We have a president who does not believe in climate change. Trump appointed Lee Zeldin to destroy the Environmental Protection Agency, which was created by President Richard Nixon. His mega-donors in the fossil fuel industry are very happy with his policies of climate change denial.
But climate change is real.
CNN reports:
Coral reefs
Warming oceans have caused the worst coral reef bleaching event in recorded history. According to a new report, harmful bleaching has grown to include 84% of the ocean’s reefs — and it’s not clear when the crisis will end. Last year was Earth’s hottest year on record and most of that heat went into the oceans. Such high temperatures are deadly to corals, which protect coastlines from erosion and storms. Coral reefs are also known as the “rainforests of the sea” because they support high levels of biodiversity. “We’re looking at something that’s completely changing the face of our planet and the ability of our oceans to sustain lives and livelihoods,” Mark Eakin, corresponding secretary for the International Coral Reef Society, said. Although efforts are underway to conserve and restore coral, scientists say it’s essential that we reduce emissions from burning the fossil fuels that are warming the planet.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A New Documentary Entitled “Reef Builders,” is now available to stream on Prime Video. It takes viewers to the front lines of the global effort to help restore the reefs through the Sheba Hope Grows™ program. Sheba Hope is of one of the world’s largest coral reef restoration programs led by Mars Sustainable Solutions. The film highlights restoration sites in Bontosua, Indonesia; Lamu, Kenya; Moore Reef, Australia; and Oahu, Hawaii.
https://variety.com/2025/biz/news/reef-builders-doc-presented-by-sheba-stream-on-prime-video-1236365288/
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It will end when we collectively decide that the planet is more important than profit. So far neither political party shows any interest in such a sentiment.
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You often have said there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats. Berween Trump and Hillary. Between Trump and Biden. Question: Which party is actively removing all environmental regulations?
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Do you think the coral reefs just started dying on January 21, 2025? Democrats have done no more to protect the environment than Republicans have.
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Biden persuaded Congress to pass a multibillion dollar bill to address climate change. Did you know that?
AI Overview
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The “Biden climate bill” refers primarily to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was signed into law in August 2022. It’s considered the largest investment in climate action in US history, with nearly $370 billion dedicated to clean energy and climate programs. The IRA aims to reduce emissions, promote clean energy, and create jobs.
Here’s a more detailed look:
Main Goals:
The IRA aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 2005 levels by 2030 and aims to bring the United States closer to its Paris Agreement target of 50-52% reduction.
Key Provisions:
The IRA includes tax credits for clean energy investments, investments in renewable energy infrastructure, and supports for rural electrification and clean energy manufacturing.
Is that nothing? Trump is rolling back every part of the law that addresses climate change.
But there’s no difference between Trump and Biden? I disagree.
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Dienne, if I stipulate that you are more morally superior in every way, would you agree to stop coming by these fora for to loudly declaim same? I find you incredibly tedious. Also, Democrats have done no more than Republicans to protect the environment? While I’ll be the first to admit that the Democrats have not done everything I wish they would for the environment, your statement is unalloyed ignorance. But yeah, your self-righteousness is right up front as usual.
Sheesh.
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In the runup to and during World War I, German chemist Fritz Haber developed chlorine gas for use in trench warfare and then oversaw its implementation on the battlefield, this despite the fact that Germany was a signatory to the Hague convention outlawing chemical weapons. His contribution to events during World War II was the development of the Zyklon B gas used in the Nazi death chambers.
But here is the most impactful of his “gifts” to civilization: he was the co-inventory of the Haber-Bosch process for producing ammonia from fossil fuel–a major component of artificial fertilizer. The ammonia is the primary component of synthetic fertilizer, the raw materials of which are ammonia (from fossil fuels), natural gas (a fossil fuel), and phosphoric acid, which comes from mineral phosphorus, which is mined.
