How Crocodile Ancestors Survived The Dinosaur Extinction
Evrim Yazgin Cosmos science journalist
Crocodiles are often thought of as living fossils – unchanged over millions of years. New research has shown that their evolutionary history is a lot more complicated than that.
Crocodilia is the surviving family of a lineage which emerged about 230 million years ago (mya) called crocodylomorphs. This group split from other reptilian species including those that eventually became dinosaurs. Today, the crocodilia include crocodiles, alligators, caiman and gharials.
Ancestors of modern crocodilians survived through 2 mass extinctions, including the one which spelled the end of the “Age of Dinosaurs” 66 mya.
The teeth of this fossil Borealosuchus skull typify the toothy grin of semi-aquatic generalist predators that survived the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Credit: Jack Rodgers/Natural History Museum of Utah.
The new study, published in the journal Palaeontology, shows that the secret to success of crocodylomorphs was their adaptability to new food sources and habitats.
“Lots of groups closely related to crocodilians were more diverse, more abundant, and exhibited different ecologies, yet they all disappeared except these few generalist crocodilians alive today,” says lead author Keegan Melstrom from the University of Central Oklahoma.
Today’s crocodilians are semi-aquatic generalists. The thrive in different habitats and aren’t picky eaters.
It was a different story with ancient crocodylomorphs.
Skulls of Araripesuchus gomesii (left), a Late Cretacious terrestrial predator and Cricosaurus suevicus (right), a Late Jurassic aquatic predator. Credit: University of Central Oklahoma.
The palaeontologists visited museum collections in 7 countries, across 4 continents to understand the evolution of crocodilian ancestors. They examined the skulls of 99 extinct crocodylomorph species and 20 living crocodilians.
Crocodylomorphs exploded after the end-Triassic mass extinction 201 mya which killed off ancient lineages of hypercarnivores and land-based predators.
“After that, it goes bananas,” says Melstrom. “Aquatichypercarnivores, terrestrial generalists, terrestrial hypercarnivores, terrestrial herbivores – crocodylomorphs evolved a massive number of ecological roles throughout the time of the dinosaurs.”
Toward the end of the time of the dinosaurs, however, crocodylomorphs started to decline.
Most of the specialised crocodylomorphs had died off by the end of the Cretaceous. Almost all 26 remaining species today are semi-aquatic generalists.
Some 215 million years ago in what is now northwestern Argentina, the terrestrial crocodylomorph Hemiprotosuchus leali prepares to devour the early mammal relative Chaliminia musteloides. Credit: Jorge Gonzalez.
“When we see living crocodiles and alligators, rather than thinking of ferocious beasts or expensive handbags, I hope people appreciate their amazing 200+ million years of evolution, and how they’ve survived so many tumultuous events in Earth history,” says co-author Randy Irmis from the Natural History Museum of Utah. “Crocodilians are equipped to survive many future changes – if we’re willing to help preserve their habitats.”
“Extinction and survivorship are 2 sides of the same coin,” Melstrom says. “Through all mass extinctions, some groups manage to persist and diversify. What can we learn by studying the deeper evolutionary patterns imparted by these events?” (snip-More)
US officials claim move was to curb drug trafficking while Quebec town says it ‘weakens collaboration’ among nations
View image in fullscreen A young girl walks over the Canada-US border line from the Haskell Free Library and Opera House in Derby Line, Vermont, on Friday. Photograph: Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press via AP
The US has blocked Canadian access to a library straddling the Canada-US border, drawing criticism from a Quebec town where people have long enjoyed easy entry to the space.
The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is located between Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont. It was built deliberately to straddle the frontier between the two countries – a symbol of cooperation and friendship between Canada and the US. (snip)
A nonprofit says it has raised enough money for Fairhope Public Library to cover state funds that the Alabama Public Library Service Board cut off last week.
Read Freely Alabama, a grassroots free speech advocacy organization that has fought restrictions on library content, said it had collected almost $39,000 from about 550 donors through Tuesday morning. Read Freely is organizing the campaign with EveryLibrary, an Illinois-based organization that promotes library funding and fights restrictions.
