What a lovely conversation! In such uncertain times I am increasingly drawn to these islands of reflectivity with their inherent humility and warmth. So much of this conversation reflected my own experience of therapy and of my thinking on the numinous and the route to a survivable outcome that also contains the elements of a more human-centred way of being.
I also feel the guilt of privilege that I had the means to pay for therapy, the space in a life that had enough of the basics covered to allow my mind to wander down these unexplored lanes. So many are trapped in the cycle of poverty or indeed in the furious maintenance of an above-water existence and lacking the either the means. inclination or role model for constructive self-reflection.
It may be a sense of powerlessness in the face of this overwhelming sense of crisis but I think can also be a kind of healthy 'letting go' to stop our own furious maintenance of finding solutions and truly celebrate our shared humanity and pass on wherever we can that sense of value and connection that is at the heart of our existence.
Re: the part of the conversion which touched on the way that being existentially alienated from the realities of embodied life seems to be a state of being that some people seem to prefer, at least some of the time. In the 90s a woman sociologist wrote a study of the white collar, middle management female employees of Proctor and Gambel, a giant American corporation that makes all sorts of consumer products, mostly for personal use. She found that many of these woman actually preferred being at work to being at home with their families. They appreciated long hours and other demands that cut into their time away from the office. The author of the book (whose title and author I forget) concluded, from an orthodox feminist perspective, that this was the case because at home, despite being full time workers, like their spouses, they were expected to carry more of the responsibilities of homemaking and parenting. This caused levels of stress that their work lives didn't. This was probably true enough, but I felt the author missed something deeper. Work was less stressful because the women studied, like all their workmates, male or female, understood, at some level, that the work they did was of little consequence in terms of impact on human lives, that it was all paper pushing in service of the creation of commodities that most people could very easily live without. The office was a kind of bubble detached from the anything real, beyond their own personal concerns for their own livelihoods. Home, on the other hand, was where decisions made, actions taken, had immediate real world effects on people near and dear. This can be scary. So much easier to be at the office where as long as you did what was expected, what you were told, things were basically predictable and reassuringly monotonous.
In a sense, the entire modern way of life is based on capturing more and more of the population in these kinds of bubbles, where what people spend most of their time doing, at work and at leisure, seems to have no consequences beyond the purely personal. This can be a very comfortable way to live, where nothing we do seems to really matter very much. This can lead to feelings of real meaninglessness, yet I think many put up with that dread because life without consequence is all too easy whereas a life of true commitment to the idea that what we do has an impact on the personal, familial, community and environmental level is hard work.
People shy away from the prospect of the kind of futures that Rachel and her guests talk about because they all seem to involve ways of living where, after all the bubbles burst, the stakes become truly high, and people will be forced to make decisions as if the consequences really really matter.
A recent ProPublica investigation found that formaldehyde causes far more cancer than any other toxic air pollutant.
In response, Sen. Blumenthal wrote a letter to the EPA saying "the agency has an obligation to protect the public from the chemical."
Trump EPA Administrator Nominee
Lee Zeldin (Dec 28, 2024)
By Jesse Rifkin
Today we bring you the next in our series on current and former members of Congress nominated to a cabinet post by President-elect Trump.
=================================
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY1) is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to replace Michael Regan as EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) administrator. The position requires confirmation by the Senate.
Zeldin served in the House from 2015 to 2023, when he declined to run for reelection to focus on his Republican nomination for New York governor, which he lost in an election that was much closer than expected.
Both Republicans and Democrats alike describe Zeldin’s expected nomination as about rolling back environmental protections to support big business.
Bills introduced
During his eight years in Congress, he was lead sponsor of 84 bills. By GovTrack’s count, by far his most common primary issue area was “Armed Forces and National Security” at 24%. Zero were primarily related to the category “environmental protection.”
That’s because Zeldin is generally opposed to environmental protection. Indeed, he introduced at least two bills that would kill more fish.
