen girls promote fashion and beauty products to thousands of online fans from their rural Alabama home” (New York Times, Dec. 10). This opinion piece was written by Faye Tsakas. Tsakas’ “Christmas, Every Day,” can be seen on Op-Docs, the New York Times’ award-winning series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers.
“Every day, packages arrive at their doorstep,” Tsakas writes, for Peyton and Lyla “to unbox and try out — deluxe makeup kits, floral dresses, exercise bikes — all free, as if delivered by a shopping mall Santa.” (Because Peyton and Lyla are minors, only their first names are used.)
Though it’s not the point Tsakas was making in selecting “Christmas, Every Day” as the title for the documentary, the level of consumerism in the world today is kind of tantamount to that. Yeah, there’s a definite uptick in buying around this time of year, but all throughout the year buying and spending is what drives the economic engine that is consumerism. Tsakas writes that Peyton and Lyla “see themselves as instilling confidence, positivity and girl power attitude for other girls” — those words sound more to me like they’re coming from a parent or public relations professional, than from preteen girls — but I suspect it’s more about getting all that free stuff, while also building an audience (and potentially creating something they can eventually earn a living from, without actually having to work). “Influencer” is a term that makes me cringe.
Rather than seeing themselves as “instilling confidence, positivity and girl power attitude,” I wish they could see that what they’re really doing is just fanning the flames of hyperconsumerism. But worse still, as Tsakas writes, “nearly one-third of preteens say becoming an influencer is a career-goal.” I can believe it. And in the coming years, don’t be surprised if that “one-third,” climbs much higher.
I’ll end with this. It’s a quotation you can find on my Quotations page. It’s from the 1950s:
“Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. The means of social status, of social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be found in our consumption patterns. … We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever accelerating pace. We need to have people eat, drink, dress, ride, live with ever more complicated and, therefore, constantly more expensive consumption. — Victor Lebow
(10) (Tuesday, December 10, 2024) And the craziness continues. On the news aggregator site Drudge Report I see one of the news stories currently featured there is: “Air passenger numbers to top FIVE BILLION next year!” The hyperlinked article (“Air passenger numbers to top five billion in 2025: IATA”) is linked to Yahoo Finance, but the article appears to be from AFP.
According to the International Air Transport Association — representing around 340 companies, accounting for 80 percent of world air traffic — passenger numbers are expected to jump 6.7% in 2025, reaching 5.2 billion. Obviously, that’s bad for the planet. But worse still, despite the obviousness that it’s bad for the planet, most people are simply oblivious to that fact.
The IATA’s chief economist is quoted in the article as stating at a news conference in Geneva it’s great news and is “absolutely worth popping the champagne” for. And as I scrolled through the comments posted below the article, trying to find at least one mentioning that it’s bad for the planet, I eventually gave up.
(11) (Wednesday, December 11, 2024) In case you missed it. According to a recent scientific study, an area nearly a third larger than India, has turned permanently arid in just the past three decades. An article in The Guardian (Dec. 9) reporting on this (“Drylands now make up 40% of land on Earth, excluding Antarctica, study says”) quotes Ibrahim Thiaw, executive secretary of the UN convention to combat desertification (UNCCD) as stating that “Unlike droughts — temporary periods of low rainfall — aridity represents a permanent, unrelenting transformation.” Thiaw states that these changes are “redefining life on Earth.”
(12) (Wednesday, December 11, 2024) I was happy to read today that the US Environmental Protection Agency took steps to ban perc and TCE. As this article in The Guardian (“EPA bans widely used chemicals linked to cancer before Trump takes office,” Dec. 11) states, these chemicals have been “strongly linked to cancer and other serious health problems.” Both have been widely found in drinking water. Trichloroethylene (TCE) has been linked to male reproductive damage, liver disease, kidney disease, neurological damage and Parkinson’s disease. Perc, or perchloroethylene, has been linked to similar health problems, including kidney disease, liver damage, memory loss and decreased immune function. It’s also thought to cause liver, kidney, brain and testicular cancers. These are just some of the known or suspected health effects from exposure to these chemicals. The article also notes that about 250 million pounds of TCE are produced annually and added to consumer products. Other, less harmful alternatives are available. Trump’s pick to lead the EPA is former congressman Lee Zeldin. Zeldin was one of the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election results.
