WHAT DIDN'T HE KNOW AND WHEN DIDN'T HE KNOW IT?

What didn't Trump know and when didn't he know it?

Concerning Trump in general and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, the simple answer is that he knows nothing, always. Despite being "a very stable genius," perennial ignorance is his stock in trade. It lets him avoid responsibility across the board. Unlike President Truman, the buck never stops at Trump's desk (or if it does, like Macavity, Trump wasn't there. He never got the memo.)

Harry Truman, 1959--the buck stops here

Credit: Levan Ramishvili/flickr

Unfortunately for America, sometimes ignorance, especially arrogantly willful ignorance, has costs, real-world impacts that can't be erased by shifting blame to someone else (right now WHO's on first), smearing someone with a smarmy nickname, or filing a lawsuit.

MACAVITY'S NOT THERE

Credit: Pixabay

As I write this, 565,835 Americans have been sickened by the coronovirus, and 22,850 have died. That's more cases than the next three worst-hit countries combined, and more deaths than any other country. So much for MAGA and "we're number one."

Tragically, neither those deaths nor those yet to come will make a difference to Trump's core supporters; his approval ratings have ranged from 41 to 49 percent as the pandemic has raged.  Still, for those of us who at least try to live in the real world, it might be interesting to figure out what Trump could have known, and ought to have known, and when he chose to ignore it and go with his--also brilliant--gut.

We now know that multiple agencies were trying to alert Trump to the approaching tsunami starting in January. These included the National Security Council, Health and Human Services, the CDC, Homeland Security, the VA and the Pentagon--at least 10 high-level warnings between January 18 and February 25. Clearly enough of these early warnings got through to him to stimulate him to do what comes naturally to him--closing borders. On January 31 he banned most travelers coming from China. 

Domestically, however, Trump presented a very different face to the U.S. public. From January 20th through mid-March, Trump blatantly downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic. His consistent message was "no worries," "under control," and "it will disappear." Finally, in mid-March, and some six weeks too late, he began to take the pandemic seriously in terms of what should be done within the U.S.

What he could have known if he were capable of and willing to listen to experts, was that viruses like SARS-CoV-2 have the capacity to go viral--duh--for the number of people sickened or killed to increase exponentially.  If he had digested that bit of information, his native genius could have led him to the conclusion that days count. In a country the size of the US, putting effective control measures into place a week or two sooner could mean the difference between a few thousand deaths and a few hundred thousand deaths .

We can see this clearly if we compare New York and California. New York dithered while California took quick and serious steps to slow the spread of the virus.  As of 4/13/20, New York has registered 195,031 cases and suffered 10,056 deaths. California has just one-eighth as many cases, 23,428 and one-fifteenth as many deaths, 675. The contrast becomes even starker when you consider that California has twice the population of New York. So, per population, California has just one-sixteenth the number of cases and one-thirtieth he number of deaths. If California had failed to act as quickly and decisively as it did, 20,000 more people might have died.

What the experts tried to get across to Trump starting in January is that when you're dealing with the potentially exponential explosion of a fatal disease, there isn't room for half measures nor time for delay. Trump only heard what he wanted to hear, and reality steamrolled over all his magical thinking, political positioning and base-soothing blather to remind us that ignorance can be fatal. That makes Trump even more dangerous than we thought just a few months ago.

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REA

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6/28/20:  Just to add one more data point to the ongoing drama of what Trump didn't know and when didn't he know it, we now have the scandal of Russian intelligence paying a bounty to the Taliban for the murder of US soldiers. As usual, Trump missed the briefing, and the next briefing, and the one after that . . .

HOW MANY WILL DIE FROM THE CORONAVIRUS IN THE US? TWO INTERACTIVE CALCULATORS TO SEE FOR YOURSELF

The math is simple. Plug in what percentage of US citizens will eventually catch the virus and what percent of those will die. The New York Times provides a convenient--and very sobering--calculator so you you can see for yourself. Just click here.

This is the enemy--Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2

Credit: NIAID//RML

If 40 percent get the disease and just 1 percent or them die, the coronavirus will kill more Americans this year than heart disease and cancer--the two leading causes of death--combined.

At least to some extent both variables are under our control. The number of people who contract the disease can be limited by our personal behavior and by mandated closures and quarantines. Having tests available to quickly identify carriers of the disease and their contacts is crucial. Unfortunately, the US lags far behind other countries on this critical factor. The percentage of infected people who die depends on the availability and quality of health care for them, and, in particular, keeping the number of cases at any given time within the capacity of the health care system.