“We were trying to figure out what was the amount that they were pausing,” said Cheryl Corvo, a member of Read Freely Alabama and Fairhope resident. “Then, we found out it was $42,000 that they were pausing, and how it would affect our library.”
The Fairhope Public Library said it will have access to funding without interference from the state or any outside groups.
“We had a meeting with EveryLibrary, which is the group that has control of this particular fundraiser, and they take 10% and 90% of it comes to us,” said Randal Wright, a board member of the Fairhope Public Library.
The amount was not enough to severely debilitate the library’s operations, Corvo said. But it is enough to affect “some very vital resources that the library provided.” Corvo said the campaign should also make APLS aware of the magnitude of local support for the library.
Wright said that if the state continues to withhold money, the funds will go toward computers, books for the collection and paying for guest speakers. (snip)
Let’s make one thing clear. The immigrants the Trump regime seized off the street and sent to a Salvadoran prison were NOT deported. To be deported, you have to go through due process. Immigrants who are deported usually have to face a judge. The people sent to the prison in El Salvador never faced a judge before being shipped off or received due process. They were not deported. They were kidnapped.
And this prison in El Salvador, where the president referred to himself as the “coolest” dictator, isn’t so much a prison as it is a concentration camp or a gulag.
Mona Charen wrote, “We are outsourcing torture and murder. What kind of president, what kind of political party, can look at that with satisfaction?” And what American can not at least wonder about their own security?”
Speaking to the “cool” dictator while he was visiting the White House yesterday (and you thought it got weird when Zelensky visited), Donald Trump told President Nayib Bukele (He deserves a “sic” too. Sic) that “home growns” should be next. He said, “The home growns. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.” By the way, the cool dictator didn’t wear a suit and tie either. See what you started, Elon?
But what does Trump mean by “home growns?” He’s referencing American citizens, even those born in the United States, that he deems to be criminals, and they should be sent to rot in a Salvadoran super-max prison where human rights are not a thing.
Then Trump told reporters, “I just asked the president — it’s this massive complex that he built, jail complex — I said, ‘Can you build some more of them please?’ As many as we can get out of our country.”
He added, “If they’re criminals, and if they hit people with baseball bats over the head that happen to be 90 years old, if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn, yeah, yeah that includes them.” Or, if they testify against you, or do their jobs in the Justice Department in prosecuting people who start insurrections and steal classified documents, or they draw mean cartoons about you, yeah, yeah, that includes them.
The prison Trump is referring to and that he wants duplicated several times over is a so-called “terrorism confinement center” (CECOT). Prisoners are kept in their cells for at least 23-and-a-half hours a day. They are starved and beaten. There’s no fresh water. People are tortured. There have been 368 deaths in the prison, and it’s only been around since 2022.
Trump said, “They’re great facilities. Very strong facilities. They don’t play games.” You know, games like due process, civil rights, and human rights…”games” like that.
Trump claims all the bad people he sent there without due process are gang members. Still, there’s a new report that claims 90 percent are not gang members, including Abrego Garcia, 29, a Maryland father who was sent to El Salvador on March 15, despite a 2019 court order prohibiting the return to his home country for fear of persecution by a gang there.
The Supreme Court has ordered the Trump regime to bring Garcia back home. The regime has admitted Garcia was mistakenly sent to this gulag, but the regime doesn’t want to bring him back. The dictator, El Salvador’s dictator, not ours, refuses to send Garcia back to the US. The decision by SCOTUS was unanimous. In case you’re a Republican, “unanimous” means all of them. Do you know how rare it is for all nine members of the Supreme Court to agree on anything? They can’t agree on lunch. There was a near revolt the time it was Clarence’s turn to choose, and he picked Blimpies.
So, if the regime can snatch legal residents off the street, then why can’t they do the same to US citizens? You may believe the Constitution protects you, and yeah…it’s supposed to. But the Constitution didn’t protect Abrego Garcia, Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Khalil, or Mohsen Mahdawi, who was arrested yesterday during an interview as part of his application for US citizenship. Ozturk, Khalil, and Mahdawi were arrested and then detained in Louisiana for protesting Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
If you do get snatched up and sent away, you won’t be able to argue for your constitutional rights from a concentration camp in Central America that doesn’t even have toilets. The people who would argue for your rights may not even know you’re missing until you’re swatting at flying buzzy stingy things in a gulag in a Salvadoran mangrove swamp. They have jungles, snakes, giant spiders, crocodiles, gang bangers, and Blimpies down there. You won’t like it. I have two friends from El Salvador, and neither wants to go back…ever. And they weren’t in a concentration camp.