2017’s Local Fishing Access Act would have allowed striped bass fishing in an area called the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) by his New York district. 2015’s Fluke Fairness Act would have allowed fishers in his district to catch more fluke fish, also known as summer flounders, as New York state’s commercial sector only reeled in less than 10% of its estimated potential fluke haul. Neither bill passed.
The League of Conservation Voters gave him a lifetime 14% score. Of the 235 votes the organization marked as important environmental votes during his tenure, he cast what they deemed a “pro-environment” vote in 32.
However, those 32 votes included several where Zeldin was one of the only House Republicans doing so. Here are three examples.
Coastal and Marine Economies Protection Act
Zeldin’s 2019 vote would have banned offshore drilling off both the Atlantic and Pacific U.S. coasts.
House Democrats almost unanimously supported it by 226-5, while House Republicans almost entirely opposed it by 12-183, making Zeldin one of only a dozen members of his party to vote in favor.
The Senate never voted on the measure, despite Democrats controlling the chamber during that Congress.
EPA funding on carbon pollution
In 2019, Zeldin voted against blocking the EPA’s implementation of new tougher standards on carbon pollution.
House Democrats voted almost unanimously in opposition by 1-233, with only Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN7) in favor. House Republicans almost entirely supported it by 177-21, making Zeldin one of less than two dozen members of his party to vote against. Due largely to Democrats, the measure failed, meaning the EPA’s rule stood.
(Interestingly, one of the few other Republican dissenters was former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s original nominee for Attorney General before dropping out, and hardly known as an environmentalist.)
Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act
Zeldin’s 2019 vote would have banned the shark fin animal parts used as a delicacy in some food items such as soups.
House Democrats almost unanimously supported it by 221-2, while House Republicans opposed it by 89-104 – pitting Zeldin against most members of his party. Though the House passed the measure, it never received a Senate vote in that Congress.
Congress ultimately enacted it three years later as a provision in the 1,772-page annual National Defense Authorization Act for 2022. Though that package passed the House overwhelmingly by both parties, Zeldin didn’t cast a vote.
What Congress is saying
“President Trump has made a strong choice in selecting [Zeldin] to lead the [EPA],” Senate Environment and Public Works Committee top Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said in a statement. “I look forward to promptly considering Rep. Zeldin’s nomination in the [committee] and to working with him to roll back regulatory overreach and unleash American energy production.”
Democrats strongly oppose the selection.
“Donald Trump has chosen to reward a 2020 election denier, whose only job will be to reward corporate polluters by gutting the EPA and making our air and water dirtier,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) posted on X, formerly Twitter. “In Congress and the courts, we’ve got a fight ahead.”
In 2019, no Senate Democrats voted for Trump’s last EPA Administrator nominee Andrew Wheeler, though he was confirmed in the Republican-led chamber anyway. A similar outcome seems likely here.
The Senate will vote on Trump’s nominees once they are formally nominated after he takes office, but senators have already begun meeting with the expected nominees. They may also hold hearings ahead of Trump’s inauguration, to expedite the confirmation process.
Nailed it ! Well, the nail point is in, the hammer sits. Just need to drive it in and connect a soul to a planet. It's a first step to engage with a green space for 10 minutes or be on a mountain. Next is to take wine, fine food and spend the day with a friend. If that could progress to a community, to design buildings, gardens, a path to health and harmony then the earth thanks you for your service. Plant clover for the kangaroos, more sweet potato too, for them and the bush turkeys. Earth, the mother of all things, gives strength, we are strong. Therapy of the purist form. Like the Chinese village house for women and children, she is the inner courtyard, a safe space. And when the dark triad narcissist comes knocking at the outer door in shining armour and with sweet voice opines "Bonobo sex all day?" the reply shall be : "Neural alacrity and wisdom here only, the brothel's down the road." Only autodidactic heuristics here.
When are we going to wake up to the fact that we don’t have a climate crisis.. but that we do have sustainability issues as well as many geopolitical ones.