We can only hope that we, as individuals and through our local, state and federal governments, will rise to this enormous challenge. If not, many of us will fall.

A sobering and urgent note: In the extremely important article here, you'll find a more detailed interactive calculator. You can see that in the United States, the difference between doing nothing to stop the pandemic and a strict and effective nationwide intervention NOW could mean the difference between 10,000,000 deaths and 4,000 deaths! Before you decide that that sounds crazy, read the article.

REA

Note 3/30/20:  In this comparison of coronavirus cases in New York vs California, you can see what difference even a few days lag in imposing strict stay-at-home orders makes. California--population 39.5 million, first state to impose strict controls: current # of cases 6358, deaths 132. New York--population 19.5 million, delayed a week before imposing controls: current # of cases 60,679, deaths 1063. The number of cases per population in NY is 19 times greater than in California, and the number of deaths per population 17 times greater. What a tragic difference a week's delay makes.

CALIFORNIA POWERS AHEAD IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

We need all the good news we can find these days, and California has just handed us a climate-change bouquet.

On August 28, 2018, the legislature passed a bill that requires 100 percent carbon-free electricity in the state by 2045. This massive change in the way power is produced in or imported to California will keep 70 million metric tons of greenhouse gases from being spewed into the atmosphere every year, equivalent to taking 12 million cars off the road.

California Wind Farm
a rapidly growing source of clean power

Credit: Creative Commons Zero; Max Pixel

If Governor Brown signs the bill into law, as expected, California will become the largest economy in the world to commit to 100% carbon neutral electricity before mid-century. (Yes! Governor Brown signed the bill into law on September 10, 2018).

Of course, much more than this is needed for the world to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and keep global temperatures no more than 1.5 or at most 2.0 degrees C (2.7/3.6 degrees F) above pre-industrial levels. Still, it's a giant step in the right direction, and one that we hope many more states, cities, countries, companies and industries will follow--and the sooner the better.

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You can find the text of California Senate Bill 100 here.

CALIFORNIA'S ECONOMY BOOMS WHILE ITS CARBON FOOTPRINT SHRINKS

As reported in Grist earlier this month, California's carbon emissions are down to the levels they were way back in the 1990s, while at the same time its economic productivity has soared. According to the state's Air Resources Board, “California now produces twice as many goods and services for the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as the rest of the nation."

California windfarm--part of the state's energy success story

Credit: Creative Commons Zero--CC0 

If one believes economists and politicians who, like Donald Trump, are still pushing coal or other greenhouse-gas-spewing energy sources, California, which is leading the nation in the transition to renewable energy, should be failing. For those still interested in facts, nothing could be further from the truth. California's per capita greenhouse gas emissions are roughly one-half the US average, yet it produces twice as many goods and services for every unit of energy use.

Kudos to California for leading the way. However, there's still lots of room for improvement. Transportation still relies far too heavily on fossil fuels, and accounts for 41 percent of California's carbon emissions. To tackle this, the state has plans in place to multiply the number of electric vehicles on California's roads 12 times within the next 12 years.

If the state has the same success with that plan as it has had on its overall carbon emissions, it's likely to beat that deadline and still lead the country in terms of economic productivity, not to mention improved quality of life.

What are the rest of the states waiting for?

REA

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WHEN CATASTROPHE COMES HOME

I live in Santa Rosa, California. As you know, Santa Rosa, along with many other parts of California, is still reeling from the impact of raging wildfires.

A barn goes up in flames in Glen Ellen, California

Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

My wife and I are lucky--our house happens to be located a mile or two from where the firestorm stopped. We've spent several sleepless nights, bags packed and in our car, monitoring whether or not we would need to flee. But other than that, we have not been directly impacted by the fires.

Many people were not so lucky. This morning's paper lists 50,000 residents of our county--that's one out of every ten--under evacuation orders, 35 confirmed deaths, 235 people still missing, 5700 homes and businesses destroyed, and more than $1.2 billion in economic damage in Santa Rosa alone. Many of our friends and people we know have lost their homes, businesses or jobs.

We're all-too-used to reading about or seeing images of catastrophes somewhere else--floods in Bangladesh, drought in Australia, hurricanes battering Puerto Rico, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Perhaps we've been moved to a moment's empathy or pity, perhaps we make a donation to some aid agency, or perhaps we just shake our heads and move on.