You know how people look at Indiana and say, “I don’t wanna be stuck there.” It’s kinda the same with Latin America and El Salvador. It’s the Indiana of the Americas.
Douglas Dunn, a friend of mine, posted on this cartoon at Facebook, “You are only as legal — you are only as much a U.S. citizen — as the nearest ICE agent (or his boss) says you are, if they can take you WITHOUT DUE PROCESS so you never get the chance to prove you are a citizen.” Doug is a great writer. He writes gooder than I do.
Trump has made it clear that he won’t bring you back, even if a federal court orders it, even if that court is the Supreme Court voting 9-0. Even Clarence and Sammy ordered Trump to bring Garcia back…with some Blimpies.
They can’t really start deporting American citizens, can they?
Last Friday, Nicole Micheroni, an American immigration lawyer born in Massachusetts, received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security (dog-killer Kristi Noem’s agency), saying her parole status has been revoked and she must self-deport within seven days. The letter (which was snail-mailed with a legal stamp and everything, so you know they’re serious) also said if she doesn’t self deport, then the government will take action. The letter ended with, “Again, DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States – the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”
Micheroni made calls and found out the letter was legitimate but intended for someone else. Maybe DHS is practicing for when they do start kicking Americans out of America. But still, if I was Ms. Micheroni, I’d sleep with one eye open for the next seven days, or four years, give or take.
Creative note: I’m never comfortable drawing myself, so consider this kinda-sorta me. When I put myself in a cartoon, I’m afraid I’ll come off as having delusions of grandeur, as though I think I’m important enough that the regime is paying attention to me. I also don’t want to be too kind to myself or even make myself too ugly. I’m still not happy with the self-caricature GoComics is using now (and I never sent this to them. I sent it to Cartooning for Peace. But maybe I should leave it alone in case the regime uses it like a mugshot when they come looking to snatch me off the street and send me to El Salvador.
Music note: I listened to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Are you a Beatles or Stones person? Tell me in the comments. I’m more Beatles than Stones.
Drawn in 30 seconds (Sorry for the earworm): (snip-Go see)
Rep. Jack Kimble tweeted that “President Trump is now 6’3” 224 pounds with 4.8% body fat. We might lose him to the NFL draft.”
Captain Barbarella, the physician to the president (sic), failed to hide in his memorandum about Donald Trump’s physical that he’s a Trump sycophant. Or at least he failed to hide that he was controlled by a member of the cult.
His doctor’s name is actually Captain Sean Barbabella and NOT Barbarella, the title of the 1968 Jane Fonda space sex movie (I’ve never seen it). If congressman Kimble can accidentally refer to the El Salvadore President Nayib Bukele as President Bukake, I can use Barbarella. Also, I don’t know what “bukake” means because I’m a good boy.
While the report of the exam looks like it was written by a real doctor in most of the details, there are still little bits included to make it political and cultist.
For example, when the memorandum mentions his hearing, it mentions “scarring on the right ear from a gunshot wound,” reminding us that Trump was shot is a superhero to survive it (unlike that sucker standing behind him). The doc also wrote that Trump’s “active lifestyle continues to contribute significantly to his well-being,” with one of those activities being his “frequent victories in golf events,” which makes him “fully fit” to be president (sic).
So it’s not the golfing that makes him physically fit to be president, but the golf victories. See what he did there? It’s like the champion is a Greek Adonis, but all the losers are donut-eating hose beasts. Have you seen John Daly? He also claims he’s 215 pounds.
Just how physically active is golfing when you don’t walk the course? Trump doesn’t even like stairs. Yes, there are elevators in the White House, and fortunately for Trump, one of them is a freight elevator. That brings us to Trump’s weight.
