The New Year

The standard and overdue many thanks to everyone who continues to support When/If while I focus on the book. I have not had anywhere near enough time to write for the newsletter. I wish it weren't so, but that's not likely to change for at least another few months.

Meanwhile, the fires of the world burn apace. The most important thing in my opinion, even in light of recenter events, is that the dreadnought of climate change draws ever closer. There have been a few updates on this front, with one study suggesting that our timeline for disaster is advanced considerably--with 1.5°C coming in a handful of years and 3.0°C coming at a shocking 2050. This timeline, and aforementioned recenter events, all but seals our fate: climate change will run away, and the world as we know it is going to end. If we do our part, this doesn't mean the end of everything--the world as we know it, after all, kind of sucks.

Trump's kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro should be an unprecedented event. In truth, it is the latest in a long list of extraordinary interventions in South America by the United States. This is what imperial countries do; they flex their might outward for money--in this case oil--all the while ready to turn it inward to maintain control. This is the colonial/fascist paradigm.

There is plenty to be said by someone more apt than I about Venezuelan politics. The country was under dire US sanctions after our last botched attempt to seat our own president in the country. What happens now is hard to say; I can't imagine Viceroy Rubio could possibly do a good job. But one thing I can promise is this: Venezuelan oil, exploited by the United States, will mean bad money follows bad until the next climate study says 3°C by 2040.