ClimateChangeFork

Happy New Year to everybody! I promised in a previous blog that I would be reading two recently published books to try to find how we could learn from the recent past to make a better future. Last week’s blog was focused on Volker Ullrich’s book titled, Fateful Hours: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic. This blog is focused on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book, 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History – and How it Shattered the Nation, shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – The cover of the book

The book is written as narrative in two parts; it starts on February 1, 1929, and ends on June 21, 1933 with the jury decision in Charles Mitchell’s trial. Mitchell was one of the main architects of the Wall Street crash, but was found not guilty of the two charges that he faced. The book includes a very extensive 88 pages of Notes and Sources, a 7-page Bibliography, 16 pages of Image Credits and Index, 2 pages of Author Notes, and an 8-page list of “the Cast of Characters and the Companies That They Represent.” The book does not contain any charts, graphs, or tables. This blog tries to correct this absence.

The economic crashes in the US and Germany directly resulted in the election of new leadership in both countries: FDR and Hitler, both shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3

On November 8, 1932, the presidential election took place in the US. Republican incumbent President Hoover was running for a second term against Democratic NY governor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). One might think that because of the economic catastrophe that resulted from the crash, FDR would have won easily. He did, but according to the book, his win was not because of a general agreement that he could fix the economy. Rather, it was because of his promise to end Prohibition, which was hated by most Americans. FDR was inaugurated on March 8, 1933.

Figure 4 shows the changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1920 to 1960. The exponential growth and the crash from the end of October 1929 until 1933 are clearly visible.

Figure 4 – Stock Market Crash of 1929 | Federal Reserve History

The book makes it clear that a small group of players, most of them major bank officials, fed the exponential growth of the index and uncontrolled margin policy, which directly led to the crash. To understand what that means, it’s helpful to know what margin means in this context:

margin account – a type of brokerage account which allows investors to purchase securities with borrowed funds, requiring a deposit of cash or assets as collateral to cover the risk on such transactions. (Oxford Languages)

The self-feeding that drove the exponential growth and caused the crash worked this way:

1. People made investments, borrowing 90% of the money, with the understanding that if the market went below a certain level, they must pay back the loan.
2. Many people bought credit in the same way, causing exponential growth.
3. Eventually, the market growth started to fall below the agreed level, and people had to return the loans.
4. In most cases, the only way to return the loan was to sell stocks, which caused the market to fall further.
5. The crash caused major financial losses to many people, leading also to the liquidation of many businesses.
6. The liquidation of businesses caused a major increase in unemployment. The country entered a deep recession that acquired the label of Great Depression.

As Figure 5 shows, unemployment in the US reached 25% and returned to the early 1920s rate only at the start of WWII.

Figure 5 – US unemployment rate, 1930-1945 (Source)

Meanwhile, the Dow Jones of 1929 is different from the one today, both in terms of inflation’s impact on the currency and the overall composition of the index. The AI explanation below lays out the differences.

AI (through Google) – comparing the Dow Jones of 1929 with the present:

• • • • Vastly Different Price Levels: The nominal value of the Dow today (over 48,000 points) is dramatically higher than in 1929 (peaked at ~381 points).
      • Regulatory Environment: The 1929 market was characterized by minimal regulation, high margin trading (up to 10x leverage), and slow information flow. Today’s market has significant “guardrails,” including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), stricter margin requirements (requiring at least 50% equity), and circuit breakers to halt trading during rapid declines, making a 1929-style multi-year collapse less likely.
      • Federal Reserve Role: In 1929, the Federal Reserve did not actively intervene to stabilize the market. Today, the Fed is expected to and does intervene, using monetary tools to cushion falls and influence the economy.
      • Public Participation: In the late 1920s, less than 10% of Americans were invested in the stock market, whereas over 50% are invested today, creating a different market landscape.
      • Economic Context: The 1929 crash was a major factor, but not the sole cause, of the multi-year Great Depression, which included massive deflation and unemployment of up to 25%. Modern recessions are severe but do not compare in scale or duration to the Great Depression. 

Table 1 summarizes the impact of inflation on the index.

Table 1 – Inflation-adjusted Dow Jones (AI, through CoPilot)

Figure 6 – Margin debt as a percentage of GDP, 1919-2019 (Source: Steve Keen Substack)

The developments in the margin policy from 1925 until now are summarized in Table 2. 

AI (Through Google)

US margin regulations, primarily Federal Reserve Regulations T, U, & X{/nav}, evolved from the loose leverage of the 1920s (80-90% borrowed) to the current 50% standard post-1934 Securities Exchange Act, aiming to curb speculation after the 1929 crash, with varying rates set over time, ultimately settling near 50% for brokers (Reg T) and banks, with rules extended globally (Reg X) to prevent evasion, creating a stable framework for credit in securities.

Here’s a table summarizing key shifts and current rules:

Table 2 – US Margin Requirements: 1925 – Present (Key Milestones)

The dated parts of the book end with FDR’s inauguration and some of the consequences of the crash: The trial of Charles Mitchell, one of the pre-1929 speculation architects, ended with a not guilty verdict, adopting the notion that everybody did what Mitchell did—just on a slightly smaller scale. After FDR’s inauguration, he signed the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial banking from investment banking and introduced insurance for depositors against bankruptcy of the bank. FDR also practically withdrew from the Gold Standard, allowing more flexibility for the national currency.

As was mentioned in last week’s blog, the impact of the crash and the following Great Depression had global consequences that contributed to WWII and what came afterward. 

Figure 1 – The cover of the book (source: Amazon)

I finished last week’s blog with the following two sentences:

 Around the same time, I ordered two recent books, Fateful Hours: the Collapse of the Weimar Republic by Volker Ullrich and 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and how it shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Penguin Audio. Both books took place just before the start of my now, with a hidden question mark about history repeating itself. In the last two blogs of this year, I will try to explore this same premise.

I just finished reading Fateful Hours. Germany, at the time of the Weimar Republic, was a mess. This was shortly after Germany’s loss in WWI and it was the country’s first experiment with democratic governance. It didn’t go well:

Ideological extremism and shortsighted political intrigue eroded German democracy and paved the way for Hitler’s ascension, according to this intricate study. Historian Ullrich (Germany 1923) argues that the Weimar Republic, which struggled through communist insurrections, right-wing terror campaigns, hyperinflation, and the Great Depression, was done in less by these upheavals than by dysfunctional and toxic political factors. These included the Weimar constitution itself, which granted the president undemocratic powers like dissolving the legislature and ruling by emergency decree; the government’s leniency toward far-right extremists; and the refusal of Germany’s Communist Party to cooperate with the moderate left. Ullrich shrewdly analyzes a succession of incidents that nudged the Republic toward the abyss: the Communists’ refusal to support the center-left candidate, for example, guaranteed the election of reactionary Paul von Hindenburg as president in 1925; and the refusal of both right and left to compromise on unemployment insurance reform brought down a coalition government and inaugurated a string of Hindenburg-appointed minority cabinets that ruled by decree (as Hitler would). Throughout, Ullrich emphasizes the contingency of events, the importance of individual decisions, and the failings of statesmen who put short-term expedience or doctrinal purity ahead of the greater good. The result is a resonant and sobering cautionary tale of how a democracy can die. (Nov.)

Some recommended the book as a tutorial on how democracies collapse, with lessons related to our present governance—both in the US and around the world. The collapse of the Weimar Republic was just outside my “Now” (see last week’s blog) but had a strong impact on many of us. Reading the book, I was surprised about one central aspect: I was trained in physics and chemistry; I also taught and did academic and industrial research in these fields. Many of the fundamentals of these disciplines were contributed by German scientists in the first half of the 20^th century. However, I looked in the index of the book for the name of Einstein and couldn’t find it. So, the first part of this blog is a list of German Nobel Prize winners during the Weimar Republic, between 1919 and 1933 (List of German Nobel laureates – Wikipedia):

Peace Prizes:

Literature:

Chemistry:

Physics:

Physiology and Medicine:

I fully realize that some of the work for which the Nobel prizes were distributed was done before 1919. However, to my knowledge, most of the work was done within this time interval. Not many countries can claim such productivity. Is there a connection between governmental chaos and academic productivity? I don’t know, but I know that it is a question worth addressing.

