Breathing Space

  Today, Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel to investigate the Trump- Russia connection. He is a man of great integrity and strength, who stood up to George W. Bush's trampling of the Constitution after September 11th. He will need every bit of that strength now as he confronts Trump.
  Everything that we've seen, so far, is but the tip of a filthy iceberg of corruption and possibly treason. I don't know how this will play out, or how long it will take, but I can say this: The American Republic can take a deep breath. There is time for this to go wrong, and there is no telling how Trump will react, but we've taken a step in the right direction.
  Since Trump still has the backing of his base, and since the right-wing is ridiculing the move, it is too soon to expect the house and senate leadership to move against their president. Still- the process is started. I can't help but think of Churchill's famous words: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Why Science?

  Carl Sagan said it best: The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
  And science will explain it.
  For all of the accomplishments and breakthroughs, for all of the achievements and feats of genius, for all that we have thought and wrought and learned due to science; it is, itself, merely a by-product of our insatiable curiosity and stubbornness. We not only must ask why- we have the indomitable will to find the answer, the will to satisfy that curiosity if it takes a thousand generations. All that we have, all of civilization, everything that we take for granted in our world, is a legacy of the curiosity and stubbornness of untold generations.
  Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
  We all stand on those shoulders.
  But now the entire world is in danger of being tripped up by dwarves.
  Alone among the nations of the world, the United States has an entire political party dedicated to the muzzling of science and the enthronement of mythology and irrational argument.
  That party is now in power.
  By preventing action by the most influential and powerful nation on earth; by muddying the waters of rational argument; by using all of the vast resources at their disposal to slow the response to climate change, they may doom all of humanity to oblivion.
  Sea-level rise, if unchecked, will cause mass-migrations on a scale never before seen in human history. Rising populations, (an additional two billion people are expected to be born by 2050) will be fighting for less land and scarcer resources as drought and warming affect food production. Nations will be struggling against nature for their very existence.
  Nations will be struggling against each other for their very existence.
  There's the rub.
  Mass migrations in Europe and Asia, over several centuries, helped to topple the Roman Empire. European civilization took centuries to recover from the interregnum. And no one back then had nukes.
  The competition for dominance among the world's great powers has long threatened the annihilation of our species through nuclear war. Climate change, all by itself, has the potential to end civilization as we know it; add politics and nuclear weapons, and we may very well see the wars that will end the human race.
  Climate change isn't coming. Climate change is here. Everything on earth depends on how we react, right now. Maybe we can even do it. Maybe, just maybe, we can find a solution. If, that is, we still have the will and the stubbornness that got us this far. If, that is, we use science.
 
  This post is dedicated to everyone, all over the world, who marched for science and for the awareness of climate change over the last two Saturdays of April, This post is especially dedicated to my colleagues in the Sarasota, Florida March for Science. It was an honor working with you.

 The quote is, of course, from the book Cosmos by Carl Sagan
 

Vive La France!

  Tonight, Emmanuel Macron has won the French election. He beat the fascist, Marine Le Pen, by a good margin, in spite of a last minute hacking attempt by the Russians. So tonight, thanks to the French People, Vladimir Putin is as isolated on the world stage as he was yesterday.
   Unfortunately, he still has that cock-holster in the White House on his side.
  We have to fix that.