When Nixon Resigned... Eugene Linden : endangered animals, rapid climate change, global deforestation, fragging

One Explanation for Recent Stock Market Whipsaws

I've been mystified by the massive swings upward in the stock market whenever Trump makes a sttement backing off his tough tariff talk. After ten years of listening to Trump throw out stalling lines whenever he feels cornered, no human investor would believe him. So why would the markets take...

When Nixon Resigned...

Friday August 08, 2014

When Richard Nixon resigned forty years ago I was in Lesotho, a tiny, mountainous, eroded and overpopulated Kingdom that is entirely surrounded by South Africa. The project that brought me to Lesotho was my book, The Alms Race, which tried to answer the question of why attempts to help the developing world continually repeated the mistakes of the past [the answer is that many of the projects that were abject failures from the recipients point of view actually were successes in terms of the donor's objectives]. I was interviewing a couple of officials from the Ministry of Education when the news came through that Nixon had resigned. The bureaucrats were in the process of trying to devise a curriculum that would convey to bright-eyed students that Lesotho had a rational system of government, when in fact, at that time, the country was ruled by a strongman.

At one point the delicate question came up of how to discuss the fact that the Prime Minister, Chief Leabua Jonathan, had suspended the constitution a few years earlier and that nothing had replaced it. One of the officials, a glib, rising star in the Ministry, had a ready answer. Alluding to Nixon's misdeeds he said that the needs of a developing country are somewhat different than those of Great Britain or the United States, and that there were countries with law that were lawless, like the United States, and there were countries without constitutions that we're law abiding, e.g. Lesotho.

At this, another official, a decent, educated man, had had enough. Risking his career, he said, "Didn't Watergate show that the United States is not a lawless country, and, in fact, didn't Watergate show the strengths of a constitutional system?" I felt like applauding.

One other note on Nixon. If someone had told me back then that Richard Nixon would be our greatest President in terms of pushing through environmental legislation protecting air, water and endangered species I would have laughed outright. Nor would I have believed it, if someone had predicted that no environmental law passed during the subsequent 40 years would be anywhere near as significant as the landmark acts of Nixon's administration. But it's true, and it's worth reflecting on what it means that this legislation, that materially changed the face of America for the better, came from a most unlikely champion.

Short Take

An Excerpt from Fire and Flood Explaining a Universal Climate Tariff

The American Meteorological Society names Fire and Flood its book of the year for 2023, awarding it the Louis J Batton Author's Award.

"Eugene Linden wrote his first story on climate change, for Time magazine, in 1988; it was just the beginning of his investigative work, exploring all ramifications of this impending disaster. Fire and Flood represents his definitive case for the prosecution as to how and why we have arrived at our current dire pass, closing with his argument that the same forces that have confused the public’s mind and slowed the policy response are poised to pivot with astonishing speed, as long-term risks have become present-day realities and the cliff’s edge is now within view.

Starting with the 1980s, Linden tells the story, decade by decade, by looking at four clocks that move at different speeds: the reality of climate change itself; the scientific consensus about it, which always lags reality; public opinion and political will, which lag farther still; and, arguably, most importantly, business and finance. Reality marches on at its own pace, but the public will and even the science are downstream from the money, and Fire and Flood shows how devilishly effective monied climate-change deniers have been at slowing and even reversing the progress of our collective awakening. When a threat means certain but future disaster, but addressing it means losing present-tense profit, capitalism's response has been sadly predictable.

Now, however, the seasons of fire and flood have crossed the threshold into plain view. Linden focuses on the insurance industry as one loud canary in the coal mine: fire and flood zones in Florida and California, among other regions, are now seeing what many call climate redlining. The whole system is teetering on the brink, and the odds of another housing collapse, for starters, are much higher than most people understand. There is a path back from the cliff, but we must pick up the pace. Fire and Flood shows us why, and how." From Catalog Copy

Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/05/27/climate-change-russia-us-are-uncomfortably-alike/
Library Journal Review:
https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/fire-and-flood-a-peoples-history-of-climate-change-from-1979-to-the-present-2135202
Publishers Weekly:
https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-98488-224-0