One major issue that differentiates the present Trump administration from the chaos and destiny of the Weimar Republic is that the rise and fall of the latter are both in the past, while we are only in the beginning of the second Trump administration. Nevertheless, in order for people to compare, I asked AI (through Google) to list the “Similarities and differences between the Weimar Republic and the Trump administration.” This is what I got:

Historians and political analysts identify several unsettling similarities and crucial differences between the Weimar Republic’s  political climate and the Trump administration in the U.S., cautioning that while historical parallels exist, the situations are not identical. 

Similarities

• • • • Political Polarization and Nationalism:Both eras saw significant political polarization, a rise in right-wing nationalism, and racialized identity politics.
      • Charismatic Leadership and Populism:Both Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump utilized a populist, strongman persona to appeal to a population experiencing disenfranchisement and a rejection of the political status quo.
      • Media Manipulation and Propaganda:A powerful right-wing media machine in Germany (like that of magnate Alfred Hugenberg) found a parallel in contemporary U.S. conservative media, which helped support an authoritarian movement and a preferred narrative.
      • Attacks on Democratic Institutions and Norms:Both movements involved attacks on the press, the judiciary, and government bureaucracy. Both challenged the distinction between truth and falsehoods, promoting their own versions of reality.
      • Scapegoating and Fear-mongering:Both movements used migrants and political opponents as scapegoats to stoke fear and consolidate power.
      • Questioning Election Integrity:Trump’s challenges to the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power echo the political instability and questioning of the democratic process in the Weimar Republic’s final days. 

Differences

• • • • Constitutional and Institutional Strength:The primary difference lies in the resilience and longevity of the governing structure. The U.S. Constitution is the world’s oldest and has proven more robust, with specific guardrails (e.g., the federal system and division of powers) that have slowed attempts to consolidate autocratic power. The Weimar Constitution, in contrast, was new, fragile, and contained inherent weaknesses like Article 48, which allowed the president to rule by decree in an emergency, a provision Hitler exploited to gain total power via the Enabling Act.
      • Ideology and Intentions:Historians note that Hitler was an open, ideological opponent of democracy and aimed for an open dictatorship from the start. Neither Trump nor the Republican party has openly sought to abolish elections, instead working within the existing framework to achieve their goals.
      • Economic Context:The Weimar Republic experienced hyperinflation and a catastrophic post-WWI economic depression, making the populace more susceptible to extremist promises. The U.S. under the Trump administration did not face a comparable level of economic collapse.
      • Unified Opposition:A significant factor in the Weimar Republic’s downfall was a fractured and disunified opposition that failed to stop the Nazis. The U.S. has seen more civic resistance, and the actions of various individuals and institutions (e.g., judges, election officials, Mike Pence) helped preserve democratic processes in specific instances.
      • Level of Atrocity:While parallels in rhetoric and initial authoritarian moves exist, Trump’s presidency did not reach the level of systematic, industrialized brutality and mass murder that characterized the Third Reich and the Holocaust. 

I also asked AI to summarize for me the correlations between the stock market crash in the US in 1929 and the collapse of the Weimar Republic. Here is what I got:

The US stock market crash of 1929 directly triggered the collapse of the fragile Weimar Republic by causing American banks to recall loans crucial for German economic recovery, leading to mass unemployment, poverty, and political extremism that the Nazi Party exploited to gain power. Germany’s reliance on US capital, intended to pay reparations, meant the crash swiftly created a severe depression, eroding faith in democracy and creating fertile ground for Hitler’s promises of stability, making the crash a pivotal catalyst for the Republic’s demise.

The next blog will explore this issue further.                                                                                                                                                                               

Figure 1 – Past, now, and future

Past:

The past tells us what has already happened. Last week’s blog addressed this through both its top figure and the speech of Camille Robcis, the new chair of Columbia University’s History Department. Prof. Robcis recommended that historians should extend their interest to include the present but never explained how she defines the present. In this blog, I will explain how I define the present and some of the methods that are being used to try to predict the future.

Present:

If I ask AI (through Google) to define the present, I get a few options. I will focus here on the most general one, given below:

Philosophical Meaning

In a philosophical context, “being present” means to be mindful and fully aware of and engaged with the current moment, rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. This is the basis of the common saying, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present”.

Readers will notice that in AI’s philosophical definition, the present is defined not on its own terms but instead as it relates to the past and the future. This is also conveyed in the top figure. I will define present in terms of two associated words: simultaneity and now. The present was described in earlier blogs in terms of both these associated words (“simultaneity” in the October 15 and 22, 2013, and May 31, 2022 blogs, and “now” on March 9, 2021, in a blog entitled “My ‘Now‘”).  The October 15, 2013, blog introduced the important concept of the light-cone and its association with special relativity. This basically claims that because of the finite speed of light, we observe any object with a slight time delay that changes with the object’s distance. The speed of light in a vacuum is approximately 300 million meters/sec or 700 million miles/hr. It changes with the medium through which the light moves. So, the time delay for observing an object 1m away will be approximately 3×10^-9 sec or 3 nanoseconds. Obviously, for short distances, such a delay is negligible, but for large cosmological distances, the delay is critical.

For myself, I have defined the present based on the concept of now, in terms of interactions during my extended life span, starting with my birth and ending with the expected lifespan of my grandchildren. Following this definition, the present will be subjective for each of us. Following this definition of now, the main global threats that I have enumerated in previous blogs (See “What are we trying to teach our children,” from June 11, 2024) have taken place in my present. It should be obvious from this subjective definition of now that there is a large overlap in this kind of present with both the past and the future. This is also reflected in the opening figure of this blog.

Future:

Reality in the past (including the part of the past that overlaps our present) does not change and can be investigated. As I mentioned in earlier blogs, we are not prophets (see blogs from August 13, and 20, 2012) and we can only predict the future (including the part from our extended present) in terms of probabilities. Some of the ways that we use to estimate these probabilities, mainly in the context of climate change, are given in previous blogs:

Extrapolating from the present (February 17, 2015)

Computer simulations (February 6, 2018)

We are not prophets (August 13, 2012)

Predicting the Future and its Impacts (July 7, 2015)

A few days ago, I was watching the CBS program, “60 minutes,” to learn more about predicting the future another way: betting. Online betting is now incredibly popular. This type of prediction mainly focuses on sports results. What I learned from “60 minutes” is that it’s now being extended to the future. Figure 2 shows part of the site of this betting platform.

Figure 2 – Economy Odds & Predictions | Polymarket

Why do we need to know about possible futures? Despite a very low probability, the Chicxulub Event is a real example of something that actually took place. As a result, it is now part of Earth’s past:

65 million years ago an asteroid roughly 10 to 15 kilometers (6 to 9 miles) in diameter hit Earth in what is now [Chicxulub,] Mexico. The impact killed 70% of all species on Earth, including the dinosaurs. An impact of that size would have had devastating effects, and the geological record gives us some indication of what happened. The asteroid hit in water, creating mega-tsunamis reaching from southeastern Mexico all the way to Texas and Florida and up a shallow interior ocean that covered what is now the Great Plains. The blast would have thrown chunks of the asteroid and Earth so far that they would have briefly left the atmosphere before falling back to the ground.

Space.com explains it more:

This stony asteroid, which has an estimated diameter of around 3,600 feet (1.1 km) and passed within 1.2 million miles (1.9 million km) of Earth in 2022, has around a 0.0151% chance of coming within one Earth-moon distance over the next millennium, the team calculated. This makes it around 10 times more likely to impact as the next riskiest in the category, 20236 (1998 BZ7), which has a 0.001% probability of coming closer to us than the moon. (The moon orbits, on average, about 239,000 miles, or 384,600 km, from Earth.)