Maybe you just haven’t noticed it, but it’s becoming increasingly palpable where I live in the UK. Where we use to have months of hard frosts during winter we now have the odd day. This may not seem important on a human level, but trees which should be dormant over this period are having their annual cycle disturbed, effecting fruit productivity. Insects are appearing earlier than they should, meaning there is less to eat when birds migrate northwards. Ultimately these connections have profound effects on our food production which is reliant on ecosystems that have evolved over millions of years and stabilised in the holocene. We don’t get to emit 40 billion tonnes of a greenhouse gas annually without consequences. It matters.
That’s ok… Up to you…. The good news is that our future governments are now beginning to review the science and realize that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
The priority will be prosperity with just some local adaption to a naturally warming planet and the increase in CO2 that is mostly good news.
There really is no overall “divergence” in the climate science community. Rather, there are a handful of contrarians who the architects of misinformation like to wheel out to give that impression. John Christy is one of these and despite his ‘models’ being disproven, I guess The Heartland Institute and other tentacles of the Atlas Group hydra give him enough incentive to hold on to his views.
I think the bottom line here is that the climate science is “economically unviable” (i.e. incompatible with economic growth and thus considered by most/many to be foolish, intolerable, unthinkable), therefore the climate science must be changed, disavowed, ignored, reframed, renamed, reinvented etc.
Of course, even if there were no climate change or carbon problem whatsoever, economic growth would still be be an entropy engine that is inconsistent with long-term life on the planet. Economic growth drives biodiversity loss and the accelerating population declines of nonhuman species, ecological carrying capacity and planetary boundary overshoot, massive environmental degradation, resource depletion, wide-spectrum pollution and toxification impacts etc. The decline rates of everything from top soil to fertility rates (each with decline rates of between 1% to 2% per year) to rare earth minerals deliver fairly straightforward mathematical truths projected forwards.
Ha Ha..We get this a lot.. when the scientific facts don’t support the climate emergency narrative then it must be a few bad actors that spread disinformation. This includes the disrespectful cancelling of well respected and expert scientists that provide alternative proof. It just shows how politically subjugated the science has become…. Very sad.
The notion that it’s a small fringe element of scientists in discord is dead wrong.. we now have many growing organizations that contest the climate emergency rhetoric with strong facts from solid sources…. More on this is you want.
I never see any of the climate alarmist debating the facts we provide. The reason is they wont like the conclusion!
Even the IPCC does not declare a climate emergency at the scientific report level.. only when its spun up for the politicos and the press by the UN does it look like Armageddon .. just crazy.
More on this in the book unsettled by Koonin who only quotes using IPCC data.
As I have already said … you believe whatever religion you want, but don’t confuse it with science.
And the good news is the game is up in most new governments that will certainly move this climate emergency and NetZero thinking down the priority list.
Now please note that I am talking about climate change and the wrongful mitigation of CO2 that is not a danger to us.
On the subject of other forms of pollution that effect sustainability it’s a far more important subject and should be an ongoing level of concern. But even here we must be realistic, and science based.
I would rather talk about sustainability not less important climate change
My version of sustainability is to work on a better balance between economics, social and environmental challenges.
The best way to proceed is to assume that we can still have everything we need but with far better alternatives and controls and approaches to eliminate waste on how we approach our wants.
So, its about a more localized economy that mines makes grows and services much more of what it consumes so that the circular economy can be applied.
Then we need to train the population on managing wants versus needs and avoid the throwaway mentality in both product design and consumer preference.
Some changes in recycling technology at the materials and product level are to be encouraged.. for example recycling metals is well defined both technically and practically but not true for plastics. So assume we will need plastics, but work out how to make then recyclable with new technology
Don’t constrain energy with useless application of so called renewables but make it plentiful and affordable with the next generations of nuclear power.
The message .. you can have everything you need but it will follow new rules on how you satisfy your wants.
What a lovely conversation! In such uncertain times I am increasingly drawn to these islands of reflectivity with their inherent humility and warmth. So much of this conversation reflected my own experience of therapy and of my thinking on the numinous and the route to a survivable outcome that also contains the elements of a more human-centred way of being.