Captain Barbarella reports that Captain Big Mac only weighs 224 pounds. He also reports that Trump is 75 inches tall, which is six feet and three inches. I call bullshit.
Here’s what the White House released:
Unless you care about the president’s (sic) health (and I do not), it doesn’t matter to you or me what he weighs or how tall he is. What is important is that they’re dishonest. What’s important is the depth into which this regime sinks the cult into the government.
Trump, who is 78, needs to appear as a Superman to his cult. I’m shocked the memo mentions he takes aspirin for cardiac prevention. As we’ve learned, they lie about everything.
Right now, the regime is lying to the Supreme Court by claiming they can’t have a man they illegally snatched off the street and sent to a prison in El Salvador brought back to this country.
When Trump was running for president in 2016, Dr. Harold Bornstein stated that Trump would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” A couple of years later, we learned that Trump had dictated that letter, which didn’t surprise anyone. A doctor should lose his medical license over that. And it wouldn’t surprise us to learn he dictated “224” and “75 inches” to Captain Barbarella and wouldn’t allow him to mention that Trump’s cholesterol is just Big Mac Secret Sauce. His first White House physician was a lying alcoholic lunatic, Dr. Ronny Jackson, who doesn’t practice medicine anymore and is now in a place where he can’t hurt anybody, Congress.
Ronny Jackson claimed that Trump could live to be 200, and judging from the way our luck works, that might be true.
The memo does show that despite spreading debunked lies about vaccines, like his Health Secretary does, Trump is up to date on vaccines.
The part we should care about, and is more absurd than claiming he weighs 224 pounds, is the claim he scored 30 out of 30 on a cognitive test. I checked to be sure the memo didn’t state that he also has hands that are not tiny.
Anyone who believes Trump, the shark boat battery guy, scored 30 out of 30 on a cognitive test needs to take a cognitive test. I don’t believe this doctor would let us know if Trump scored less than 30.
Trump’s last presidential physical had him at 244 pounds. His 2023 arrest in Georgia listed him at 215 (they don’t weigh the prisoners but take their word for how much they weigh), and this exam says he’s 224.
If Trump does weigh 224 pounds, then that’s 224 pounds of walking/talking bullshit.
The one number that’s accurate about Trump is 34, as in 34 felony convictions.
Creative note: I still have a few other ideas I wrote last week that I want to get to, but I knew last night that I needed to cover this today. This idea hit me shortly after I woke up.
Music Note: I listened to The Beatles.
Drawn in 30 Seconds (with music): Sorry for the earworm. (Snip-go see/listen!)
(Sorry, Scottie, the entire thing is poetic, but there are cats! And dogs. The reading is easy, no worries, and plenty of photos. Just enjoy! -A)
You’ve read of several kinds of Cat, And my opinion now is that You should need no interpreter You To understand their character. You now have learned enough to see That Cats are much like you and me by Worriedman, Read on Substack
THE AD-DRESSING OF CATS – TS Eliot
And other people whom we find Possessed of various types of mind. For some are sane and some are mad And some are good and some are bad And some are better, some are worse — But all may be described in verse. You’ve seen them both at work and games, And learnt about their proper names, Their habits and their habitat: But
How would you ad-dress a Cat?
So first, your memory I’ll jog, And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG.
Now Dogs pretend they like to fight; They often bark, more seldom bite;
But yet a Dog is, on the whole, What you would call a simple soul.
Of course I’m not including Pekes, And such fantastic canine freaks. The usual Dog about the Town Is much inclined to play the clown, And far from showing too much pride Is frequently undignified. He’s very easily taken in — Just chuck him underneath the chin Or slap his back or shake his paw, And he will gambol and guffaw. He’s such an easy-going lout, He’ll answer any hail or shout.
Again I must remind you that A Dog’s a Dog
— A CAT’S A CAT.
With Cats, some say, one rule is true: Don’t speak till you are spoken to. Myself, I do not hold with that – I say, you should ad-dress a Cat. But always keep in mind that he Resents familiarity.
I bow, and taking off my hat, Ad-dress him in this form: O CAT!
But if he is the Cat next door, Whom I have often met before (He comes to see me in my flat) I greet him with an OOPSA CAT!