The point of this scenario is that often there is no symmetry between mitigating a coming disaster and addressing the damage that such a disaster might inflict. In the Chicxulub Event scenario, the impact killed 70% of all species on Earth but none of these species had the technology to detect its coming and prevent the collision. Despite the very low probability of the event, it was not zero. Our species now has the capacity to learn how to deflect such a collision, but it takes time and resources to develop such technologies. These trade-offs between spending now to mitigate future disasters or doing nothing now with the “hope” that (at least in our lifetimes) the disaster will not take place, should not be an option. This type of prioritization is also taking place on a smaller scale. When I was teaching climate change in school, I often heard declarations that if our world continues to trade the future well-being of our children for our present comfort, we should not have children!

Following my definition, my Now started around the beginning of WWII with the Nazi invasion of Poland. I was born into a Jewish family and as a result, my Now also started with the Holocaust. The pairing of global threats with the Holocaust seems to me a necessity that I owe my grandchildren.

I finished writing this blog on Sunday, December 14^th. We had the first sticking snow of the season, the first evening of Hanukkah, and my 24^th wedding anniversary. Around the same time, I ordered two recent books, Fateful Hours: the Collapse of the Weimar Republic by Volker Ullrich and 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History—and how it shattered a Nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Penguin Audio. Both books took place just before the start of my now, with a hidden question mark about history repeating itself. In the last two blogs of this year, I will try to explore this same premise.

(Source: ModelThinkers.com)

In an earlier blog (November 12, 2025), I mentioned traveling to an upcoming meeting at the Holocaust Museum that included filming an interview. Before the interview, I got early notice of the questions that I would be asked to respond to. Three of the questions read as follows:

• Elie Wiesel wrote about the Museum, “A memorial unresponsive to the future would also violate the memory of the past.” What does that mean to you?
• Why is it important to prevent genocide today?
• Why do you support the Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide?

To those of you not familiar with Elie Weisel, among his many activities, he served as the founding chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (1980-2016) and he led the effort to conceive and build the museum.

I answered that in my opinion, all three questions are closely related and all three can be summarized by two of the most highly used words that encompass why so many people (including myself) are still preoccupied with the Holocaust. These two words form the call of “never again.” I wrote about my attitude toward this call in an earlier blog (August 13, 2025), “A Call to Immortalize and Generalize ‘Never Again.’” Below is a key paragraph from this blog:

Expanding the scope of teaching past events—by pairing Holocaust teaching with scientifically-deduced global threats—has a good chance of having a major impact on students and teachers in future classrooms. Such pairings might be necessary to expose future generations to existing dangers for possible mitigation. However, there are serious issues with such attempts. Last week’s blog discussed some of the prerequisites for both students and teachers. Mastery of the connected topics will necessarily limit the number of students that will choose such topics.

A few days ago, the new chair of Columbia University’s History Department gave a speech about how she views teaching history. A short summary and a key paragraph of this speech are given below:

New Chair of History Says the Discipline Should Document the Past and Engage With the Present. Camille Robcis believes that historical analysis allows us to elucidate contemporary political, economic, social, and cultural questions.

Why is the study of history so important? As I see it, the main purpose of history is not simply to document the past, but to engage in a dialogue with the present. Historical analysis allows us to elucidate contemporary political, economic, social, and cultural questions by making visible the historical process through which certain things come to appear as natural, obvious, self-evident, or universal. How did we come to take for granted certain assumptions and norms, and how can we think (and act) differently once these blind spots are exposed or unmasked?

The novelty in this attitude is in the attempt to expand teaching history into understanding and having an impact on the present. Her speech does not mention how she defines the present (in my opinion it also strongly suggests that history repeats itself to be part of the present) or where she draws the line that separates present from future. In this blog and the next, I will try to draw my own lines on these issues. Before I do that, let me describe the present extent in American academic institutions, teaching students’ history vs. understanding students’ future.

Students enroll in universities to enhance their prospects for a productive future. Many choose history as their choice of focus. Per definition, all their academic choices apply toward a better future. However, not many can identify what help they need to analyze the future. I asked AI to summarize the nature of future studies and how many academic institutions in the US offer programs to try to teach students in that area. I also asked AI to compare these findings with teaching history:

Future studies:

AI (through Google):

Studying futurism, also known as future studies, involves analyzing possible, probable, and preferable futures by examining trends and their implications across various domains like technology, society, economy, and politics. Key methods include using frameworks like STEEP analysis (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political) and Causal Layered Analysis (CLA), embracing complexity and uncertainty, and preparing for future possibilities rather than making singular predictions. You can study futurism through academic programs, professional courses, or by learning to apply futurist thinking skills to your work and life.                       

AI (through Copilot):

How many universities in the US have “Future Studies” program?

There are only a handful of universities in the United States that offer dedicated programs in Future Studies (also called foresight or strategic foresight). The number is small—roughly fewer than 10 institutions with formal degrees or centers focused on this discipline.

How many universities in the US have “History Studies” program?

Over 1,400 universities in the United States offer programs in History Studies. It is one of the most widely available liberal arts majors, with hundreds of institutions providing undergraduate and graduate degrees in history.

Breakdown of History Programs in the US

• • • • Total institutions: About 1,498 universities in the US have history programs, according to EduRank’s 2025 analysis.
      • Degrees awarded: Roughly 31,000+ history degrees are granted annually across the country.
      • Popularity: History ranks as the #30 most popular major in the US.
      • Program levels:
      • Bachelor’s degrees are the most common.
      • Many universities also offer Master’s and PhD programs in history.
        • Community colleges and smaller institutions often provide associate degrees or introductory history studies tracks.

To put it differently, the top figure from ModelThinkers can be viewed as a simple model of what educational institutions should be charged with providing to all students – transformation into thinkers. The next blog will try to quantify past, present, and future, and correlate this reality with “never again.”

By the time this blog is posted, COP30 will be “history.” It officially ends on Friday, November 21^st, and this blog will be posted on Wednesday, November 26^th. I will use this blog and the one that follows to summarize the event. This blog will be focused on the change in leadership of COP30, and the next will focus on how that change in leadership affected the final resolutions of the meeting.

The attitude of President Trump and his administration toward climate change is no secret. Just put President Trump into the search box, and you will get all my references to both his first term and the present one. When a COP meeting has taken place during his presidency, a change in leadership has been accepted and delivered. However, these changes do not take place without responses. This blog focuses on these changes. Most of the global responses were anticipated, and since almost everybody, including myself and the readers of the blog, is polarized between pro- and anti-Trump, I found it best to summarize the impacts on COP30 using AI (through Google). However, one response that was not anticipated was that of the International Court of Justice, shown below and described in Inside Climate News. Members of the International Court of Justice arrive to issue an advisory opinion on states’ legal obligations to address climate change in The Hague on July 23.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) members arrive to issue first Advisory Opinion (AO) on States’ legal obligations to address climate change, in The Hague on July 23, 2025. The top UN court on July 23, 2025 described climate change as an “urgent and existential threat”, as it handed down a landmark ruling on the legal obligations of countries to prevent it. (Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)

The essence of the AI response is summarized below:

Una May Gordon, Jamaica’s former principal director of climate change, noted on opening day of the United Nations climate summit last week in Brazil that her country had recently suffered “catastrophic loss and damage” in the wake of Hurricane Melissa.“We just need some accountability for those who are definitely responsible for this crisis,” Gordon said, calling for an end to impunity for major greenhouse gas emitting countries. Climate justice advocates have been demanding this for years, always with science on their side. Now they say the law is, too. For the first time in the 30-year history of the U.N. climate talks, this year’s negotiations in Belém are happening against the backdrop of a recent landmark ruling from the International Court of Justice—the world’s highest court—clarifying what countries must do to confront the climate crisis under international law, and what the legal consequences are for failing in their responsibilities. In doing so, the Court has turned what many governments treated as political choices into enforceable duties.

In its unanimous, historic advisory opinion delivered in July, the court recognized that the climate crisis is an “existential problem of planetary proportions” and that taking action to mitigate and adapt to it is not optional, but a requirement under multiple sources of international law. The court also found that U.N. member states can be held liable for breaches of their legal obligations to protect the climate system.Countries like Vanuatu, the small Pacific island state that led the initiative to seek a climate change advisory opinion from the ICJ, are hopeful that the court’s declaration can serve as a turning point in catalyzing more ambitious climate action and infusing more accountability into global climate diplomacy.

