This is a quick update on our very important membership drive. Tuesday will mark the end of the first week of the drive. Our goal is to sign up 1,000 new members during the drive. As of this moment we’re at 422. That’s getting close to half way there. So that’s great. Thank you! We’d really like to get half way to our goal by tomorrow evening. So if you’re a TPM Reader but not currently a TPM Member please make this the moment by clicking right here. We’re even running a special 40% discount. So it’s a great time to join.
Big News in New Jersey
To my great surprise and seemingly to the surprise of almost everyone else, New Jersey First Lady Tammy Murphy announced today that she is ending her campaign for Senate. That almost certainly clears the path for Rep. Andy Kim to become the Democratic nominee for the seat currently held by Sen. Bob Menendez. New Jersey isn’t quite in California sure-thing territory. But this makes it very likely that Kim will be elected to the Senate in November.
Continue reading “Big News in New Jersey”The Anthropocene May Not Be An ‘Epoch,’ But The Age Of Humans Is Most Definitely Underway
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
When people talk about the “Anthropocene,” they typically picture the vast impact human societies are having on the planet, from rapid declines in biodiversity to increases in Earth’s temperature by burning fossil fuels.
Such massive planetary changes did not begin all at once at any single place or time.
That’s why it was controversial when, after over a decade of study and debate, an international committee of scientists – the Anthropocene Working Group – proposed to mark the Anthropocene as an epoch in the geologic time scale starting precisely in 1952. The marker was radioactive fallout from hydrogen bomb tests.
On March 4, 2024, the commission responsible for recognizing time units within our most recent period of geologic time – the Subcommission on Quarternary Stratigraphy – rejected that proposal, with 12 of 18 members voting no. These are the scientists most expert at reconstructing Earth’s history from the evidence in rocks. They determined that adding an Anthropocene Epoch – and terminating the Holocene Epoch – was not supported by the standards used to define epochs.
To be clear, this vote has no bearing on the overwhelming evidence that human societies are indeed transforming this planet.
As an ecologist who studies global change, I served on the Anthropocene Working Group from its start in 2009 until 2023. I resigned because I was convinced that this proposal defined the Anthropocene so narrowly that it would damage broader scientific and public understanding.
By tying the start of the human age to such a recent and devastating event – nuclear fallout – this proposal risked sowing confusion about the deep history of how humans are transforming the Earth, from climate change and biodiversity losses to pollution by plastics and tropical deforestation.
The original idea of the Anthropocene
In the years since the term Anthropocene was coined by Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000, it has increasingly defined our times as an age of human-caused planetary transformation, from climate change to biodiversity loss, plastic pollution, megafires and much more.
Crutzen originally proposed that the Anthropocene began in the latter part of the 18th century, as a product of the Industrial age. He also noted that setting a more precise start date would be “arbitrary.”
According to geologists, we humans have been living in the Holocene Epoch for about 11,700 years, since the end of the last ice age.
Human societies began influencing Earth’s biodiversity and climate through agriculture thousands of years ago. These changes began to accelerate about five centuries ago with the colonial collision of the old and new worlds. And, as Crutzen noted, Earth’s climate really began to change with the increasing use of fossil fuels in the Industrial Revolution that began in the late 1700s.
The Anthropocene as an epoch
The rationale for proposing to define an Anthropocene Epoch starting around 1950 came from overwhelming evidence that many of the most consequential changes of the human age shifted upward dramatically about that time in a so-called “Great Acceleration” identified by climate scientist Will Steffen and others.
Radioisotopes like plutonium from hydrogen bomb tests conducted around this time left clear traces in soils, sediments, trees, corals and other potential geological records across the planet. The plutonium peak in the sediments of Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada – chosen as the “golden spike” for determining the start of the Anthropocene Epoch – is well marked in the lake bed’s exceptionally clear sediment record.
The Anthropocene Epoch is dead; long live the Anthropocene
So why was the Anthropocene Epoch rejected? And what happens now?
The proposal to add an Anthropocene Epoch to the geological time scale was rejected for a variety of reasons, none of them related to the fact that human societies are changing this planet. In fact, the opposite is true.
If there is one main reason why geologists rejected this proposal, it is because its recent date and shallow depth are too narrow to encompass the deeper evidence of human-caused planetary change. As geologist Bill Ruddiman and others wrote in Science Magazine in 2015, “Does it really make sense to define the start of a human-dominated era millennia after most forests in arable regions had been cut for agriculture?”
Discussions of an Anthropocene Epoch aren’t over yet. But it is very unlikely that there will be an official Anthropocene Epoch declaration anytime soon.
The lack of a formal definition of an Anthropocene Epoch will not be a problem for science.
A scientific definition of the Anthropocene is already widely available in the form of the Anthropocene Event, which basically defines Anthropocene in simple geological terms as “a complex, transformative, and ongoing event analogous to the Great Oxidation Event and others in the geological record.”