Synthetic N-P-K fertilizer enabled the Green Revolution–the development of massive monocrop operations to produce soy and grains like wheat, rice, and barley. In the old days, the fertilizer came from the bones and blood of animals, raised with crops on small farms in a process that nourished the biome and built topsoil, slowly, to be sure, but surely, year by year. And that topsoil was habitat for microorganisms, bacteria and nematodes, billions and billions of them in a teaspoon of topsoil, that broke down plant matter and sat at the bottom of the food chain.
When you plow under a former rich habitat and plant it with monocrops and feed them with synthetic fertilizer, you produce enormous surpluses. And enormous riches. Almost all grain and soy produced in the United States–well over 90 percent–now comes from such monocrop operations owned by five corporate giants. And these operations are subsidized by the government with your tax dollars.
Surpluses. A great thing, right? Well, here’s what happens. The surpluses are sold on the world market at prices lower than the cost of production on small, traditional, topsoil-building farms in the developing world. It costs more for the small farmer in Gana to produce a bushel of grain than the same bushel of surplus, monocrop grain on the world market. And so the children of the small farmer starve, and any who survive leave the farm and go to a city to try to figure out a way to eke out a living in dire poverty.
In the meanwhile, the monocrop operations suck water from the aquifer at breathtaking rates and destroy (and basically sterilize) the topsoil, requiring more fertilizer produced from fossil fuel. And the monocrop operations allow human populations to grow far, far, far beyond natural carrying capacity. And when the fossil fuel runs out, everyone starves.
An inch of organism-rich topsoil takes 800 years to build. It is wiped out by a single year of monocrop agriculture. And so is the formerly rich habitat of the grassland or whatever that was plowed under.
It all works great for folks in the developed world, of course.
Until it doesn’t.
If you want to see what monocrop agriculture does, have a look at the barren desert that once was the Fertile Crescent. The birthplace of “civilization.”
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cx: Ghana
Many other infelicities of expression can be found in that post, alas. I should have proofed more carefully before hitting the Send button. But I think that the major points were made.
Don’t get me started on how the Neolithic Revolution–the creation of monocrop agriculture–created surpluses that could be hoarded and had to be guarded and came to be stored centrally and meted out by the powerful and were targets for invaders and thus occasions for standing armies and war and led to the development of highly hierarchical societies [laborers to do irrigation and tilling and reaping at the bottom] with a few rich at the top and a lot of poor people and slaves under subjection. And dramatically degraded human health, as we see when we compare the bones of people from the early large-scale agricultural societies with those of people from hunter-gatherer and small polyculture societies.
We can learn these lessons now, or our great grandchildren will learn them breathtakingly painfully.
This is the kind of thing that needs to be taught in our schools.
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We are all, as a species, we Homo “sapiens,” in a car driving fast toward a wall.
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So, the environmental disaster that is monocrop agriculture takes place just out of the sight of urban and suburban dwellers in the developed world, whose bellies are, temporarily, full. The surpluses thus produced ensure that–for a time, but only for a time. And here’s the tragedy–the process of feeding a human population that has long outstripped the land’s natural carrying capacity operates smoothly for folks in the developed world and will do so until the fossil fuel runs out (or becomes too expensive). Using up that fossil fuel and all the topsoil we have left are processes that take longer than a human lifespan, like the process of climate change, and so individuals don’t see it unless they bother to educate themselves. And since they are fed and happy for now, they don’t bother.
Consider my comment on this post, for example. It presents the most pressing of all environmental issues as far as long-term human survival and flourishing go but has generated no responses. None.
There is only one survivable way forward for us humans, and that is
a. to dismantle large-scale corporate monocrop agriculture
b. to encourage the development, in lieu of those monocrop operations, hundreds of thousands of small, polyculture farming operations
c. to reduce our numbers dramatically via birth control
Otherwise, the party will soon be over, folks.
Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues | Scientific American
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How long before the world runs out of fossil fuels?
The Seven Generations philosophy of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, says that leadership must look forward at least seven generations. Looking forward that long, or even a quarter of that long, from where we are now presents a world in which food production necessary for human survival has collapsed–to a planet of barren, sterilized soils and mass starvation.
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Every other issue pales in comparison to the importance of this one.
The corals are the canary in the coal mine, folks. They tell us what is coming.
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