As was mentioned in previous blogs (put international law into the search box), international law is not sovereign. There is no way to enforce judgments. Only sovereign states can do so. AI (through Google) will follow with a summary of the leadership change, focusing on US, China, and the European Union:

Summary of Impacts of US Federal Withdrawals:

The primary leadership change impacting COP30 is the shift in the U.S. federal government’s approach to climate policy following the election of Donald Trump, leading to increased international discord, U.S. withdrawal from certain efforts, and a potential realignment of global climate action without U.S. dominance.

Impacts of the U.S. Leadership Change

• Hostility to Global Efforts:The U.S. government has displayed “fresh hostility” to differing global views, including using “tactics of intimidation” at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to scuttle efforts to limit shipping emissions.
• Withdrawal and Absence:The U.S. has once again deprioritized climate action, with President Trump’s absence from COP30 and a general opposition to international agreements like the Paris Agreement.
• Increased Discord:The U.S. position has created a new era of discord in global climate politics, with other world leaders openly criticizing the U.S. stance and climate denial.
• Potential for Multilateral Realignment:Some observers suggest the absence of the U.S. may free other countries to have “real multilateral conversations” without one player dominating the outcome, potentially fostering new avenues for cooperation among the remaining parties.

US Withdrawals are Shaping Outcomes:

Beyond the specific U.S. situation, other leadership themes at COP30 are shaping outcomes:

• Shift from Pledges to Implementation:The conference is emphasizing a shift from political commitments to tangible, on-the-ground implementation of climate solutions.
• Importance of Inclusive Leadership:There is a strong focus on inclusive leadership, ensuring the benefits of the transition reach all people, and advancing the role of indigenous communities, women, and local leaders in decision-making.
• Private Sector and Local Action:Business leaders and local governments are pushing forward with their own climate action plans and innovations, sometimes shielded from federal-level policy uncertainty.
• Focus on the Global South:As the COP is held in Belém, Brazil, in the Amazon, the focus is on the immediate, existential challenges faced by developing nations and the need for adequate and predictable climate finance.

In essence, while the change in U.S. leadership presents significant headwinds and policy uncertainty for global climate governance, it is also spurring a potential shift towards more decentralized, inclusive, and implementation-focused climate action from other global actors.

However, despite US federal withdrawals from global commitments, others in state and local government continue to demonstrate their belief in the importance of confronting climate change:

The United States is maintaining a presence at COP30, despite the Trump administration declining to send an official delegation to the climate conference in Brazil. This is the first time since the inaugural Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1995 that the U.S. will not be officially represented at the annual climate summit. However, a large number of state and local representatives — as well as environmental nonprofits based in the U.S. — are in attendance. A coalition of 100 local U.S. leaders — including governors, mayors and other top city and state officials — made the trip to Belem, Brazil, as part of the U.S. Climate Alliance. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, among the notable Americans at COP30, bashed President Donald Trump for disregarding the event, which kicked off Monday. “While Donald Trump skips the world stage, California is showing up — leading, partnering, and proving what American climate leadership looks like,” Newsom said on Tuesday. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, said in a press conference on Friday that the “Trump administration simply does not represent the American public on climate issues.” Whitehouse, a ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, accused the current administration of representing the fossil fuel industry, “most particularly the big fossil fuel donors who contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump’s political campaign.”

Leadership shifts to China and the European Union (Through AI):                                                                     

China is emerging with a larger leadership role in climate diplomacy and clean technology, while the European Union faces challenges in maintaining its traditional leadership position, particularly due to the absence of a U.S. presence. 

China’s Assertive Role:

• • • Technological Dominance: China is leveraging its position as the world’s leading manufacturer and exporter of renewable energy technologies (solar panels, wind turbines, batteries) to boost its climate diplomacy and provide affordable green tech to other nations, especially in the Global South.
    • Filling the Void: With the U.S. having withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and largely absent from COP30, China has stepped in to a more prominent role in the negotiations, acting as a “bridge-builder” and a stable partner in the global energy transition.
    • High-Level Representation: China has sent a large delegation, led by Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, underscoring its support for the Brazil-hosted summit and solidifying its presence.
    • Criticism of the EU: China’s climate envoy, Liu Zhenmin, has publicly criticized the EU’s climate targets as insufficient, arguing that developed nations need to accelerate their pollution cuts faster. 

The European Union’s Challenges

• • • Erosion of Influence: The EU is experiencing a perceived reduction in its overall geopolitical influence and is grappling with domestic pushback against climate policies, which some argue necessitates a new strategy of forming alliances with “middle powers” like Brazil.
    • Policy Divisions: The EU is facing internal divisions on the ambition of its own 2035 climate targets, which has delayed the finalization of its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).
    • Financial Hurdles: The EU faces challenges regarding climate financing, particularly in committing to and delivering on the necessary funds for developing nations to combat climate change and adapt to its impacts.
    • Maintaining Credibility: The EU is striving to remain a central player, but its ability to lead is being tested by the political and financial challenges it faces internally and externally. 

In essence, while the EU still has a crucial role to play, China’s economic and technological strategy has effectively translated into growing climate soft power, leading to a visible shift in the dynamics of leadership at COP30.

China is not enthusiastic about its new role:

China is committed to the energy transition needed to avert climate breakdown – but does not want to take the lead alone in the absence of the US, one of the country’s senior advisers has told the Guardian.

Wang Yi said China would provide more money to vulnerable countries, but the EU’s climate commissioner has warned Beijing is not doing enough to cut emissions.“I don’t think China would like to play a leadership role alone,” said Wang, the vice-chair of China’s expert panel on climate change. “The most important thing is how to maintain momentum. Now we have two possible directions: one, we go forward with clearer, more ambitious targets. The other may be going back. “So that’s why China would like to do our best to steer in this kind of direction towards low-carbon or green transition, but in cooperation with other countries. We don’t want to take the lead alone. We need comprehensive leadership.”

COP30 is one of the forums in which the world is trying to adapt to global affairs without US “guidance.” The recent G20 meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, is another such forum. It recently adopted a declaration despite the US boycott over the alleged persecution of white South Africans and opposition to the scientific consensus on anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change.

Next week’s blog will summarize the final decisions of COP30 and the voting rules on such resolutions.

Figure 1 – In charts: ten years since the Paris climate accord 

Last week’s blog focused on the abstract search for a reference for collective evil, following a NYT examination of the current Trump administration. I pointed out that such a search would require serious prerequisites in both social sciences (specifically political sciences) and philosophy. My credentials are in neither background; they are more in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields such as physics and chemistry. One of my most important qualifications for this particular discussion is being a child survivor of the Nazi atrocities that we now refer to as the Holocaust.  

Over the 13 years that I have been writing this blog, my writing has focused on this mixed background. However, having a mixed background is not an excuse for analyzing phenomena within topics outside of my field. Recently, things have gotten a bit closer to my area of expertise. Traditionally, physicists have tried to stay away from the study of living systems. We left it to different sciences such as biology, anthropology, some aspects of psychology, all the social sciences, and most of the humanities. Now, mainly because of advances in computing, things have changed. Social physics has become a respected field. Below are a few sentences that start the Wikipedia entry on social physics: 

Social physics or sociophysics is an interdisciplinary field of science which uses mathematical tools inspired by physics to understand the behavior of human crowds. In a modern commercial use, it can also refer to the analysis of social phenomena with big data. Social physics is closely related to econophysics, which uses physics methods to describe economics.[1]

Topics such as climate change, network analysis, and data science have become respectable topics for any physicist. While I was teaching, I ended up spending a considerable amount of time learning and researching topics that are legitimate parts of social physics. 

However, addressing an issue such as how to quantify evil requires many more prerequisites than I have in my skill set. My deficiencies in addressing the background of this issue were amplified during my search in my personal library,  which was mentioned in last week’s blog. As a result of that search, however, I found the small book by Timothy Snider titled On Tyranny.  