(13) (Wednesday, December 11, 2024) I enjoy keeping abreast of the news. It’s a daily addiction. And every day, I come across more articles that help make my case. Last month (Nov. 19), I came across this article from the British tabloid The Sun: “Kim’s BFF bot / Watch Kim Kardashian beat Tesla Optimus at rock-paper-scissors & let it drive Cybercab as she’s FIRST to receive bot.”
Evidently, Kim Kardashian was the first to receive a Tesla Optimus robot. The robot looks amazing. It’s nothing like that clunky, chunky robot featured in the sci-fi TV series “Lost In Space,” over half a century ago. It looks cool. But that disguises the fact it’s just one more example of the trajectory that we’re on. Just one more thing we ought to be worried about The price? Likely, less than $20,000. That’s affordable to many. Consider all the households where there are two cars, when one will do. Couldn’t they afford to buy a Tesla Optimus, instead of having that extra car parked in the driveway?
This is just one of the thousands upon thousands of things I collectively refer to when I speak about “trajectory.” Instead of focusing like a laser beam on saving the planet, we’re doing everything but. Here we have one more totally unnecessary thing, that’s going to be made available for people to buy, and many people are going to want one. That would lead to more waste, more energy demand, more mining of rare earth elements, and more desire for making still yet even more money. It’s another technology-birthed carrot. Another want. Another wish list item. More materialism. Not less.
And the true cost will not be reflected just within the price tag alone. For example, consider this. As is pointed out in Michael Moore’s 2019 Planet of the Humans documentary (which you can watch here, free), here is just some of what’s needed to produce solar panels, wind turbines and electric cars (this can be found 36:51 minutes into the documentary): silicon; polymers; adipic acid; silver; cobalt; graphite; rare earths; coal; steel; nickel; sulfur hexafluoride, copper; concrete; lithium; tin; phosphorus oxychloride; gallium arsenide; indium; ammonium fluoride; cadmium; lead; ethylene vinyl acetate, molybdenum; praseodymium; neodymium, sodium hydroxide; dysprosium; phosphine; chlorine; hydrofluoric acid; petroleum.
Just to briefly touch upon one of these, sulfur hexafluoride (SF-6), I’ll point out that its global warming potential (GWP) is around 23,500 times greater than CO2.
My point is simply that we have to think very differently going forward or our chances of saving the planet will disappear fast. I have lots of ideas. Lots of big ideas. But I need funding to have any chance at all of having success bringing these ideas forward in such a way that paradigm change becomes a real possibility.
(NOTE: I would like to thank Mr. Moore for making this documentary available, without cost, on his YouTube channel.)
(14) (Wednesday, December 11, 2024) I heard a song recently that features the line “Welcome to the age of stupid.” Indeed. Too bad they didn’t release this the morning after Election Day. I can’t believe “Age of Stupid,” by the Jellybricks, is a new song.
But I’m undecided as to whether to add this song to my music links page. One pet peeve of mine is when musical arrangements interfere with hearing the words to a song. But here, the problem might instead be that the song is simply being sung too fast. The only lines I can recall hearing, are: “Welcome to the age of stupid / stu-pid!”
Fittingly, I heard this song the same day I happened to read in The Guardian that over 37,000 votes were tallied by the publisher of Oxford University Press, before they designated ‘brain rot’ as their official 2024 word of the year. What is ‘brain rot?’ Here’s how it’s defined in the article: the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.
And if interested: here’s a 12-question quiz The Guardian published the next day, for determining if you are “an overconsumer of mind-numbing online content.” (No cheating!)
(15) (Thursday, December 12, 2024) This article (below) from The Guardian is noteworthy in that it temporarily left me paralyzed — that is, not knowing where to even begin, in terms of explaining how crazy the situation in Argentina has become (where ‘saving the planet’ is concerned):
The Argentine president, Javier Milei — who has been in office for a year now — has dismissed climate change as “a socialist lie.” Has pulled Argentina out of COP29. Has downgraded the environmental ministry to an under-secretariat. Has reduced budgets for environmental protection. Environmental laws have been weakened. Federal land is set to be auctioned off. Thirty-four copper exploration projects are underway. A new mining district has been created. Tax incentives are being offered to stimulate investment in the mining, oil and gas sectors. Offshore oil exploration is underway. His “omnibus” reform law included provisions to tear up the laws protecting glaciers and forests. In an Ipsos poll, just 4% of Argentines put the climate crisis as their main worry — inflation, poverty and unemployment are top issues. President-elect Trump, using his own catchphrase, has urged Milei to “make Argentina great again.” While Milei hasn’t officially pulled Argentina out of the Paris Climate Accords — yet — that may only be because doing so might make it more difficult finding private companies willing to invest in Argentina.