I’ve heard them call him James Buz-James —
But we’ve not got so far as names. Before a Cat will condescend To treat you as a trusted friend,
Some little token of esteem Is needed, like a dish of cream;
And you might now and then supply Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie, Some potted grouse, or salmon paste — He’s sure to have his personal taste. (I know a Cat, who makes a habit Of eating nothing else but rabbit, And when he’s finished, licks his paws So’s not to waste the onion sauce.) A Cat’s entitled to expect These evidences of respect. And so in time you reach your aim,
And finally call him by his NAME.
So this is this, and that is that: And there’s how you AD-DRESS A CAT
My editor proposed two stories for me to cover last week, and I chose both. The first was on cuts to Friends of the Rappahannock. The other was on cuts to the Fredericksburg Food Bank. Both stories are important to this area, and as it turns out, one of them is important nationwide.
Think of all the government workers Elon has laid off who can’t afford groceries because of Trump’s recession and inflation, and now they can’t get any assistance from the food banks.
It’s not all bad news. There’s still enough money in the budget for Donald Trump’s golf trips, asshole billionaires and trust-fund babies will still get another huge tax cut, Elon will continue scoring government contracts to add to the $38 billion he’s already got from the government.
I’m so glad I got to experience the Hands-Off protest yesterday. A blog for that is coming later today.
Creative note: I drew this at Starbucks on Friday night. I wanted to complete this week’s cartoon for the Advance so I could focus on covering the DOGE protest in Washington, DC.
Now, I’m writing this blog on the train home.
Music note: I listened to Pete Yorn while coloring.
Hi everyone. I did this video around 11:50 AM this morning. It took about as long as it is to record, give or take the sudden breaking of the video by the program. I do have to change that setting. Then I had to merge the two videos something I have become really good at, and because I am not adding stuff at that point I can save and “export it” Ok if I was willing to give Cyberlink access to all my YouTube channel then the video would automatically upload to my YouTube to my channel. Instead because I don’t agree to give Cyberlink the rights to everything I post and watch, I prefer to make my own video of the original file. That took more time. About 40 minutes maybe less.
What took almost another 40 minutes is the settings I used to put my HD filmed videos to YouTube in HD on YouTube had now disappeared. Now my program only allowed me to load it up as either 400 something P or 2K. WTF!
What took all the time was I started uploading it and after it was nearly 17% I had to change VPN spots, and the entire upload stopped. I waited an hour and it did not restart. I then closed everything, restarted, reset the VPN and came pack up. But each place I tried with or without the VPN. The speeds were dirt slow. So I again closed everything, this time I shut the modem and the router down. Then I restarted it all again.
So now before I tried to upload the video to YouTube I checked speeds … not for downloads but upload speeds. I found one that was 10 MPS and stayed with it. It was the highest I had. I clicked upload on the video again. Nearly 3 hours. Oh I could do that it as midday but I had the time … except I did not.
Ron and I had taken out a couple bags that were to be wings and drumsticks to fry for supper. Yet the one bag had one drumstick and the other bag had two and all the rest were wings. Ok, but the instructions were only to bake, not fry. So we had to find our own way. I tried a batch at 3:30 minutes and Ron said they were cooked. I tried a batch at 3 minutes but he did not like the skin on them. He wanted the skins crispy. So I did the rest at 3:30 and cooked the fries while he ate his fill. Then he noticed I had not eaten yet, so said he would take over as I had already cooked the wings and there was only one more hopper of fries to do. I had a few wings too tired to really eat, and then he told me he tried a few back in the fryer longer but it did not crisp the skin any. I could have told him that. But OK. So then I went back and finished my video at well after 7 pm. I am so tired having gotten up at 3 am, and trying to nap during the day but only laying there resting. So here is the video, I hope you enjoy. I will be going to bed. At this rate of uploading I will need to make the videos two days before they get posted. Hugs
I talk about a recent event with Ron’s memory. I also talk a lot about doogie (my name for Musk’s actions in the US government) Where is the money they claim to have saved as it has already been put in those agencies budgets. Hugs
When I went to Peace buttons Monday night, their site was down, or something, so no P&J 4/1 morning. However, keep scrolling; it’ll be after 4/2! -A
April 2, 1917 Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, took her seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The first woman ever elected to Congress, she became the only member to vote against U.S. entry into both world wars. Rankin lost her seat in the next election but was re-elected twenty years later when she opposed entry into World War II. She again served just one term. Though American women weren’t guaranteed the right to vote for three more years with passage of the 19th amendment, women in Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Washington had full voting rights even before statehood. Rankin was instrumental in passing laws that made married women citizens in their own right. Jeannette Rankin biography
April 2, 1966 One hundred thousand Vietnamese demonstrated in DaNang against both the U.S. and their South Vietnamese governments. Civil unrest spread also to Hue and the capital, Saigon.