In addition to Snider’s book, I found two books related to Karl Popper. One book was by Geoffrey Stokes, titled Popper, and the other was the 2nd volume of The Open Society and Its Enemies. I remember reading these books a long time ago. It was mainly in the context of following Popper’s definition of the Scientific Method, but I also followed his position on the advantages of democratic governments. To summarize, he claimed that democracy is the only form of government that allows for the peaceful removal of bad leadership without violence and bloodshed. I fully realized that I don’t have and hadn’t read any writing by Hannah Arendt and that I don’t remember much of Popper’s writings either. Both philosophers, with their backgrounds in Nazi Germany, were obviously much more qualified than I am to address governmental shifts away from democracy. So, I ordered and started to read Arendt’s The Origin of Totalitarianism. I also plan to order her book, On Violence. Meanwhile, I decided to postpone the continuation of my attempts to quantify collective violence and return to the “safer” ground of COP30 that I started two weeks ago. 

For background on the COP system, just put the three letters in the search box. The first time that I used the word COP in the title of a blog was with COP21, in the Nov 17, 2015 blog, in which the Paris Agreement was drafted. 

Figure 2 – A screenshot of the COP30 website

The best place to follow the present COP is on the meeting’s website. The landing page of the site is shown in Figure 2. It opens with the following:  

COP30 is the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Belém, Brazil from 10 to 21 November 2025.

UN Climate Change Conferences (or COPs) take place every year, and are the world’s only multilateral decision-making forum on climate change that brings together almost every country on Earth.

To put it simply, the COP is where the world comes together to agree on the actions to address the climate crisis, such as limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, helping vulnerable communities adapt to the effects of climate change, and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

COP30 will bring together world leaders and negotiators from the member states (or Parties) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to further global progress, with business leaders, young people, climate scientists, Indigenous Peoples, and civil society sharing insights and best practices to strengthen global, collective and inclusive climate action.

Officially, COP30 stands for the 30th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a landmark international treaty agreed in 1992, and parent treaty to the 2015 Paris Agreement.

From there, we move to the News section of the blue strip and can read a transcript of UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell’s opening address for COP30 on November 10th (opening day). In it, he noted that the Paris Agreement has helped bend the curve of emissions downward.

But he didn’t sugarcoat it: 

 “We must move much, much, faster on both reductions of emissions and strengthening resilience,” he said.

Stiell said strong and clear outcomes on all issues are essential.

“This is how we signal to the world that climate cooperation is delivering results,” he added. “In Belém, we’ve got to marry the world of negotiations to the actions needed in the real economy. Every gigawatt of clean power cuts pollution and creates more jobs. Every action to build resilience helps save lives, strengthen communities, and protect the global supply chains that every economy depends on. This is the growth story of the 21st century – the economic transformation of our age.”

We return to the blue banner to search for the “2025 Synthesis Report of Biennial Transparency Reports,” and get the following:

The Synthesis Report of Biennial Transparency Reports delivers a valuable early picture of implementation progress by countries across mitigation, adaptation, and support. It offers initial insights into diverse national efforts to implement the Paris Agreement — including some of the successes that can be built upon and barriers that must be overcome.

This report synthesizes information from over 100 first Biennial Transparency Reports (BTR1s) and National Inventory Reports submitted by Parties as at 15 April 2025. The submissions include information and data up until 2022 and together represent some 75 per cent of total global GHG emissions in 2020.

The report underscores the critical role of transparency in fostering mutual trust and facilitating ambitious global climate action and support and offers insights into Parties’ diverse national circumstances, institutional arrangements, and capacities for climate-related reporting.

Content of the report 

• • • • Mandate and background 

• • • • Scope and Approach 

• • • • Tracking progress towards NDCs 

• • • • Mitigation policies and measures 

• • • • GHG trends and projections 

• • • • Climate change impacts and adaptation 

• • • • Loss and damage 

• • • • Financial, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building support provided and mobilized, and needed and received 

• • • • Whole of society approach 

• • • • Transparency arrangements, constraints and planned improvements reported to reporting 

The “official” US presence at this meeting is nonexistent, and the global reaction to this has been generally negative (World leaders punch back at US climate denial ahead of Brazil’s COP30 negotiations | Reuters): 

BELEM, Brazil, Nov 6 (Reuters) – Country leaders at a climate summit in Brazil on Thursday bemoaned the fractured global consensus on climate action, taking swipes at the climate-denying U.S. government while trying to assure the world they were still on mission.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tore into nations for their failure to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as Brazil hosted world leaders for a summit ahead of the COP30 climate conference in the rainforest city of Belem.

“Too many corporations are making record profits from climate devastation, with billions spent on lobbying, deceiving the public and obstructing progress,” Guterres said in his speech. “Too many leaders remain captive to these entrenched interests.”

Countries are spending about $1 trillion each year subsidizing fossil fuels.

Leaders have two clear options, Guterres said: “We can choose to lead – or be led to ruin.”

Missing from the lineup were leaders from four of the world’s five most-polluting economies – China, the United States, India and Russia – though the European Commission president and China’s vice premier were on site.

The U.S. administration opted to send no one to the talks. Instead, top U.S. officials were in Greece alongside fossil fuel giant Exxon Mobil <XOM.N> on Thursday as it signed a new deal to explore offshore for natural gas.

Colombia’s president criticized the absence of U.S. President Donald Trump, whose country is responsible for releasing the most emissions into the atmosphere.

“Mr. Trump is against humanity. His absence here demonstrates that,” said President Gustavo Petro, who had U.S. sanctions imposed against him last month.

A handful of leaders referenced Trump’s description of climate change as the world’s greatest “con-job”.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric said bluntly through a translator: “That is a lie.”

Ireland’s prime minister questioned the priorities of those skipping the summit.

Figure 3 – How US electricity sources have changed since 1950(Chart: The Conversation/CC-BY-ND; Source: EIA via The Invading Sea)

Yet, as can be seen in Figure 3, the sources for US electricity have largely changed from coal to renewables and natural gas over the last few decades  (How the US cut climate-changing emissions while its economy more than doubled): 

U.S. emissions from many of the activities that produce greenhouse gases – transportation, industry, agriculture, heating and cooling of buildings – have remained about the same over the past 30 years. Transportation is a bit up; industry a bit down. And electricity, once the nation’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, has seen its emissions drop significantly.

Next week’s blog will contrast the US absence from the Belem COP30 with the enhanced presence of China and the EU.  

Three days after I post this blog, my wife and I are taking a trip to Washington, DC, to take part in an event organized by the Holocaust Institute. As was clear from my earlier blogs, my focus after my retirement shifted to my Holocaust history, its ramifications for our present reality, and the future of my grandchildren. Just put Holocaust into the search box to scan early entries. My original intention for this week’s blog was to start to cover COP30, which was scheduled to open in Brazil on Monday, November 10^th (see the recent blog on October 29^th). However, reality almost always comes with surprises.

On Sunday, October 31^st, the NYT released an interesting editorial board piece related to the second term of President Trump (Opinion | In Trump’s America, Are We Losing Our Democracy?). The piece immediately triggered in me some important questions that changed my priorities for this week’s blog. Specifically, I wanted to look into the idea of using the editorial to leverage a question that has been bothering me for some time now – how to quantify collective evil, starting with evil governments. My scientific background requires that I quantify any findings for other people to be able to refute or confirm my results. Usually, such quantification needs a reference. This issue serves as a focus of the scientific method, as formulated by Karl Popper, and was mentioned in an earlier blog (June 18, 2012) in the context of climate change. Popper was a philosopher, and collective evil in the form of governments is a topic for social scientists to study; I am neither a philosopher nor a social scientist. Before I proceed, I will cite the NYT’s definition of its Editorial Board: 

The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.

Below, the editorial board explains the question that the group tried to answer and how they went about doing so:

Countries that slide from democracy toward autocracy tend to follow similar patterns. To measure what is happening in the United States, the Times editorial board has compiled a list of 12 markers of democratic erosion, with help from scholars who have studied this phenomenon. The sobering reality is that the United States has regressed, to different degrees, on all 12.

