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Don't believe in climate change? Well, insurance companies do. "We are well on the road to the inevitable political crisis that will be sparked by insurance. State Farm just stopped selling home insurance in California, due to wildfire and other climate-driven risks. Coastal states in the path of hurricanes have seen tons of insurers pull out altogether in recent years, and the ones left are handing down eye-watering premium increases to homeowners. Florida property insurance rates are rising 40% in a single year(!). In Louisiana, it was even worse—the state insurance of last resort bumped its rates 63% this year. Increases like this prompt predictable outrage. “Louisiana needs a healthy, competitive insurance market,” a typical editorial went, “but not at the cost of making it difficult-to-impossible for Louisianans to remain in their homes.” "And sure, you don’t have to be great at math to see that an annual insurance bill that compounds at something like 50% a year is,...

I'm a scientist. My professional success has always relied on distinguishing between information that is useful as a guide to action vs BS. I've been very successful as a scientist because my crap detector has been well-tuned. The internet is a great resource if you have a good crap detector. If you don't, you'll fall for anything. "Conservatives don't get passively fed misinformation. They choose it, eyes wide open. They want to believe lies and conspiracy theories from people like Donald Trump, and after they "do their research" the comforting lies are all that's left. "But what is it that makes the endless lies so comforting?" https://jabberwocking.com/conservatives-actively-want-to-believe-only-lies/

With all the anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence, it's nice to read about a positive result. Not only did AI come up with a potentially effective new antibiotic, but: "What’s more, the compound identified by AI worked in a way that stymied only the problem pathogen. It didn’t seem to kill the many other species of beneficial bacteria that live in the gut or on the skin, making it a rare narrowly targeted agent." https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/25/health/antibiotic-artificial-intelligence-superbug/index.html

 How are those debt-ceiling negotiations going? Follow the money: "To put it in layman’s terms, if you need a place to put money over the course of this summer and you need it to be as safe as possible, investors are deciding Microsoft’s corporate bonds are more attractive than bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury. "It’s a clarifying perspective on the impact of GOP extremism and nihilism on the nation’s finances and global power." https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/shit-gets-real

The so-called Gephardt Rule (in honor of Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt who introduced its first version) provided that when the House agrees to a budget resolution, the Clerk shall prepare a joint resolution suspending the debt limit for the fiscal year covered by the budget resolution. It was repealed at the beginning of the 107th Congress, which had a Republican majority. The Gephardt Rule reflects the language of the 14th Amendment and would obviate the current GOP debt ceiling default threat hostage-taking, returning the budget debate to where it belongs—when the budget is being written. No do-overs between budgets, and no threats to the good faith and credit of the US.

I suspect that McCarthy and the GOP House think they have Biden boxed in for impeachment. If the nation goes into default, they'll impeach him. If he ignores the ceiling, they'll impeach him. There won't be 67 votes in the Senate for impeachment, but the trial will tie up the Senate business, blocking progress on judicial appointments. Not sure this will go over well in 2024 with the GOP plainly playing politics with the American economy.  

As I've posted here many times, the future of humanity in the second half of the 21st century looks bleak. Not just because of coastal flooding and desertification, but mostly because of the resource wars triggered by populations who need food and fresh water and are willing to fight and kill for it. It's too late already for conservation to make a difference. There's already too much CO2 in the atmosphere and it takes decades to dissipate. Moreover, melting of permafrost and methane clathrates, together with decreasing albedo in places formerly covered by reflective ice and snow, will amplify the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The only hopes to avoid disaster are geoengineering and carbon capture. Planet-scale geoengineering is risky, since we don't know enough about controlling any of the current methods. That leaves carbon capture. While carbon capture technology to remove CO2 at the source is maturing, removing atmospheric CO2 on a global scale i...