So, despite the “no” vote on the Anthropocene Epoch, the Anthropocene will continue to be as useful as it has been for more than 20 years in stimulating discussions and research into the nature of human transformation of this planet.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Maricopa Transforms Tabulation Center Into ‘Encampment’ To Avoid Another ‘Lollapalooza For The Alt-Right’
Earlier this month, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer found himself explaining to voters how and why the county “can’t just register Mickey Mouse or your dog,” to vote in Arizona.
Continue reading “Maricopa Transforms Tabulation Center Into ‘Encampment’ To Avoid Another ‘Lollapalooza For The Alt-Right’”We Need Your Help Going Into the Weekend
You’ve helped us get off to a great start to our Annual TPM Membership Drive. We’ve currently signed up 320 new TPM Members toward our goal of 1,000. It would be really, really great to end today with 350 new members. It’s a great time to do it. Our team is doing amazing work worthy of your support. The benefits of being a member are great. And we’re currently running a 40% discount offer during the drive. If you’ve been considering joining, can you take the plunge this afternoon? You can just take out your wallet this moment and it’s like a minute or two tops to sign up. Just click here. We truly appreciate it.
The Aftermath of Russian Shelling in Kyiv
In the early morning hours of Wednesday, March 21st, residents of Kyiv were awoken by air raid sirens. Russia had launched a barrage of missiles headed for Ukraine’s capital. Ukrainian air defenses downed dozens of missiles but the impact on the city was still devastating. This was the first major strike on the capital in more than a month days and came just hours after U.S. White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited the city to promise U.S. support to Ukraine in the ongoing war against Russia.
A firefighter assesses the damage
A destroyed kiosk
A destroyed coffee kiosk
A damaged residential building
A shell crater in the street in front of a residential building
Burned-out cars in the street
Windows blown out of a residential building
Utility workers assist with cleanup
Streets littered with glass and debris
A keyboard in debris from a blast
Giant shell crater in the yard of a residential building
Broken glass on the streets
A car with blown-out windows covered in debris
We Have Met the Enemy and He Owns the Valet Booth at Trump Tower
As we can see, the New York State civil judgment against Donald Trump, totaling roughly $450 million, and Trump’s seeming inability to post a bond for the amount in order to appeal the judgment, is the real deal. But it has also reminded us, brought us back to the Russian nesting doll, the infinitely layered onion of Donald Trump not being real. The effort to collect the judgment spins us right back around to why there is a judgment in the first place. Trump is now fundraising off threats to “seize Trump Tower.” The New York Post is headlining the same basic idea. But as a friend reminded me yesterday evening, Trump doesn’t own Trump Tower.
Continue reading “We Have Met the Enemy and He Owns the Valet Booth at Trump Tower”Your Must Read for Today
Don’t miss Josh Kovensky’s review, reminder, survey of just who Paul Manafort is and what he was up to and probably still is up to at the nexus between the politics of Ukraine, Russia and the United States. Newly relevant with Donald Trump saying he wants to bring Manafort back into his campaign. But really it never stopped being relevant since it’s part of an ongoing and still only half-understood story going all the way back to 2015. Read it.
Spies, War, Trump: We Still Don’t Really Understand What Paul Manafort Is Up To
Entertain this scenario for a minute: there’s a country sitting on a geopolitical fault line between the U.S. and one of its main adversaries, Russia.
Continue reading “Spies, War, Trump: We Still Don’t Really Understand What Paul Manafort Is Up To”Federal Judge Warns Of A Jan. 6 Repeat In The 2024 Election
Morning Memo comes to you this week from Knoxville, Tennessee, where I’m checking in on my folks. Sign up for the email version.
🚨 HIGH ALERT 🚨
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., warned Thursday that Donald Trump could provoke a Jan. 6-style attack with another call to arms in response to the 2024 election.
U.S. District Judge Rudy Contreras made his comments from the bench during the sentencing of a Jan. 6 rioter. Noting that Trump and his allies had “spurred” the attack, the judge expressed concern that the defendant before him would respond to a similar “call” in the future.
“It doesn’t take much imagination to imagine a similar call coming out in the coming months,” Contreras said.
This is, by my count, at least the third federal judge sitting in DC who has publicly warned of the threat we still face right now – not just the retrospective assigning of blame for what happened in the 2020 election, but actively and frantically sending out alerts that we may face more political violence ahead.
- From November: Ex-DC Chief Judge Warns Of Creeping Authoritarianism
- From January: Federal Judges Warn Of The Dire Threat To Democracy
This is decidedly not normal conduct from federal judges (both Democratic and Republican appointees). The only modern precedent for this kind of grave concern from the federal judiciary might be during the civil rights era.
Lots of folks have been warning for a long time about the threat of Trump and his followers, but when it’s coming from federal judges it puts the current era in a whole new light.