I also feel the guilt of privilege that I had the means to pay for therapy, the space in a life that had enough of the basics covered to allow my mind to wander down these unexplored lanes. So many are trapped in the cycle of poverty or indeed in the furious maintenance of an above-water existence and lacking the either the means. inclination or role model for constructive self-reflection.
It may be a sense of powerlessness in the face of this overwhelming sense of crisis but I think can also be a kind of healthy 'letting go' to stop our own furious maintenance of finding solutions and truly celebrate our shared humanity and pass on wherever we can that sense of value and connection that is at the heart of our existence.
Re: the part of the conversion which touched on the way that being existentially alienated from the realities of embodied life seems to be a state of being that some people seem to prefer, at least some of the time. In the 90s a woman sociologist wrote a study of the white collar, middle management female employees of Proctor and Gambel, a giant American corporation that makes all sorts of consumer products, mostly for personal use. She found that many of these woman actually preferred being at work to being at home with their families. They appreciated long hours and other demands that cut into their time away from the office. The author of the book (whose title and author I forget) concluded, from an orthodox feminist perspective, that this was the case because at home, despite being full time workers, like their spouses, they were expected to carry more of the responsibilities of homemaking and parenting. This caused levels of stress that their work lives didn't. This was probably true enough, but I felt the author missed something deeper. Work was less stressful because the women studied, like all their workmates, male or female, understood, at some level, that the work they did was of little consequence in terms of impact on human lives, that it was all paper pushing in service of the creation of commodities that most people could very easily live without. The office was a kind of bubble detached from the anything real, beyond their own personal concerns for their own livelihoods. Home, on the other hand, was where decisions made, actions taken, had immediate real world effects on people near and dear. This can be scary. So much easier to be at the office where as long as you did what was expected, what you were told, things were basically predictable and reassuringly monotonous.
In a sense, the entire modern way of life is based on capturing more and more of the population in these kinds of bubbles, where what people spend most of their time doing, at work and at leisure, seems to have no consequences beyond the purely personal. This can be a very comfortable way to live, where nothing we do seems to really matter very much. This can lead to feelings of real meaninglessness, yet I think many put up with that dread because life without consequence is all too easy whereas a life of true commitment to the idea that what we do has an impact on the personal, familial, community and environmental level is hard work.
People shy away from the prospect of the kind of futures that Rachel and her guests talk about because they all seem to involve ways of living where, after all the bubbles burst, the stakes become truly high, and people will be forced to make decisions as if the consequences really really matter.
A recent ProPublica investigation found that formaldehyde causes far more cancer than any other toxic air pollutant.
In response, Sen. Blumenthal wrote a letter to the EPA saying "the agency has an obligation to protect the public from the chemical."
Trump EPA Administrator Nominee
Lee Zeldin (Dec 28, 2024)
By Jesse Rifkin
Today we bring you the next in our series on current and former members of Congress nominated to a cabinet post by President-elect Trump.
=================================
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY1) is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to replace Michael Regan as EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) administrator. The position requires confirmation by the Senate.
Zeldin served in the House from 2015 to 2023, when he declined to run for reelection to focus on his Republican nomination for New York governor, which he lost in an election that was much closer than expected.
Both Republicans and Democrats alike describe Zeldin’s expected nomination as about rolling back environmental protections to support big business.
Bills introduced
During his eight years in Congress, he was lead sponsor of 84 bills. By GovTrack’s count, by far his most common primary issue area was “Armed Forces and National Security” at 24%. Zero were primarily related to the category “environmental protection.”
That’s because Zeldin is generally opposed to environmental protection. Indeed, he introduced at least two bills that would kill more fish.
2017’s Local Fishing Access Act would have allowed striped bass fishing in an area called the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) by his New York district. 2015’s Fluke Fairness Act would have allowed fishers in his district to catch more fluke fish, also known as summer flounders, as New York state’s commercial sector only reeled in less than 10% of its estimated potential fluke haul. Neither bill passed.