Our country is still not close to being a true autocracy, in the mold of Russia or China. But once countries begin taking steps away from democracy, the march often continues. We offer these 12 markers as a warning of how much Americans have already lost and how much more we still could lose.

The editorial is long, and what I had in mind was to connect it to a similar analysis of the Nazi regime, which came to power in 1933 and was responsible for the Holocaust during WWII. I had to ask AI (through Microsoft Copilot) for help. The topic that I posed is the following: “Transition of the Nazi Regime from Democracy to Autocracy Following NYT Analysis of the second Trump regime.” The response came out in the form of two answers: one was summarizing the NYT editorial and the other was extending the analysis to the Nazi regime.

First, the summary of the editorial:

An October 31, 2025, New York Times interactive opinion piece by the editorial board argues the U.S. is shifting toward authoritarianism under President Trump, identifying twelve markers of democratic erosion. The article suggests that while not yet a full autocracy, the initial, difficult-to-reverse steps of democratic backsliding have begun, citing examples like prosecuting political opponents and stifling dissent. Read the full analysis at The New York Times.

The analysis concluded that of the 12 markers discussed, 7 of them had just started within Trump’s administration, while 5 of Trump’s actions were already shifting the focus of the government.

This was followed by a similar analysis of the Nazi regime’s transition to autocracy after gaining power in 1933:

The Nazi regime’s consolidation of power in Germany after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933 can be analyzed through several common markers of democratic erosion:

• • • • Undermining or Controlling the Judiciary and Rule of Law: Following the Reichstag fire in February 1933, the Nazis used the subsequent Reichstag Fire Decree to suspend basic civil liberties (freedom of speech, assembly, privacy) and detain political opponents without trial [3]. They established the Volksgerichtshof (People’s Court) to try political crimes with predetermined outcomes [3].
      • Silencing the Media: The Nazis rapidly shut down or co-opted independent media outlets through the Editors’ Law (Schriftleitergesetz), which required all journalists to be registered and obey directives from the state’s Ministry of Propaganda, headed by Joseph Goebbels [3].
      • Eroding Electoral Integrity: Although Hitler was appointed Chancellor constitutionally, he quickly called for new elections in March 1933, using the suspended civil liberties and state resources to campaign aggressively while suppressing all opposition parties [3]. The Enabling Act was passed shortly after this election, effectively ending the power of the Reichstag.
      • Marginalizing the Legislature: The Enabling Act of 1933 (“Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich”) allowed the Chancellor and his cabinet to pass laws without the consent of the Reichstag, effectively bypassing the legislative branch entirely and making Hitler a dictator [3].
      • Politicizing the Civil Service and Security Forces: Existing state police forces were rapidly purged of opponents and brought under centralized Nazi control. The SS and Gestapo were established as political security forces loyal directly to Hitler and the Nazi Party, operating outside traditional legal constraints [3].
      • Eliminating Political Pluralism: Through a process called Gleichschaltung (coordination), all independent political parties were banned (the Law Against the Formation of New Parties, July 1933), trade unions were dissolved, and all aspects of civil society were brought under Nazi control [3].
      • Promoting Nationalism and an “Othering” of Minorities: The Nazi ideology was built on virulent antisemitism and the concept of the “Aryan race,” systematically targeting Jewish people and other minorities through propaganda, discriminatory laws (leading to the Nuremberg Laws in 1935), and violence [3]. 

By 1934, the combination of these actions had fully transformed the Weimar Republic from a democracy into a single-party totalitarian state, demonstrating a rapid and comprehensive application of measures that extinguish democratic institutions and norms [3].

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Nazi regime’s rise to power in 1933 involved systematic actions to dismantle democratic institutions and suppress opposition. These included prosecuting political opponents, stifling dissent, bypassing the legislature through the Enabling Act, and consolidating control over state governments and military forces. For more details, visit encyclopedia.ushmm.org.

According to an analysis applying criteria from a New York Times editorial, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime in 1933 exhibited all twelve indicators of democratic erosion. Within months of Hitler becoming Chancellor, the regime systematically weakened accountability institutions, tightened executive control, purged opponents, suppressed dissent, and eroded civil liberties, leading to a one-party state. More details are available on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.

According to a New York Times editorial, the 1933 Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler demonstrated a rapid and extreme progression across all twelve indicators of democratic erosion identified by the publication. These markers include stifling speech, prosecuting political enemies, bypassing the legislature, and undermining free elections, all of which manifested intensely and rapidly within months of Hitler becoming Chancellor. For more details, visit The New York Times.

After reading the NYT piece and the AI response on the similarities between the current happenings and the rise of the Nazi regime, I thought that I had seen a similar analysis earlier. I went to my library and, indeed, I had. I found a small book that I had previously read, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder, shown in Figure 1. The book can be bought for $9.

Figure 1 – The book’s cover

The book consists of a short prologue and 20 lessons addressed to the “average” citizen of the US. It came out in 2017, after President Trump’s inauguration into his first term. The last sentence of the prologue reads as follows: “This book presents twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today…”

The 20 main lessons are cited below. They are phrased as rules or directives; for the explanations and instructions, I strongly recommend either spending the $9 or finding a copy in the library and reading the book.

• • • Do not obey in advance.
    • Defend institutions.
    • Beware the one-party state.
    • Take responsibility for the face of the world.
    • Remember professional ethics.
    • Be wary of paramilitaries.
    • Be reflective if you must be armed.
    • Stand out.
    • Be kind in our language.
    • Believe in truth.
    • Investigate.
    • Make eye contact and small talk.
    • Practice corporeal politics.
    • Establish a private life.
    • Contribute to good causes.
    • Learn from peers in other countries.
    • Listen for dangerous words.
    • Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
    • Be a patriot.
    • Be as courageous as you can.

The specific references to 20^th-century history, not surprisingly, are focused on Nazi Germany, with some sprinklings of mentions of the Soviet Union. The same author released an expanded audio version of the book in 2022 with an additional 20 lessons based on Russia’s war on Ukraine.

A similar analysis can provide a solid background, keeping Nazi Germany as a reference for collective evil. However, few will be surprised that most countries in the world—more specifically—all the developing countries, tend to stay out of the conversation. I will return to this issue in future blogs.

(Source: NTT Data)

I finished last week’s blog with a wish to be thankful this coming Thanksgiving. On a personal level, I have some control over my actions and surroundings. On a global level, I have no control so I can only wish. The top picture and the associated link are from the 2024 Intelligence Report of Global Threats. The only threats that this report covers are cyber threats. In previous blogs, I tried to address broader threats. See my June 11, 2024 blog, titled “What Are We Trying to Teach Our Children?” A key paragraph is cited below:

As I have tried to show in more than 12 years that I have been writing this blog, humanity is in the middle of at least 5 existential transitions; all of these started around WWII. They include climate change, nuclear energy, declining fertility, global electrification, and digitization. These transitions started around the time that I was born, but they will hopefully last (if some of them do not lead to extinction in the meantime) at least through the lifetime of my grandchildren (I call this time “now” in some of my writing).

This blog addresses four out of five of these existential transitions that provide early signs of present global threats. These threats are presented in three categories: nuclear war, climate change, and declining population. I will start with nuclear war:

Nuclear War:

I will start with a recent frightening movie – A House of Dynamite. It is a well-made movie; for  those of us who have not seen it, I am including part of a review:

A military expert has praised one aspect of the new Netflix film A House of Dynamite, which has become a huge streaming hit, despite being criticised for inaccuracies.

The political thriller, from Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow, depicts a scenario where a nuclear weapon is fired at the US by an unidentified foe.

From three different perspectives – first from the White House Situation Room, then from the United States Strategic Command, and finally from the President himself, the film repeatedly tracks the 20 minutes after the weapon’s launch and the complex, world-changing decisions that officials might have to make in such a situation.

In terms of public response, the most controversial part of the movie was the ending (spoiler alert!), which doesn’t give the viewers a clear answer to the key question that it raises. We still don’t know—will the missile, loaded with nuclear weapons, hit Chicago and kill more than 10 million people in the metropolitan area, or will it trigger a global nuclear war that could lead to existential extinction? The answer that the movie makers provide to the public is that they wanted to trigger broad thinking about the consequences.

