Estimates for SAIL’s design and operation seem sophisticated but are fabricated. Wagner and Smith admit, “No existing aircraft design — even with extensive modifications — can reasonably fulfill [their] mission.” Wagner and others believe that scientists can calculate how many particulates will be needed to cool the Earth to a desired temperature.

Learning How Little We Know

In the late 1980s, outside Tucson, Arizona, scientists built a closed ecosystem (all food and water had to be obtained from inside the dome) to replicate the Earth’s biosphere. Eight humans resided in the biosphere for a short period of time. Not long into the experiment, project organizers had to open the sealed doors of Biosphere 2: “Oxygen levels got so low halfway through the first year that they had to put more in over fear for the safety of the Biosphere residents.”

John Adams, deputy director of Biosphere 2, clearly states the takeaway: “What they did learn, and in my opinion the single most important lesson, was just how little we truly understand Earth’s systems.” I suspect that Wagner won’t be calling Adams soon.

Consider the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea — once the fourth largest body of water on the planet — is now a vast wasteland that has shrunk to less than 25 percent of its former size. How could this have happened? Was it a change in weather? No, the destruction of the Aral Sea was the consequence of the Soviet decision to divert waters that flowed into the Aral Sea to irrigate land for cotton farming.

"You have hurt the image of public service and public faith in it," Mendelblit wrote to Netanyahu in his decision. "You acted in a conflict of interests, you abused your authority while taking into account other considerations that relate to your personal interests and the interests of your family. You corrupted public servants working under you."

Netanyahu's Likud party released a statement slamming the decision, which it called "political persecution." Likud blasted the attorney general for the timing of the publication of his decision.

"A publication of the decision a mere month before the election, without giving the prime minister an opportunity to refute these false claims is a blatant and unprecedented interference in the election. It has one goal: to topple the right-wing government headed by Netanyahu so as to give rise to a left-wing government headed by Lapid and Gantz. We cannot let this happen."

Over the last two decades, approximately 20% of the earth’s vegetated surface has become less productive, said the report, launched on Friday. It noted a “debilitating” loss of soil biodiversity, forests, grasslands, coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds and genetic diversity in crop and livestock species. In the oceans, a third of fishing areas are being overharvested.

Many species that are indirectly involved in food production, such as birds that eat crop pests and mangrove trees that help to purify water, are less abundant than in the past, noted the study, which collated global data, academic papers and reports by the governments of 91 countries.

As examples, the report noted how overdependence on a narrow range of species was a major factor in the famine caused by potato blight in Ireland in the 1840s, cereal crop failures in the US in the 20th century, and losses of taro production in Samoa in the 1990s. “There is an urgent need to change the way food is produced and ensure that biodiversity is not something that is swept aside but is treated as an irreplaceable resource and a key part of management strategies,” said Bélanger.

So it was that a non-departmental public body, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), announced last week that ‘UK homes are not fit for the future’, and that tough new building standards and enforcement will be necessary. Most shocking of all, the CCC said ‘no new homes should be connected to the gas grid’, and that gas central heating and plumbing should therefore be phased out.

Saving the planet, and homes, from the ravages of climate change is a good idea. But the CCC’s claims are questionable. As I reported here during last Summer’s heatwave, the CCC, like many climate alarmists, has a tendency to exaggerate risk and lose historical perspective. In truth, homes are actually better protected from the slightly warmer, slightly wetter and slightly windier weather that scientists predict might be our future than they were even a generation ago.

Unfortunately, most Americans are absolutely convinced that there is no reason to get prepared for hard times because everything is going to be just great.  In America today, most people either believe that the future is going to be totally wonderful or that the future will be totally wonderful once we get rid of Trump.  Because so many of us have adopted one of these false narratives, most Americans are partying instead of preparing, and that is going to mean big trouble when things really start going haywire.

But as long as things are relatively “normal”, this astounding lack of preparation will not be a problem.  And right now, Americans are acting as if things will be “normal” for the foreseeable future.  In fact, most of us are partying like it’s 1999 all over again.  As of this month, outstanding consumer debt exceeded $4 trillion for the first time, according to the Federal Reserve.

We are spending money as if there is no tomorrow, and that would be fine if tomorrow never arrived. Of course we really shouldn’t be spending money so wildly anyway, because many of us are already completely drowning in debt.  For example, auto loan delinquencies are already far higher than they were during the peak of the last recession. 

Unfortunately, all parties eventually come to an end, and the end of this one is going to be particularly painful. When disaster strikes, most Americans are going to be out of resources very, very rapidly.  One survey found that 78 percent of all American workers are living paycheck to paycheck.  That number is a little higher than other figures that I have seen, but everyone agrees that a solid majority of the country is barely scraping by each month.

When things get really bad, I honestly don’t know how most people are going to make it. If we had made different choices as a nation, we could have had a very different future. Sadly, our self-destructive behavior continues to get even worse, and a day of reckoning for America is fast approaching.

Although her fellow Democrats denounced her, their reaction has been wholly inadequate. A statement signed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats called on Omar to apologize for her “hurtful” comments. “Antisemitism must be called out, confronted and condemned whenever it is encountered, without exception,” Pelosi said. “Omar and I agreed that we must use this moment to move forward as we reject antisemitism in all forms.”

No apology can ever expunge the evil of antisemitism. For this doesn’t merely cause hurt or offense: it directly adds to the demonic discourse that continues to make Jews both within and outside of Israel the target of murderous hatred. Requiring an apology is to help the antisemite get herself off the hook with a mere slap on the wrist.

The Islamic world is driven by theologically-based paranoid hatred of Judaism. When societies and individuals find their identity fragmenting, they turn on the Jewish people as the scapegoat onto which they project their own murderous feelings. All these reasons and more have much validity. But ultimately, antisemitism is inexplicable because it is quite deranged. And that’s the most frightening thing of all.

Kushner presented some general outlines of the plan, saying that it would call for concessions from both sides. Netanyahu responded by saying: “We’ll wait and see what the final plan will look like. It will be presented after the Israeli elections – as you can imagine, that takes up a little bit of my time now. I don’t think that any of us should reject the plan and reject this initiative by the American administration before it’s even presented.”

The prime minister went on to say: “If we make progress and indeed a formal peace with the Palestinians, it would help us enormously in the Arab world and I would say with parts of the Muslim world, but I think it’s equally true that the normalization of relations with the Arab world also helps achieve peace with the Palestinians, and I’m happy to say that there’s progress on that.”

“Adolescence and childhood is a time when people are developing socially and biologically — a time when young people are identifying with different groups, and with male and female aspects of themselves,” Mr Evans told the BBC’s Today programme Monday.

“There is pressure from the child who is in a distressed state, there is pressure from the family and the peer group and from the pro-trans lobbies — and all of this puts pressure on the clinician who may want to help the individual to resolve their distressed state by going along with a quick solution. There is a lot at stake here as these decisions have far reaching consequences,” the consultant psychotherapist warned...

And at this point most of the other major western nations are also calling for Maduro to go, but Maduro insists that he isn’t going anywhere. So a peaceful solution to this crisis appears to be out of the question, and that means that war is almost certainly coming. This weekend was the first step. If western aid could be forced across the border, it would show that Maduro was losing control of the country. But if Maduro was able to block the aid that was coming across, that would make him look like a leader that doesn’t care about his people to those in the western world, and sympathetic media reports would help drum up support for war.

And at this point most of the other major western nations are also calling for Maduro to go, but Maduro insists that he isn’t going anywhere.  So a peaceful solution to this crisis appears to be out of the question, and that means that war is almost certainly coming. Peace is being taken from the Earth, and what is coming next is going to shock all of us.