The League of Conservation Voters gave him a lifetime 14% score. Of the 235 votes the organization marked as important environmental votes during his tenure, he cast what they deemed a “pro-environment” vote in 32.
However, those 32 votes included several where Zeldin was one of the only House Republicans doing so. Here are three examples.
Coastal and Marine Economies Protection Act
Zeldin’s 2019 vote would have banned offshore drilling off both the Atlantic and Pacific U.S. coasts.
House Democrats almost unanimously supported it by 226-5, while House Republicans almost entirely opposed it by 12-183, making Zeldin one of only a dozen members of his party to vote in favor.
The Senate never voted on the measure, despite Democrats controlling the chamber during that Congress.
EPA funding on carbon pollution
In 2019, Zeldin voted against blocking the EPA’s implementation of new tougher standards on carbon pollution.
House Democrats voted almost unanimously in opposition by 1-233, with only Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN7) in favor. House Republicans almost entirely supported it by 177-21, making Zeldin one of less than two dozen members of his party to vote against. Due largely to Democrats, the measure failed, meaning the EPA’s rule stood.
(Interestingly, one of the few other Republican dissenters was former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s original nominee for Attorney General before dropping out, and hardly known as an environmentalist.)
Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act
Zeldin’s 2019 vote would have banned the shark fin animal parts used as a delicacy in some food items such as soups.
House Democrats almost unanimously supported it by 221-2, while House Republicans opposed it by 89-104 – pitting Zeldin against most members of his party. Though the House passed the measure, it never received a Senate vote in that Congress.
Congress ultimately enacted it three years later as a provision in the 1,772-page annual National Defense Authorization Act for 2022. Though that package passed the House overwhelmingly by both parties, Zeldin didn’t cast a vote.
What Congress is saying
“President Trump has made a strong choice in selecting [Zeldin] to lead the [EPA],” Senate Environment and Public Works Committee top Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said in a statement. “I look forward to promptly considering Rep. Zeldin’s nomination in the [committee] and to working with him to roll back regulatory overreach and unleash American energy production.”
Democrats strongly oppose the selection.
“Donald Trump has chosen to reward a 2020 election denier, whose only job will be to reward corporate polluters by gutting the EPA and making our air and water dirtier,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) posted on X, formerly Twitter. “In Congress and the courts, we’ve got a fight ahead.”
In 2019, no Senate Democrats voted for Trump’s last EPA Administrator nominee Andrew Wheeler, though he was confirmed in the Republican-led chamber anyway. A similar outcome seems likely here.
The Senate will vote on Trump’s nominees once they are formally nominated after he takes office, but senators have already begun meeting with the expected nominees. They may also hold hearings ahead of Trump’s inauguration, to expedite the confirmation process.
HaPpY NeW YeaR
Haha, I listen to it whilst on a north downs way trail. Perfect companion
Nailed it ! Well, the nail point is in, the hammer sits. Just need to drive it in and connect a soul to a planet. It's a first step to engage with a green space for 10 minutes or be on a mountain. Next is to take wine, fine food and spend the day with a friend. If that could progress to a community, to design buildings, gardens, a path to health and harmony then the earth thanks you for your service. Plant clover for the kangaroos, more sweet potato too, for them and the bush turkeys. Earth, the mother of all things, gives strength, we are strong. Therapy of the purist form. Like the Chinese village house for women and children, she is the inner courtyard, a safe space. And when the dark triad narcissist comes knocking at the outer door in shining armour and with sweet voice opines "Bonobo sex all day?" the reply shall be : "Neural alacrity and wisdom here only, the brothel's down the road." Only autodidactic heuristics here.
When are we going to wake up to the fact that we don’t have a climate crisis.. but that we do have sustainability issues as well as many geopolitical ones.
Maybe you just haven’t noticed it, but it’s becoming increasingly palpable where I live in the UK. Where we use to have months of hard frosts during winter we now have the odd day. This may not seem important on a human level, but trees which should be dormant over this period are having their annual cycle disturbed, effecting fruit productivity. Insects are appearing earlier than they should, meaning there is less to eat when birds migrate northwards. Ultimately these connections have profound effects on our food production which is reliant on ecosystems that have evolved over millions of years and stabilised in the holocene. We don’t get to emit 40 billion tonnes of a greenhouse gas annually without consequences. It matters.