The movie is both frightening and entertaining and is being compared frequently to an earlier movie (1964): Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. For those who have never heard of this movie, I cite two paragraphs from Wikipedia that describe it, and give my strong recommendation to watch it:

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (known simply and more commonly as Dr. Strangelove) is a 1964 political satire black comedy film co-written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is loosely based on the thriller novel Red Alert (1958) by Peter George, who wrote the screenplay with Kubrick and Terry Southern. The film, financed and released by Columbia Pictures, was a co-production between the United States and the United Kingdom.

The story concerns an insane brigadier general of the United States Air Force who orders a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. It follows the President of the United States (Sellers), his scientific advisor Dr. Strangelove (Sellers), a Royal Air Force exchange officer (Sellers), and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Scott) as they attempt to stop the crew of a B-52 from bombing the Soviet Union and starting a nuclear war.

The Dr. Strangelove movie focuses on one powerful, deranged individual. “A House of Dynamite” is based on an overstressed, unprepared, collective system that includes and affects most of us. We are not prepared for such a debacle. The real world is not a movie. The only time that nuclear warheads were used in a real war was in August 1945, toward the end of the American war with Japan. The present nuclear threat was summarized in a previous blog (July 9, 2025). Now, the two largest holders of nuclear weapons are threatening each other (and everyone in between). Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought about confrontations with NATO, following which, we have seen constant threats: Russia burning as Ukraine launches huge attack after Trump WW3 warning – World News – News – Daily Express US

Russian authorities said they intercepted 100 Ukrainian drones across regions overnight, including six near Moscow and 13 over border areas. The assaults disrupted flights at three major airports, including Vnukovo and Domodedovo. The apparent strikes align with Ukraine‘s summer-long campaign against Russian energy infrastructure and coincide with Kyiv’s use of domestically produced long-range drones to hit military and industrial sites. Russian officials have condemned the operation as “terrorist aggression” and vowed reprisals. The strikes occurred 48 hours after US President Donald Trump’s condemnation of Vladimir Putin‘s Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile test, conducted on October 21 and announced publicly on October 26.

Recently, the US was also reported as being interested in picking up nuclear weapons testing again:

President Donald Trump has called on US military leaders to resume testing nuclear weapons in order to keep pace with other countries such as Russia and China.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” he wrote on social media just before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.

The US has more nuclear weapons than any other country, Trump said, with Russia second and China a “distant third”. It has not conducted nuclear testing since 1992.

It comes just days after Trump denounced Russia for testing a nuclear-powered missile. The Kremlin says its tests were “not nuclear”.

More frightening is that the nuclear tension is not between the US and Russia, the two largest holders of nuclear weapons, but between Russia and NATO. I asked AI (through Google), who in NATO has the authority shown in the movie, to trigger nuclear war—either to instigate or retaliate. This is what I got:

Authority for a nuclear counter-attack in response to a Russian nuclear strike on a NATO country rests solely with the heads of government of the three NATO member states that possess their own nuclear weapons: the United States President, the United Kingdom Prime Minister, and the French President.

NATO itself, as an organization, does not own or control any nuclear weapons, so a decision to use them is a national one for these three countries, albeit made in close consultation with the Alliance.

I am following the lead of the producers of A House of Dynamite, and letting readers decide for themselves the sanity of the threat.

Climate Change:

The separate threat of nullifying (or reducing) global efforts to mitigate global climate change through the COP process will be transparent after the start of COP30. The US efforts in this direction, after the inauguration of the Trump administration, were described in last week’s blog. The present state of the global effort is summarized by the Guardian:

Recently drafted climate plans from scores of countries fall drastically short of what is needed to stave off the worst effects of climate breakdown, analysis has shown. More than 60 countries have so far submitted national plans on greenhouse gas emissions to the UN, setting out how they will curb carbon for the next decade. Taken together, these plans would cut carbon by only about 10% by 2035 compared with 2019 levels. This is only about a sixth of the drop in global emissions needed to limit global heating to 1.5C.

Going from the statistical abstract to a more concrete scenario, I have been following the effects of Hurricane Melissa, which is now hitting the Caribbean (Death toll climbs to 50 as Caribbean surveys Hurricane Melissa destruction: Live updates):

“The entire Jamaica is really broken because of what has happened, but we remain resilient,” said Jamaican Minister of Education, Skills, Youth and Information Dana Dixon on Thursday. “We will get there… we are going to get to every single Jamaican and give them support.”

In Cuba and Haiti, heavy rainfall caused extensive damage. According to Francisco Pichon, resident coordinator for Cuba at the United Nations, more than 200 communities remained isolated and without communications due to flooding and landslides. The hurricane unleashed catastrophic flooding in Haiti, damaging homes and forcing thousands of people into emergency shelters.

Voices that used to be supportive of major global efforts to mitigate the threats are now starting to retreat:

NEW YORK — Bill Gates thinks climate change is a serious problem, but it won’t be the end of civilization. He thinks scientific innovation will curb it, and it’s instead time for a “strategic pivot” in the global climate fight: from focusing on limiting rising temperatures to fighting poverty and preventing disease. A doomsday outlook has led the climate community to focus too much on near-term goals to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause warming, diverting resources from the most effective things that can be done to improve life in a warming world, Gates said. In a memo released Tuesday, Gates said the world’s primary goal should instead be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions in the world’s poorest countries.

We will expand on this shift in messaging during and following COP30, which starts on November 10^th.

Declining Fertility + Digitization (AI):

Very early signs of using digitization, through AI, will show us if we can replace people with machines. The example below, with Amazon’s announcement that it will lay off 14,000 workers, is starting to initiate a global debate on the issues. The two links below demonstrate the stakes:

https://www.aol.com/finance/amazon-may-replace-600-000-120000770.html

As the second largest employer in America, Amazon currently employs around 1.5 million workers. (1, 2) Between 2018 and today, Amazon has onboarded hundreds of thousands of workers, effectively tripling its workforce. (3, 4) But the giant company may be planning a departure from extreme reliance on human employees in the coming years and decades.

According to internal Amazon documents reviewed by the New York Times, some departments within the company are planning to replace employees with robots, impacting up to 600,000 roles. The documents showed that Amazon hopes to avoid hiring more than 160,000 people that it would otherwise need to staff its U.S. warehouses by 2027. (5)

https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/us-senator-sanders-challenges-bezos-amazon-automations-job-impacts-2025-10-28/

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 28 (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Tuesday called on Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab founder Jeff Bezos to account for what the Vermont independent said were hundreds of thousands of potential lost jobs due to automation.

“If Amazon succeeds on its massive automation plan, it will have a profound impact on blue-collar workers throughout America and will likely be used as a model by large corporations throughout America,” Sanders wrote in a letter to Bezos, which was exclusively reviewed by Reuters.

Future blogs will follow these developments.

(Source: Dariusz Okraska / EyeEm / Getty Images via History.com)

This blog will be posted two days before Halloween, saying goodbye to October and looking forward to November. I know that November will end with Thanksgiving, and I hope that in addition to saying historical thanks, we will be able to be thankful for other things happening next month. My plan for November is to travel to Washington to take part in an event organized by the Holocaust Institute. This activity triggered in me a fear of disaster and a need to face the state-triggered, “noncreative” destruction in the form of Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938) (more about “creative destruction” at the end of the blog). Meanwhile, COP30 starts on November 10^th in Brazil. What the Trump administration is doing amounts to the state-triggered destruction of mitigation efforts.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Holocaust studies are mandatory in schools in many US states, as well as in many other countries. Kristallnacht is generally taught as part of this topic. However, random polling suggests that most people don’t know much about the link between the Holocaust and Kristallnacht. A similar situation holds true for COP30. Most people know in general about climate change, but few know about the role of the yearly COP (Conference of the Parties) meetings to try to coordinate global mitigation. Consistent readers of this blog are different; just put the two terms (separately) into the search box to find out what I have said about these matters in the past.

