Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled. All this is common knowledge, but because it dribbles out in news stories about this specific incident or department, the reports never adequately describe an administration sabotaging the functioning of the federal government and also trashing the global economy, international alliances and relationships, and the national and global environment in ways that will have downstream consequences for decades and perhaps, especially when it comes to climate, centuries.

— Rebecca Solnit / “The United States is destroying itself” / The Guardian

My tongue is a foreign traveler
Living in my mouth
Without invitation
An unfamiliar kindred.

— Raffi Joe Wartanian / “Tongue”

The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) is a major part of the global climate system and was already known to be at its weakest for 1,600 years as a result of the climate crisis. Scientists spotted warning signs of a tipping point in 2021 and know that the Amoc has collapsed in the Earth’s past.

— Damian Carringron / “Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought” / The Guardian

they didn’t have a cure for all my pain ,
said the reference track , but
now I’m saying it
I’m saying what I’m living without judgment
I’m full of it
rage , blotted out by the sun of media
real devastation

— Benjamin Krusling / “pray for paris”

Sluggish enough and slow to anger on ordinary occasions, McTeague when finally aroused became another man. His rage was a kind of obsession, an evil mania, the drunkenness of passion, the exalted and perverted fury of the Berserker, blind and deaf, a thing insensate.

— Frank Norris / McTeague

. . . No one can
explain how to love the world. It doesn’t happen all at once. But
you can start here. Tonight, with yourself. Someone near you. Let it go
zigzagging town to town. Look, there. It’s already coming back around.

— Arielle Herbert / “Our Book of Delights”

Renewable energy sources are the best way to stymie the rising costs of fossil fuels driven by conflicts such as the ongoing war in Iran, argues climate economist Gernot Wagner. Abandoning fossil fuels could cause temporary ‘greenflation’ — price hikes for tech such as solar panels in the face of increased demand — but the solution is to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels by producing more low-carbon technologies, Wagner writes. “Shifting to technologies that can only get cheaper and better over time is an investment in geopolitical and price stability.”

— Flora Graham / “More fossil fuels won’t fix the energy crisis” / Nature Briefing

What I’m Listening To:

How is our glorious country ploughed?
Not by iron ploughs
Our land is ploughed by tanks and feet
Feet marching
Our land is ploughed by tanks and feet
Feet marching

— PJ Harvey / “The Glorious Land”