Rest easy…..the climate is changing, but its not bad news.. Plenty of facts point to that.
More at ….
https://nigelsouthway.substack.com/p/climate-realism-is-on-the-way
https://nigelsouthway.substack.com/p/no-netzero
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDAXzcMD2Ng&t=1165s
I completely disagree with your conclusions I’m afraid.
That’s ok… Up to you…. The good news is that our future governments are now beginning to review the science and realize that NetZero is unnecessary, technologically unattainable, economically unviable and extremely foolish.
The priority will be prosperity with just some local adaption to a naturally warming planet and the increase in CO2 that is mostly good news.
There really is no overall “divergence” in the climate science community. Rather, there are a handful of contrarians who the architects of misinformation like to wheel out to give that impression. John Christy is one of these and despite his ‘models’ being disproven, I guess The Heartland Institute and other tentacles of the Atlas Group hydra give him enough incentive to hold on to his views.
I think the bottom line here is that the climate science is “economically unviable” (i.e. incompatible with economic growth and thus considered by most/many to be foolish, intolerable, unthinkable), therefore the climate science must be changed, disavowed, ignored, reframed, renamed, reinvented etc.
Of course, even if there were no climate change or carbon problem whatsoever, economic growth would still be be an entropy engine that is inconsistent with long-term life on the planet. Economic growth drives biodiversity loss and the accelerating population declines of nonhuman species, ecological carrying capacity and planetary boundary overshoot, massive environmental degradation, resource depletion, wide-spectrum pollution and toxification impacts etc. The decline rates of everything from top soil to fertility rates (each with decline rates of between 1% to 2% per year) to rare earth minerals deliver fairly straightforward mathematical truths projected forwards.
Ha Ha..We get this a lot.. when the scientific facts don’t support the climate emergency narrative then it must be a few bad actors that spread disinformation. This includes the disrespectful cancelling of well respected and expert scientists that provide alternative proof. It just shows how politically subjugated the science has become…. Very sad.
The notion that it’s a small fringe element of scientists in discord is dead wrong.. we now have many growing organizations that contest the climate emergency rhetoric with strong facts from solid sources…. More on this is you want.
I never see any of the climate alarmist debating the facts we provide. The reason is they wont like the conclusion!
Even the IPCC does not declare a climate emergency at the scientific report level.. only when its spun up for the politicos and the press by the UN does it look like Armageddon .. just crazy.
More on this in the book unsettled by Koonin who only quotes using IPCC data.
As I have already said … you believe whatever religion you want, but don’t confuse it with science.
And the good news is the game is up in most new governments that will certainly move this climate emergency and NetZero thinking down the priority list.
Now please note that I am talking about climate change and the wrongful mitigation of CO2 that is not a danger to us.
On the subject of other forms of pollution that effect sustainability it’s a far more important subject and should be an ongoing level of concern. But even here we must be realistic, and science based.
I would rather talk about sustainability not less important climate change
My version of sustainability is to work on a better balance between economics, social and environmental challenges.
The best way to proceed is to assume that we can still have everything we need but with far better alternatives and controls and approaches to eliminate waste on how we approach our wants.
So, its about a more localized economy that mines makes grows and services much more of what it consumes so that the circular economy can be applied.
Then we need to train the population on managing wants versus needs and avoid the throwaway mentality in both product design and consumer preference.
Some changes in recycling technology at the materials and product level are to be encouraged.. for example recycling metals is well defined both technically and practically but not true for plastics. So assume we will need plastics, but work out how to make then recyclable with new technology
Don’t constrain energy with useless application of so called renewables but make it plentiful and affordable with the next generations of nuclear power.
The message .. you can have everything you need but it will follow new rules on how you satisfy your wants.
Hi Rachel - seems to be an audio glitch at 17.26
Fixed!
entanglement