The Climate of Change

by William J Mullen

12:06 A.M. January 27, 2018

High in the hills of New Hampshire

2017 was an unprecedented year on many levels.

Where do we want to start? The latest mass killings here in the states? The sexual harassment scandals? Russia? Syria? Kurdistan? Trump? Clinton? Korea? Republicans . . . Democrats . . . fuck.

Sitting here at this hour of night, it’s quiet. The night is dark and constant. The night is cold. Dogs are sleeping. Cats are watching people sleep . . . waiting.

It is . . . cold. Though, it was a very mild fall. Unprecedentedly mild. The summer was unusually weird, the spring was painful, the winter was a jaw-dropper. Yes, 2017 was an unusual year; season, life, politics; Irma, Harvey, wildfires; Trump. Jesus, what’s next?

The climate of everything changed.

Climate change: in and of itself a flash point of dispute.

The obvious and inevitable, the forewarned, the scientifically peer-reviewed reality of climate change has yet to grip much of ‘Murica. It has yet to strike real fear into the hearts and minds of the great American institutions: The National Real Estate Insurance Group, Travellers — real estate insurance giants; Wells Fargo, or Chase — mortgage and finance; Dentons, Holland & Knight — real estate law; and most importantly at this snapshot point, Donald J. Trump.

But Trump is part of another global, trending, piss-poor moment in human existence: the modern rise of authoritarianism. It is everywhere — like climate change — although, the political change of the past ten years is not unprecedented. Not even. Look to the 1930’s and 1940’s. Although then the fascist movement was not preceded by years of global social progressiveness. And that, makes our current slip into a global fascist movement, all the more surprising.

But tonight, up here at close to 2000 feet, it’s barely freezing, and weird. It is cold . . . but not normal. No, normal has been upended, usurped, sold out, colluded against.

~ ~ ~

2017, the third warmest year (global average) on record (2016 was the warmest on record). A year of damaging hurricanes; fires; drought; disease — all attributable to global warming; climate change. A year in which the United States pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord. Although it is more accurate to say Trump pulled out, as countless US corporations, states, and individual American investors will keep their part of the Paris goals alive. But in the new climate of change, the individual, the comrade, civilian, patriot — they don’t matter. No, this is not a movement of the grassroots, of the people: this is a movement of the large, the incorporated, the truly entitled. Those who can oppress. And do.

Because it’s all one and the same, climate change, and the rise of modern global fascism. And to speak out against either is nearly heretical.

They say many things happen in clusters, for good or ill. They say history repeats itself. They say never forget. They say to see the future look to the past. And in recognizing all that, maybe, just maybe, we can learn from missteps in our collective past. The issue . . . the problem . . . the breakdown point, is that we are moving into the unknown. Up to this point, we have had a record from the past, that has been instrumental in forecasting our future: be it climate, politics, economy, society itself. This is breaking down. All of it. Our collective experience are no longer relevant. The years of climatological records are useful only as the baseline by which climate change is now measured; the social history of the early 20th century as merely a guidepost on the way . . . a comparison/contrast . . . in our global slide towards authoritarian rule.

You don’t need to look far to see the signs. No, they’re beating us over the head. Just like climate change. Look at the acceptance of the authoritarians the world over; Putin, Duarte, Kim Jong un, Erdogan, Bin Salman, Trump.

This is a decided social wave. A contagion. A backlash. A flailing, crying, red-faced, spit-hurling, bloody outcry against social progress. An entrenched and outdated cross-section of the global population is lashing out at the social changes worldwide since the 1960s. This same cross-section (and a deeply embedded commercial infrastructure) is denying, vehemently, that climate change is real — that the current back-slide of social change is real; that people play a role — that is not in the exclusive dominion of God.

People are driving these trends, these anomalies. All of the factors in the climate of change.

In terms of the climate, these once anomalies are becoming the apparent new normal. It is simply a different set of rules that we don’t even yet understand. This is how many people feel about our current state of modern political affairs as well, that we are moving into an unknown, great variable that has no real analog, no data-set by which to predict the level of change.

Yes, the slide towards authoritarianism is a kind of climate change.

A basic argument used by naysayers against the reality of global climate change is something like, “Look, weather has been doing its own thing for a long, long time — and no amount of human activity is going to change that.” The simple, irrefutable, peer-reviewed consensus of world scientists is that global climate change is real, is not going away, is man made, and will get worse before — likely long before — it ever returns to some kind of normal.

The issue with our global social politics is at the same place, really. We’re facing a new set of parameters, with higher stakes, longer odds, and unknown players — very many of them with deep authoritarian tendencies. The contagion of fascism in the early 20th century: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini — did not die in some dark places, in some dark hearts. The difference today is that, unlike in the 1930s, where the forces against fascism were powerful countries provided a strong counter-balance to rising global nationalism and fascism. But where is our Roosevelt, where is our Churchill? Where are the French Resistance? France recently nearly elected Marine LePen. We have Putin, but no Truman, shit, no Reagan. No, we have Trump: a lifelong neo-dictator, and an authoritarian fetishist. We have Kim Jong Un; we have no Eisenhower, no Chamberlain. We have no resistance, no big resistance.

We have a world squashed among three posturing world leaders: Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping. Regionally the world is mashed further among smaller tyrants: Erdogan, Duarte, Bin Salman, Assad, et al. There is no heavy-weight counterbalance.

When the sea level rises the flood waters will come, disrupting millions of lives for generations to come. It’s happening and we need to take stock of it. Global political change is also real. It is already like a cancer. And with the rising seas, one day: dunes and sea-walls will not be enough. The Senators, parliaments, courts will not be enough to hold back the authoritarians.

But it is never too late to see this for what it is, a global tragedy unfolding in front of our eyes. It is never too late to try to change course. To stop the rising tides. To stop the rising tyrants.

~ ~ ~

3:45 AM

The fire is long dead in the woodstove. The last of the smoke and heat evaporated hours ago. The house is cold now, lit only by several strands of tiny white holiday lights. It is an eerily quiet time of night.

Tom Waits quietly keeps me company, along with some rye whiskey.

I think about the country. I think of my youth, growing up in the seventies; from where the country had been; the changes socially throughout the end of the 20th century — I could have never imagined the depth of the great American tragedy we are witnessing. The depth of the potential global tragedy . . .

I just hope the will of humanity isn’t like that woodstove.
WJM