Global Warming & Global Freezing | Death by Breathing | Food for Thought

SEASONED NUTS: QUOTABLE
 

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien

 
 
 
IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ
 

Baby, It’s…Just A Mess Outside: A polar vortex of frigid Arctic winds slammed into the Midwest overnight Wednesday. Some temperatures were at or below the Amundsen-Scott South Pole station in Antarctica, which registered -25 degrees F. It was so cold mail service was shut down in eight states. Hundreds of schools and universities were closed; at least six deaths have been reported. Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, wildfires raged in Australia as it suffers with record-breaking heat. Massive air conditioning use overloaded electrical grids and caused widespread power failures. Last week the temperature in Adelaide nearly hit 116 degrees F. People experiencing such extreme heat may not be arguing against global warming, while climate deniers might be pointing to the Midwest and asking how can the planet can be warming when it’s so cold?

Heat and drought extremes are consistent with scientific consensus—more greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere are almost definitely causing abnormally high temperatures. By extension, a hotter planet makes extreme weather more frequent and more intense. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are higher than they’ve been in 800,000 years. The World Meteorological Organization reports that the last four years have been the hottest on record; the 20 warmest years on record have all occurred in the past 22 years. Ocean temperatures continue to break records every year. Clearly extreme heat is a huge problem. But how does that explain episodes of extreme cold?

It’s like this. Emerging research is beginning to show that a warming Arctic is causing changes in the jet stream, pushing polar air down to latitudes that are unaccustomed to it and often unprepared for it. This is the age of extreme weather—all kinds of extremes, in all kinds of places, and we sure need to be planning for that.

Additional read: “If the Earth Is Warming, Why Is It So Cold Outside?” (NYT, $)

 
 
 
MIXED NUTS: QUICK TAKES ON WORLD NEWS
 

Getting to Yes, Negotiating Tariffs Without Giving In: Last December, at a meeting in Buenos Aires, President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had to call a 90-day truce to try to negotiate their trade differences. Trump has declared March 2 the US deadline to either work out deep differences over China’s intellectual property and technology transfer practices or he will increase tariffs on Chinese goods. On Wednesday cabinet-level officials led by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House in the highest-level gathering since the one in Buenos Aires. The meetings are closed-door, and no official statements are expected before talks conclude on Thursday. (Reuters)

Additional reads on two most powerful countries in the world:

May’s Unluck Of The Irish: The border wall is a political sticking point in America. In the UK, it’s the Irish backstop. Unlike a physical barrier, the backstop is a way to avoid building a physical barrier, with checkpoints for goods, on the boundary between Ireland, an EU member country, and Northern Ireland, a part of the UK. The EU’s 28 member nations had done away with any kind of barriers that might impede trade within the bloc. But trying to figure out what to do about trade barriers once Brexit takes place has been a nightmare. Prime Minister Theresa May tried to come up with a plan to alleviate some of the trade problems that would arise when Britain formally leaves the EU on March 29 but her plan was rejected by parliament. If no long-term trade pact can be arrived at Britain could wind up outside the EU, with no voice in shaping its rules, and still be tied to the bloc indefinitely. This is what’s unthinkable for May’s hard-line, pro-Brexit colleagues—a nightmare scenario that could leave Britain permanently powerless to determine its own trade destiny. (NYT, $)

Additional read: “Parliament asserts that Britain shouldn’t leave E.U. without a deal, sends Theresa May back to Brussels.” (WaPo, $)

 
 
 
NUTS AND BOLTS: SHOULD READ
 

Thais Are Condemned to Death by Breathing: A decade ago Bangkok, Thailand was making progress on cleaning up its air by enforcing a ban on the most polluting vehicles. But Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the head of the military junta that seized control of the country in 2014, has been dismissive of the capital city’s pollution problems. As a result Bangkok is now among the world’s top 10 cities with the foulest air on the planet. The spike in air pollution has been front page news, even pushing out reports earlier this month about the bodies of two exiled Thai dissidents found by the Mekong River, their stomachs stuffed with concrete blocks. Instead, editorials demanded answers from the junta about the unhealthy air. What people got was inexplicable remediation attempts — water sprayed at the air from huge hoses on the ground, and water sprayed on the air from drones flying above —coupled with unfathomable threats to shopkeepers of seven years in prison for hoarding masks.

Bangkok, like many other cities in Asia that make up a list of the world’s most polluted urban areas, suffers from a toxic blend of industrialization and urbanization, a car-crazy populace and lax regulation. The World Health Organization says outdoor air pollution caused 4.2 million premature deaths in 2016. It claims more lives annually than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Thailand is immersed in a familiar cycle facing the entire global community: denial of a chronic problem, ineffectual solutions, then a sudden realization that the chemical miasma isn’t going to magically disappear without coordinated policies.

Additional Read: How dirty air could be affecting our gut health (BBC)

 
 
 
NUTS IN AMERICA
 

A Populist President Fights His Professional Staff and His Own Political Party: President Trump does not take kindly to opinions that differ from his. On Tuesday the heads of the president’s intelligence agencies testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the nuclear threat from North Korea persisted and Iran was not taking steps toward making a nuclear bomb, conclusions in sharp contrast to Trump’s assessments of those countries. So on Wednesday the president took to Twitter to lambaste his own spy professionals. “The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!” he tweeted, dismissing their assessments. Some of his fellow Republicans in Congress criticized the president’s comments; some have even introduced legislation that would counter Trump’s policies on national security in an unusual break from their party’s leader. (Reuters)

Additional reads:

Trump Shows The Nation’s Hand: National Security Adviser John Bolton flashing his yellow pad notes at a news briefing this week wasn’t such a novel thing in the Trump administration. Since taking office, the president himself has presided over photo-ops where he has left his stage notes and talking points in plain view. He has waved private letters from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, with some words visible to cameras. And he has displayed official documents, including an accord with Kim in Singapore last June, that disclosed details aides had yet to publicly disseminate — prompting reporters to break news by examining photographs of the documents. (WaPo)

– Is There Room in 2020 for a Centrist Democrat? Maybe One or Two(NYT, $)

– The media feel safest in the middle lane. Just ask Jeff Flake, John Kasich and Howard Schultz. (WaPo, $)

– San Francisco — where drug addicts outnumber high school academics(SFChronicle)

 
 
 
HEALTH NUTS
 

Here’s some food for thought:

 
 
 
LAST MORSELS
 

“There is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

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