‘Mike, This Is A Political Career Killer If You Do This’
The testimony of Donald Trump’s White House valet to the House Jan. 6 committee has been revealed publicly for the first time. The unnamed attendant was present for the infamous Trump phone call with Pence on the morning of Jan. 6.
He doesn’t recall Trump calling Pence a “pussy,” but he did remember Trump issuing this threat if Pence went ahead and certified the Electoral College results later that day: “Mike, this is a political career killer if you do this.”
No Humor In This Gallows
Striking new video this week obtained by CBS News of the group suspected of erecting a gallows on the grounds of the Capitol on Jan. 6:
Important Read
NYT: Inside Merrick Garland’s Effort to Prosecute Trump
Letitia James Means Business
New York Attorney General Letitia James started filing the paperwork in Westchester County to enforce her massive civil judgement against Donald Trump by seizing a Trump golf course and private estate – if he is unable to post an appeal bond or obtain relief from a higher court by his Monday deadline.
What Stephen Miller Has Been Up To
Trump whisperer and non-lawyer Stephen Miller is behind a nonprofit group that has been uber-aggressively filing lawsuits, shooting off threat letters, and preparing amicus briefs against “woke” corporations, school districts, law schools, and others.
Harmonic Convergence
TPM’s Hunter Walker and the NYT have been swimming in the same right-wing waters over the past week:
Last Friday at TPM: House GOPers Teamed With Conspiracist Michael Yon Who Called Migrants ‘Apes’ And ‘Congo Cannibals’
Monday: The NYT tracks Michael Yon and Laura Loomer to the Darien Gap in Panama.
Thursday at TPM: Trump Buddy Laura Loomer Blames ‘Typo’ For Indications Her Newest Project Involved Neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes
Secret Society Coverage Central
Kudos to TPM’s Josh Kovensky on the continuing reverberations from his ground-breaking coverage of the far-right, Christian nationalist, all-men Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR).
A sampling of some the followup coverage:
- Heather Cox Richardson: “In the past few weeks, Josh Kovensky of Talking Points Memo has deepened our understanding of the right-wing attempt to impose Christian nationalism on the United States through support for Trump and the MAGA movement.”
- The Statesman newspaper in Idaho, where the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the largest Christian denomination, picked up on TPM’s reporting and editorialized on the exclusion of Mormons from SACR: “When SACR members talk about a Christian nation or a Christian civilization, remember that you would be excluded from it. Whatever local governance and local institutions they’re building, they aren’t for you — much less for women, LGBTQ+ people, atheists and tens of thousands of other Idahoans.”
- The Straight White American Jesus podcast, run by two former ministers turned religion scholars, devoted an episode to TPM’s reporting on SACR.
- MSNBC’s Joy Reid interviewed Kovensky on her Wednesday evening show.
- The Guardian, which originally reported on the existence of SACR last year, followed up on TPM’s new work.
- Other pickups from The Nation and Esquire.
Help Make TPM Go!
I’m focused on lassoing as many Morning Memo readers as I can who aren’t already TPM members into joining during our annual membership drive. We’re shooting for 1,000 new members. Overnight, we crested 250. Anything you can do to help close that gap will be tremendously appreciated. Thank you!
Keep An Eye On The Hill Today
We should know later this morning whether Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is going to be able to cobble together the bare minimum of House GOP votes to avoid a partial government shutdown this weekend. It’s going to be close, Punchbowl reports.
Bring The Snark
TPM’s Nicole Lafond: Without The Votes, House GOP Now Says Electorate Can Just Go Ahead And Do The Impeachment For Them
Garland Responds To Criticism Over Hur Report
Attorney General Merrick Garland claims it would have been “absurd” for him to have edited or withheld Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified information from his vice presidency.
Indicted Bob Menendez Withdraws From Dem Primary
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), under indictment in a foreign influence and bribery scandal, will not run for re-election as a Democrat but might re-enter the race as an independent in the fall, he announced Thursday.
Dr. Seuss And Rod Blagojevich
A federal judge clearly enjoyed tossing out a bogus civil lawsuit filed against the state of Illinois by convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) to try to return to public life.
Here’s the conclusion to the opinion and order:
Blagojevich’s federal prison sentence was commuted in 2020 by President Trump after he served 8 years of a 14-year sentence.
A Feel Good Ending*
CBS News correspondent David Begnaud returned home last fall to his small Catholic high school in Louisiana to pay tribute to a life-changing teacher of his:
(Morning Memo was on the same speech-and-debate team more years than I want to count ahead of Begnaud and before Ms. Surratt was the coach. I hadn’t seen the campus in almost 40 years … wow.)
*The sad coda to Begnaud’s segment is that he later heard he’d been kept from doing more filming on campus because of concerns it might make it look as if the school approved of his sexuality.
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