Eduardo Sosa, described as a former chief of staff at Mendoza’s environment ministry, is quoted in the article as stating that Milei’s ” ‘libertarian wave’ has changed the terms of debate, including free discussion of ‘eliminating all traces of environmentalism.’ In previous years, this would have faced social condemnation and even political backlash.”
Sosa describes how Argentina’s glaciers (of which there are many) might be impacted: The glaciers could be affected by the mining activities, by the opening of new access roads, by the consumption of water for exploration work, and by the suspended dust that could be deposited on the ice and accelerate its melting.”
With Trump returning to the White House, this is just a tiny hint of what’s to come concerning our chances of saving the planet. It’s not pretty. And it’ll be getting worse, day by day.
Reading this article about the sad state of affairs in Argentina, nudged me towards revisiting some old articles about Doug and Kris Tompkins. Years ago, they bought up land in Chile and Argentina, to prevent that land from being developed and to keep it wild. But I wonder if what’s gong on right now in Argentina could threaten that protected status. I don’t know. But I did come across this quote in one of the articles, which I’ll share:
“I study the failed civilizations as a hobby, because I am so confounded by our inability to manage ourselves as a species in a way that prolongs a healthy future.” — Kris Tompkins
(16) Thursday, December 12, 2024) As I stated in my “It Takes Grit, to Live Off the Grid” (Nov. 10) blog post — and in my fifth blog entry, above (Nov. 19) — while reading news stories, book reviews, etc., I’m constantly seeing casual references to air travel, “that make me grit my teeth.” And here’s another prime example. This comes from a (Nov. 19) article in The Guardian, titled: ” ‘I’m imagining what my mother went through in her last seconds.’ ” It’s part of a continuing series of articles published under the heading: “This is climate breakdown.” These appear to be stories about people who’ve suffered as a result of events (hurricanes, floods, mudslides, heatwaves, forest fires, droughts, famine, etc.) that may have been caused by climate change.
When I got up to the third paragraph, and read “My mom always repeated to me that for retirement, she wanted to travel all the time. Have just a tiny apartment and travel, travel, travel,” I stopped reading. Seeing the word “travel,” four times, in just two short sentences, is a bit much. Besides, I’m pretty sure I know where this is going.
Don’t get me wrong. I hope I don’t sound insensitive. I’m sorry for her mom. I truly am. But please understand, I’m focused on saving the planet. And not only have I gotten absolutely no help whatsoever, but on top of that, I keep constantly seeing articles all the time about people traveling. That leaves a big carbon footprint. That’s the opposite of trying to save the planet. So you can probably see why I would find it a tad annoying.
But I’ll stop gritting my teeth … and instead share something you might find interesting. I read something years ago in The New York Times’ Travel section that was rather pithy. It went something like this: “whereas younger travelers tend to travel to find themselves, older travelers tend to travel to lose themselves.” I found that intriguing.
It’s also why I perhaps might grit my teeth slightly less pronouncedly when I’m reading about a younger traveler. Presumably, they’re still trying to “find” themselves. Whereas, retired travelers, on the other hand, more than likely have found themselves — they’ve found a career, found a spouse, raised children, paid off their mortgage, found meaning in their life, and so forth.
Actually, this might also be a good stringboard for sharing something else you might find interesting.
I don’t have much free time. And I don’t have much expendable income. So it’s been real easy putting this off. But I’ve sometimes thought about running my ad in Chess Life magazine (which has a Classifieds section). It might seem like an odd choice; but here’s the wording I’ve thought about using: Becoming a Grandmaster would be great. But saving the planet would be even better! www.ecoideaman.com
In the United States, currently, my ad only appears in The New York Review of Books — and their total paid circulation is 129,856. The United States Chess Federation (which publishes Chess Life) has over 110,000 members. So the circulation numbers happen to be similar.