It's different when it's here rather than there, in our home town rather than someone else's, harming our family or friends rather than strangers.

Our natural disaster, our catastrophe has brought several realizations home to me:

--It can happen here. None of us is immune. Here in Santa Rosa, it wasn't just the Journey's End mobile home park that was destroyed, it was also the middle-class Coffey Park neighborhood and the idyllic Fountaingrove neighborhood, home to many doctors, lawyers and other well-off citizens. Like the residents of Journey's End and Coffey Park, the residents of Fountaingrove had to desert their homes with little or no warning in the middle of the night as the unexpected firestorm blasted through, driven by 70 miles-per-hour winds. Some, many of them elderly or disabled, simply could not get out in time.

--It's real, and it hurts.  It's one thing to see struggling people on TV. It's very different when it's you spending hours hosing down your house and yard while hot embers fall from the sky, when it's you trying to decide what necessities to throw into the car, looking around your house wondering if you'll see it again, or you helping a desperate friend rescue a few precious things before the fire strikes again. It's different when the store you shopped in yesterday is gone today and the neighborhood you've visited a hundred times is a blackened wasteland.

--Ordinary, daily life is precious. It's trite to repeat that "you don't really know what you've got 'till it's gone," but it's also a profound truth. We may all strive to do or experience something extraordinary, have a peak experience, change the world, but in the end what's truly valuable is the everyday life of everyday people. When that's disrupted or lost, you suddenly realizes how precious it was.

We've experienced just one corner of one natural disaster. The dozens who have died, the thousands who've been displaced, represent just a tiny fraction of the estimated 65 million displaced persons and refugees in the world today. But even that enormous number pales in comparison to the number of people--people just like you and me--who are at risk from two existential threats--climate disruption and nuclear war.

I'm not going to argue the reality of either threat. I'll only point out that common sense should tell us that the number and intensity of the extreme climatic events that we're experiencing is far from normal, and that further destabilization of the climate could threaten any or all of us. And a moment's thought should be more than enough to remind us that even a "limited nuclear exchange" could result in misery or death for hundreds of millions of people.

The limited, local disaster I'm living through has brought home to me the preciousness--and fragility--of each of our lives. Multiplying the losses experienced here by millions is no longer unthinkable, but it is unacceptable.

I've been extremely impressed by the local leaders who have come to the fore in this disaster--the local and state fire officials, the sheriff and police officers, mayors and other elected officials. They have all been clear, direct, factual, and focused on responding to and resolving the crisis, step by step. Their efforts to protect lives, contain the fires, begin to bring them under control and now, line up the resources needed to rebuild, seem to be well coordinated and, as more resources have been marshaled, increasingly effective. I've been similarly impressed by how ordinary people have responded--rescuing and helping others, giving time, goods and money to help people who've had to evacuate or who have lost their homes, and showing great dignity and resilience in the face of disaster.

Unfortunately, the contrast with how our national leaders are dealing with the existential threats of climate disruption and nuclear war could not be greater. In both cases, actions by President Trump, his advisers and appointees, and Congress are making things worse rather than  better. Pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement is just the most blatant of the many steps Trump has taken to reverse global progress on the climate. And undermining the nuclear accord with Iran, and the belly-thumping battle between Trump and Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un are dramatically increasing the risk of a nuclear war.

The point of this commentary is to remind everyone that when it comes to the global risks from climate disruption or nuclear war, there is actually here, and they are actually us. People here in Santa Rosa took action as the flames approached, and most were able to save their lives and those of their loved ones. Government officials and agencies took coordinated action to limit the scope of the disaster. People at all levels did what what needed. We need our nation's leaders to act equally well.

We all need to take action now with respect to the threats of runaway climate change and nuclear war. Now, with every tool at our disposal, because when those fires come roaring out of the skies, it will simply be too late.

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SOUTH MIAMI BREAKS FROM CLIMATE DENIAL, MANDATES SOLAR PANELS ON NEW CONSTRUCTION

Here's a quicklink to a Cleantechnia,com story about how South Miami is coming to its senses about global warming, climate change and, especially, the region's risk from rising sea levels and storm surges. It's the first city outside of California to mandate solar panels on all new homes.

Tidal flooding on a sunny day, Miami, 2016
Credit: B137

While our leaders at the federal level continue to march backwards with respect to climate change and its impacts, cities like South Miami and states like California and New York are, of necessity, taking the lead.