Independence Day is a cheesy summer action blockbuster. And yet, after watching it one can’t help but feel good about humanity defeating an existential threat using courage, technology and science (and doing so under American leadership). The irony today is that we face such a species level threat. It just happens to be invisible and slow moving. I am talking about the greenhouse gases that are slowly but steadily warming up our planet (in particular our oceans) and our atmosphere. Climate change is the defining threat to humanity and we should be fighting it using all the courage, technology and science we can muster.

Here is the latest reporting from the Washington Post on all the heat records being broken in the last week leading up to this 4th of July. And here is a chart I just generated using the University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer, which shows departures from the 1979-2000 temperature average. You can see big heat bubbles over the US, Europe and especially over Antarctica:

This is also a good time to resurface the post I wrote last year on 4th of July. In it I rewrote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence to make it address what I believe we need for a World After Capital:

We hold these truths to be universal, that all humans are created equal; that they are endowed qua their humanity with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of both Happiness and Knowledge; that they have Responsibilities towards each other and other species, that among these are Tolerance, and the Application and Furtherance of Knowledge for the Benefit of All.

Happy 4th of July!

PS Uncertainty Wednesday will continue next week.

Independence Day is a cheesy summer action blockbuster. And yet, after watching it one can’t help but feel good about humanity defeating an existential threat using courage, technology and science (and doing so under American leadership). The irony today is that we face such a species level threat. It just happens to be invisible and slow moving. I am talking about the greenhouse gases that are slowly but steadily warming up our planet (in particular our oceans) and our atmosphere. Climate change is the defining threat to humanity and we should be fighting it using all the courage, technology and science we can muster.

Here is the latest reporting from the Washington Post on all the heat records being broken in the last week leading up to this 4th of July. And here is a chart I just generated using the University of Maine Climate Reanalyzer, which shows departures from the 1979-2000 temperature average. You can see big heat bubbles over the US, Europe and especially over Antarctica:

This is also a good time to resurface the post I wrote last year on 4th of July. In it I rewrote the beginning of the Declaration of Independence to make it address what I believe we need for a World After Capital:

We hold these truths to be universal, that all humans are created equal; that they are endowed qua their humanity with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of both Happiness and Knowledge; that they have Responsibilities towards each other and other species, that among these are Tolerance, and the Application and Furtherance of Knowledge for the Benefit of All.

Happy 4th of July!

PS Uncertainty Wednesday will continue next week.