One thing I like about the idea of running my ad in Chess Life is that there are so many young players who are members. And as they have not yet “found” themselves, perhaps, by planting that seed of thought about ‘saving the planet’ inside their budding minds, that might nudge some towards choosing career paths they might otherwise not have chosen. Such as, career paths having to do with saving the planet.
I’m not sure if the U.S.C.F. would necessarily accept such an ad. It has nothing to do with chess. Some might even suggest it appears to be pulling players away from chess. Which might not necessarily be a bad thing; but from a business perspective, is.
But here’s a thought. If you help spread the word, this blog post can act as a substitute for placing my ads in Chess Life. That way, (a) I save money; (b) we get more people engaged in thinking about how to save the planet; and (c) who knows, maybe that’ll help me connect with a potential backer!
(17) (Friday, December 13, 2024) There is something often overlooked concerning Trump.
There is so much focus on Trump. The stupid things he says. The stupid things he does. He picked who to be Attorney General? Etc. But one thing that’s often overlooked is what’s been unleashed upon the world besides just him. It’s his supporters. Ever since his first win — and even more so now — they’ve felt empowered and become increasingly emboldened.
Before Trump won the first time — and perhaps this is what gave his candidacy its strength — I could sense that many Republicans had glumly just come to accept it as probably fact that the world was changing, that it was going in a different direction than they would like, and that there was not much they could really do about it.
They would still keep voting for Republicans, of course. And keep watching Fox News. And still keep listening to their favorite commentators. But I think they saw the handwriting on the wall. That the world was moving towards getting off fossil fuels, acceptance of “alternative lifestyles” was advancing forward, gay marriage had become legal, every year the number of people declaring themselves to be “non-religious” was increasing, younger voters — representing what will be, as opposed to what was — were predominantly casting ballots for Democrats.
Just to give one example. I’d bet that before Trump came along, many Republicans who wanted to see Roe v. Wade reversed, probably thought that would likely never happen. So imagine how empowered and emboldened they feel now. Like anything’s possible!
Like I said in 2016 when Trump won the first time, now the genie’s out of the bottle, good luck getting it back inside. Trump’s supporters even saw it as within their reach to overturn a free and fair election.
Ironically, a Texas mom — Crystal Mason — who has maintained she didn’t know she was ineligible to vote, received a 5-year prison sentence (which has since been overturned) for voting in 2016 while on supervised release. And yet, Trump, a man who tried to overturn a free and fair election (which would have been tantamount to dumping hundreds of thousands of legally cast ballots in the trash) got re-elected. He was a sore loser. He didn’t attend Biden’s swearing in. He never extended to Biden the traditional pre-inauguration invitation to the White House in 2020. Doesn’t that set a great example for children? And authoritarian leaders around the world just love him. He’s one of them. It’s emboldened far right movements around the world. Just as 2016 was a shock heard ’round the world, so too was what happened on January 6th; and now, this past Election Day.
Republicans — a party that has Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump as its co-chair (how’s that for nepotism?) — will control all branches of government. The only thing that might keep them a little in check is the creeping shadow of midterm elections. They might seem a long ways off, but they sneak up on you faster than you’d think. You’ll see. But remember the grasshopper, in “The Ant and the Grasshopper” fable? The grasshopper wasn’t too concerned about winter. And so too, I doubt Republicans are right now concerned at all about the 2026 midterm elections.
But again, beyond Trump and beyond the Republican Party, I see the unleashing of his electorate, the freeing of that “genie,” as a very worrying sign of what’s to come. The ripple effects of that are chilling for what it all means in terms of our prospects for saving the planet. And I predict it will lead to a further escalation around the world of authoritarianism, nationalism, and, ultimately, armed conflicts.
(18) (Sunday, December 15, 2024) ‘I tried to warn you.’
In the days immediately following this past Election Day, two or three Trump supporters asked me how I felt. Looking at me almost as if they were expecting me to be crying. “Fine,” I said. Looking a little surprised, they said, “Oh.”
Actually, personally speaking, it works out quite well for me. Don’t get me wrong, of course I wanted Trump to lose. Duh. But I’m not going to curl up and die, or spend the next fifty months feeling miserable. In fact, the very next day or so, I realized there’s something of a silver lining, of sorts — a bright side to all of this. Not for the planet. Not for posterity. But for me.
If Trump had lost on Election Day, our chances of saving the planet still would have looked very, very grim. Now that he’s won, they appear to have all but completely vanished.
