Give Donald Trump credit. He may be the ultimate destroyer of an imperial power. Im thinking, of course, of the United States. After all, hes in the process of turning climate change oops, sorry, that hoax, that green new scam, the greatest con job around over to the rising imperial power on this planet, China. The Trump dollar? Count on one thing: it wont be green. (In fact, it will be silver and Donald J. Trump will be on both sides of it.) And the future green power version of capitalism (call it communism if you wish) will be China's all the way. Its already selling its remarkably inexpensive electric vehicles globally in a striking fashion (except in Canada and the United States) and is conquering the market for green-powered products planetwide in a genuinely impressive fashion (even if it is still building new coal-fired power plants at home and releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other country on Earth). Still, its also beginning to mobilize to deal with the climate disaster, leaving Donald Trumps America, focused as it is on fossil fuels, in the lurch as it does everything imaginable to yes, you guessed it! drill, baby, drill.
No, President Trump didn't even bother to attend the recent climate summit in Brazil or send any significant officials there (even if California Governor Gavin Newsom did attend on his own and swear that California would be a reliable partner on climate policy and green technology despite Washington's abandonment of the effort). In short, Donald Trump simply refuses to face whats truly happening on this planet in a fashion that will, in the end (and I use that word advisedly), undoubtedly prove catastrophic not just for this country but for the planet as a whole. And in that effort, hes being largely helped by his billionaire buddies. But let TomDispatch regular Juan Cole, who runs the must-read Informed Comment website, explain in his usual vivid fashion. Increasingly, its all too literally one hell of a planet to find ourselves on. Tom
The Hot Tub of Death?
Bill Gates, Hurricane Melissa, and a Civilization Under Threat
By Juan Cole
In late October, Hurricane Melissa (that should have been called Godzilla) battered western Jamaica with 185-mile-an-hour winds. It tossed the roofs of buildings about like splintering javelins, demolished municipal buildings and hospitals, snapped telephone poles like matchsticks, flattened crops, and dumped torrential floodwaters everywhere, leaving $8 billion in damage. That Category 5 storms unprecedented ferocity was driven by an overheated Caribbean Sea, produced by 275 years of industrial civilization that has spewed obscene amounts of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
The same week that U.N. officials spoke of an apocalypse in Jamaica, American billionaire Bill Gates expressed a certain unease about officials and scientists concerned with climate change who, he thought, were being hysterical. He urged them to chill the hell out. It was an arrogant and manipulative oracle, uttered with all the privilege of the worlds 19th richest man. A symbol of monopoly capitalism, his individual net worth rivals the annual gross domestic product of the Dominican Republic. And when he responded to Hurricane Melissa, he did so (not surprisingly, I suppose) in the narrow sectional interests of the worlds wealthiest class in Silicon Valley.
My House Is a Rubbish Heap
Gates rejects the view that climate change will decimate civilization, insisting instead that it will not lead to humanity's demise. Of course, no one in the scientific community had argued that climate change would actually wipe out humankind, so he is indeed (and all too conveniently) attacking a straw man.
That he resorted to a description of such fallacious relevance shows how intent he is on engaging in a bad-faith argument. And that, in turn, raises the question of his motivation. After all, the possible decimation of civilization, as did indeed occur in parts of Jamaica recently, is quite different from the full-scale extinction of the human species, and it certainly raises questions of equity. The nearly half a million Jamaicans who will be without electricity for weeks and who may face severe food shortages because of crop damage will, of course, not be enjoying much in the way of civilization In the wake of Melissa. As Sherlette Wheelan of that islands Westmoreland Parish said, My house is like a rubbish heap, completely gone. If it wasn't for the shelter manager, I don't know what I would've done. She found space for me and others, even though her own roof was gone.
And imagine this: the hurricanes of the future world were now creating by burning such quantities of fossil fuels, in which temperatures could rise by a disastrous 3 degrees Celsius, are likely to be so gargantuan as to make our present behemoths look sickly. Melissa was already a third more powerful than it would have been without climate breakdown. Heat up the Caribbean Sea even more, and the power of storm winds wont increase on a gentle slope but exponentially. Scientists are already suggesting that we need a new Category 6 classification for such hurricanes, since our present 5 categories are inadequate, given their increasing power. Remember, at present, with Melissa's already appearing, we have only experienced a global 1.3 degrees Celsius increase in temperature over the preindustrial norm. At issue is the quality of life and the degree of civilization that will be possible in a world where the temperature increase could be at least double that.
The Demand for Data Centers Cannot Be Met Sustainably
A decade ago, many of the companies in Silicon Valley seemed willing to take on the role of climate champions. Microsoft, where Gates made his career, pledged to be carbon negative by 2030. Jeff Bezoss Amazon has already put more than 30,000 electric vehicles on the road and has pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. In general, you would think that Silicon Valley would be pro-science and hence willing to combat the use of fossil fuels and so the worsening of climate change. After all, the industry depends on basic scientific research, much of it produced by government-funded scientists.
As it turns out, though, the high-tech sector that has produced so many billionaires is instead simply pro-billionaire. This year, we were treated to the spectacle of future trillionaire Elon Musk, while still working with Donald Trump, firing 10% to 15% of all government scientists under the rubric of the Department of Government Efficiency, an act that, in the long run, could also help destroy American scientific and technological superiority. Climate scientists were especially targeted. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency is now so understaffed that the carnage of Hurricane Melissa had to be monitored by volunteers.
The high-tech worlds abrupt turn to a rabid anti-science stance is likely the result of the emergence of large language models (also known as artificial intelligence or AI) and a consequent new romance with the burning of fossil fuels. This development made Nvidia, which produces the graphics-processing units that run much of AI, the first $5 trillion company. That AI has not yet proven able to increase productivity or produce any measurable added value has not stopped the hype around it from driving the biggest securities bubble since the late 1990s.
The AI phenomenon may functionally print money for tech billionaires, at least for the time being, but it comes with a gargantuan environmental cost. Its data centers are water and energy hogs and are poised to use ever more fossil fuels and so increase global carbon emissions significantly. MIT researchers estimate that by 2026, the electricity consumption of data centers is expected to approach 1,050 terawatt-hours, rivaling that of the energy consumption of whole countries like Japan or Russia. By 2030, its estimated that at least a tenth of electricity demand is likely to be driven by new data centers. MIT's Noman Bashir concludes ominously, The demand for new data centers cannot be met in a sustainable way. The pace at which companies are building new data centers means the bulk of the electricity to power them must come from fossil fuel-based power plants.
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