We now have the tools to provide background without requiring people to make too much effort in reading prior writing. In the next few pages, I show two AI (through Google) summaries on the two events. The two questions that I posed to the AI are slightly different. For Kristallnacht, I simply asked for impact, while for COP30, I was interested in the current Trump administration’s efforts to contradict the group’s decisions:

Impacts of Kristallnacht (AI through Google):

Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass,” was a violent pogrom against Jews across Nazi Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland on November 9–10, 1938. It marked a major turning point, escalating Nazi persecution from discriminatory policy to widespread, state-sanctioned violence. 

Impacts on the Jewish community

The direct and immediate impacts on the Jewish people were devastating. 

• • • • Widespread violence and destruction:Gangs of Nazi storm troopers, Hitler Youth, and German civilians destroyed over 1,400 synagogues and other Jewish institutions. They vandalized and looted around 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses and countless homes.
      • Death and humiliation:While sources vary, more than 91 Jews were murdered during the attacks, and many more committed suicide. Jews were also publicly humiliated and assaulted.
      • Mass arrests and concentration camps:Approximately 30,000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps like Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. This marked the first instance of mass arrests of Jews based solely on their religion. While most surviving detainees were later released, the experience was brutal.
      • Forced emigration:For many German and Austrian Jews, Kristallnacht was the “wake-up call” that there was no future for them in the Third Reich. The number of Jewish people seeking to emigrate skyrocketed in the months that followed. 

Impacts on Nazi policy

Kristallnacht fundamentally altered the Nazi regime’s approach to its anti-Jewish agenda. 

• • • • Escalation of persecution:The violence was a dramatic and public escalation of the anti-Jewish policies that had been in place since 1933. It demonstrated the Nazis’ willingness to use violent tactics to eliminate the Jewish presence in German society.
      • New anti-Jewish laws and decrees:Following the pogrom, the Nazi regime enacted numerous laws to remove Jews from German economic and public life. These included:
        • Prohibiting Jews from selling goods or services.
        • Excluding Jewish children from public schools.
        • Barring Jews from public places such as cinemas, theaters, and sports.
      • Financial extortion:The Nazi regime imposed a collective fine of one billion Reichsmarks on the Jewish community, claiming they were responsible for the damages. Insurance payments for damaged Jewish properties were also confiscated by the state.
      • Paving the way for the “Final Solution”:The lack of significant internal and international resistance signaled to the Nazis that they could continue their violent actions with minimal repercussions. This set the stage for further atrocities and the eventual mass murder of the Holocaust. 

International and societal impacts

The international community and the German public had a mixed reaction to the events. 

• • • • Limited international action:While reports of the pogrom were met with shock and outrage in the United States and Western Europe, little concrete action was taken to help German Jews. This was demonstrated at the Evian Conference in 1938, where most nations refused to admit significant numbers of Jewish refugees.
      • German public complicity or fear:The passive or compliant response of many Germans—whether due to fear or ideological agreement—indicated to the Nazis that they could continue their violent actions with minimal resistance.
      • The beginning of the Holocaust:In a wider context, Kristallnacht is often viewed as a turning point from targeted discrimination to the systematic state-sponsored persecution that would lead to the Holocaust and the murder of six million European Jews.  

AI (Through Google): What Trump’s government activities in his second term contradict COP decisions?

Following his inauguration in January 2025, President Donald Trump’s administration immediately took several actions that directly contradict the decisions and goals of the COP international climate negotiations. The core of his second-term policy is a reversal of previous U.S. climate policy, focusing instead on the expansion of domestic fossil fuel production and deregulation. 

Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement

As in his first term, one of Trump’s first acts was to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, which is the key COP-enabled global accord for climate action. 

• • • • Executive Order:On January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order to initiate the withdrawal from the agreement for a second time, which will become effective in January 2026.
      • Contradiction to COP:This action directly rejects the core framework and spirit of all COP decisions, which aim to have all nations cooperate on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 

Undermining international climate finance

President Trump’s government significantly cut funding and support for international climate initiatives, a move that undermines the COP commitment for developed nations to assist developing ones. 

• • • • Funding Cuts:The administration is reducing or eliminating U.S. contributions to climate-focused intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations.
      • Impact on Vulnerable Nations:This directly weakens global support systems and disproportionately affects developing countries, which rely on financial and technological aid to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change. 

Reversal of domestic climate regulations

A series of deregulatory actions dismantled key climate policies implemented by the previous administration. 

• • • • Rescinding the “Endangerment Finding”:The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed rescinding the finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health. This move could dismantle the legal basis for American regulations on carbon emissions.
      • Attacks on State Policies:The Department of Justice was directed to challenge state-level climate and environmental initiatives, particularly those attempting to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate impacts.
      • Contradiction to COP:COP decisions call for increasing national ambition to cut emissions, but these actions weaken both federal and state-level efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. 

Expansion of fossil fuel production

The administration is actively promoting the expansion of fossil fuels, directly conflicting with COP’s objectives of transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

• • • • Increased Drilling:Trump has pursued an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that prioritizes oil, gas, and coal. This includes opening up more federal lands and waters to drilling.
      • Coal Promotion:In August 2025, the administration issued executive orders to “reinvigorate” the coal industry by prioritizing coal leases on federal lands and removing regulations that impede production.
      • Contradiction to COP:This policy directly opposes the global push to phase out fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to renewable energy. 

Dismantling of climate initiatives

The second Trump administration immediately targeted climate-focused programs established under the previous administration. 

• • • • Inflation Reduction Act (IRA):The administration has attacked and begun rolling back provisions of the IRA, which provided significant incentives for clean energy technology and production.
      • Climate Science Censorship:Federal agencies have been directed to remove or limit climate-related language from their communications and websites, attempting to downplay climate science.
      • Contradiction to COP:These actions inhibit the large-scale investments in clean energy needed to meet emissions targets and suppress public awareness, both of which are foundational to successful COP outcomes. 
      • Attacks on State Policies:The Department of Justice was directed to challenge state-level climate and environmental initiatives, particularly those attempting to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate impacts.
      • Contradiction to COP:COP decisions call for increasing national ambition to cut emissions, but these actions weaken both federal and state-level efforts to regulate greenhouse gases. 

Expansion of fossil fuel production

The administration is actively promoting the expansion of fossil fuels, directly conflicting with COP’s objectives of transitioning away from fossil fuels. 

• • • • Increased Drilling:Trump has pursued an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that prioritizes oil, gas, and coal. This includes opening up more federal lands and waters to drilling.
      • Coal Promotion:In August 2025, the administration issued executive orders to “reinvigorate” the coal industry by prioritizing coal leases on federal lands and removing regulations that impede production.
      • Contradiction to COP:This policy directly opposes the global push to phase out fossil fuels and accelerate the transition to renewable energy

Kristallnacht is translated in many languages as the “Night of the Broken Glass.” The link below the picture of broken glass shown in the top of this blog gives more about the event and its origin. It took place in November 1938; WWII officially started 10 months later, with the invasion of the German troops into Poland. I have no idea if the photograph of the broken glass from the link had anything to do with the event. In a sense, it is irrelevant. Similar photographs can be linked to the activities of the present Trump administration in the context of climate change. Both events describe state-supported destruction. The main difference is that the Holocaust, which followed Kristallnacht, took place in the recent (within my lifetime) past, while the devastating impact of climate change is still progressing—at a bit slower of a pace. Sometime, destruction can be followed by a better thing; we call this “creative destruction.” I wrote about it (see June 4, 2025 blog) and two of this year’s Nobel Prize winners in Economics—Mr. Aghion and Mr. Howitt—were awarded for their contributions to the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction. There is no question that the destruction caused by the Holocaust cannot be labelled as “sustained growth.” Similarly, almost the whole scientific community is of one mind, that unmitigated climate change doesn’t leads to sustained growth either. The reality of the Holocaust is now fully transparent. Meanwhile, the reality of climate change is making progress at a slower pace, but its impact on all of us is accelerating. I will follow the results of the coming COP30 meeting and will try to figure out the impact of the new Trump administration on the rest of the global community’s attempts to mitigate the accelerating disaster. Once we reach Thanksgiving, we should have a clearer view.