That’s based on the assumption I don’t get funding. Our chances improve — perhaps considerably — if I get funding. But let’s face it, it’s been over a decade, and not one potential backer has contacted me. So I’m assuming, at this point, I’ll not get funding. Without getting into all of the reasons why — that’s irrelevant at this point — let’s just say that most people don’t care too much about saving the planet, they’re way too “inside the box” in terms of their thinking processes (and my advertising budget is Lilliputian). The mere fact that tens of millions of American citizens enthusiastically voted for Trump, and yet not one potential backer has contacted me, demonstrates there’s a real, serious problem there, concerning how people think.
Are you still with me so far? Okay, now you’re probably still wondering how Trump’s win, benefits me? I’ll tell you. In short, it motivated me. Did it motivate me to keep hitting my head against the same brick wall, but harder? No. It motivated me in terms of getting rid of things. Getting rid of things I’ve saved for years, things I thought might come in handy once I got funding. Things that have been difficult to part with. But now, I almost relish the thought of tossing that stuff (or most of it) and saving between three to four hundred dollars every month. That’s what my storage unit costs. (Eventually, it will be over $400 a month.) Why save all those articles and notes and stuff, if no one’s interested in saving the planet or helping me?
I’ll admit, I tremendously underestimated how interested people would be in the idea of backing someone with lots of big, bold, brilliant, original ideas, and whose entire life focus has been ‘saving the planet.’ Silly me. I was thinking along the lines of “build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” I guess that works for mousetraps, but is entirely irrelevant, concerning saving the planet ideas.
I’ll keep running my ads, of course. I still believe I have the best ideas, and best, original thinking, in terms of understanding what needs to be done to save the planet. But I’m not optimistic. And I’m not holding my breath. The fact we can’t even reach the low-lying fruit and do some of the really obvious things we need to be doing, shows just how difficult saving the planet really is.
Getting back to what I wrote in the first paragraph, above. Remember when I answered “fine” to that question (about how I felt after Election Day)? I’ll give you two more reasons why that answer fits (for me).
One way I’m able to assuage bad feelings about seeing the crazy direction we, collectively, as a species, keep going in, can be encapsulated in the word “karma.” By that, I simply mean: “you reap what you sow.” If you plant corn, don’t expect apple trees to grow. That’s not how it works.
If we keep going in the direction of not saving the planet, I’m not going to shake my fists at the sky, with tears streaming down my cheeks, shouting “Why? Why?” No, if we don’t save the planet — and I tell people this, sometimes — then maybe we never really deserved having a planet like this, in the first place. Think about it.
If someone says it’s crazy to think that way, I would suggest maybe it’s crazy not to think that way. Isn’t it a very rational way to look at it? If not, why not? It’s also a simple way of preserving one’s sanity. I’m not saying we don’t deserve having a planet like this, I’m just stating that if we don’t save it, then maybe we never really deserved having a planet like this.
That said, the sad truth is that the trajectory we’re on should scare the #&@* out of people. But it doesn’t. So I think I know how this play will end. And I just accept that. What else can I do that I’m not already doing?
Here’s another way to put it. About a decade or so ago, I came across a Twitter account that had a Twitter profile that caught my attention: Doomsayer with a sunny disposition, my healing mantra is “I tried to warn you.” While fact-checking, I just noticed that person’s Twitter account has been suspended (for allegedly violating X’s rules). That’s why I chose not to include the Twitter handle here — none of that account’s tweets are even showing.
I can strongly identify with that “I tried to warn you.” No one can look at my website and say I didn’t try to warn humanity about how perilous the situation is. I wouldn’t call myself a “doomsayer.” Maybe a “truthsayer.” “Sunny disposition?” I wouldn’t characterize myself that way. But I am generally happy. In fact, I get a bit teary-eyed, sometimes, just thinking about how lucky I’ve been in live.
I’m even conscious of the fact that not getting funding, might be a blessing in disguise. Think about it. I want funding: basically, just for living expenses; so I can work like a dog, tirelessly, day and night, to save the planet (and, yes, I believe I have the best ideas for how to achieve that goal); but what if, in the end, that’s something that might not even be possible (e.g., because of that juggernaut-like trajectory that we’re on)? Wouldn’t I then just be wasting my time?