April 2, 1970 Massachusetts, in the midst of the Vietnam war, enacted a law which exempted its citizens from having to fight in an undeclared war. The U.S. Congress had never formally declared war on North Vietnam as required by Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
April 1, 1841 Brook Farm, perhaps history’s most well-known utopian community, was founded by George and Sophia Ripley near West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Its primary appeal was to young Bostonians who were uncomfortable with the materialism of American life, and the community was a refuge for dozens of transcendentalists, including authors Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Following four days of demonstrations against the Military Services Act that devolved into rioting in Quebec City, Canadian Prime Minister Robert Borden sent in troops from Ontario to stop the violence. Orders from the soldiers were read only in English to the mostly Francophone demonstrators, and when the they didn’t disperse, the troops fired, killing four and wounding 70. [see March 28, 1918] A memorial in Quebec to those who died protesting conscription into World War I More about Brook Farm
April 1, 1932 500 schoolchildren, in the depth of the Depression, paraded through Chicago’s downtown section to the Board of Education offices, demanding that the school system provide them with food.
April 1, 1955 The African National Congress had called on parents to withdraw their children by this day from South African schools in resistance to the Bantu Education Act. That 1953 law transferred education of the Bantu (blacks) from religious missions to state-controlled schools. Mission education, argued then-Minister of Bantu Education Dr. H.F. Verwoerd, not only tended to create “false expectations” amongst the natives, but was also in direct conflict with South Africa’s racially separatist apartheid policies. Whites, who were in complete control of government and society, comprised only 14% of South Africa’s population. Verwoerd presented to Parliament: “When I have control of native education, I will reform it so that natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them. There is no place for him (the black child) in European society above the level of certain forms of labour…What is the use of teaching a Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice?”
April 1, 1983 Tens of thousands in the United Kingdom formed a “peace chain” 22.5 kilometers (14 miles) long to express their opposition to nuclear weapons. The chain started at the American airbase at Greenham Common, passed the Aldermaston nuclear research center, and ended at the ordnance factory in Burghfield. At the same time 15,000 people took part in the first of a series of anti-nuclear marches in West Germany. They were protesting the siting of American cruise missiles on West German territory. Contemporaneous coverage of the Peace Chain
April 1, 1985 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered an end to the dumping of sludge off the New Jersey coast into the Atlantic Ocean. 21st century sludge
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Corbin Hiar reports at the Scientific American that the big banks are now banking on a 5.4º F. (3º Celsius) rise in global temperatures above the pre-industrial average.
Morgan Stanley let the conclusion slip in a report on air conditioner sales, which it expects to double, what with the extra heat. Hiar says that especially after the election of Trump, the banks accept that that is just the way it is going to be.
Air conditioners run on electricity, and reliable electricity may be a problem if the average temperature of the earth’s surface skyrockets 5.4º F.
Remember, that is an average increase. In some places it may be 10º or 15º F. That’s not going to be a pretty picture in Phoenix, Az., Miami, Fl. or for that matter Orlando, Fresno, Ca. and a bunch of other cities that are already sweltering in the summer
I’ve lived a lot of my life in hot places. I was in Cairo once in the summer and there was an article in the Arabic newspaper al-Ahram [The Pyramids] about the heat in Aswan in Upper Egypt, where it was about 115º F. The article said that there was a big electricity outage because the insulation of the electrical wires melted.
There are lots of ways ambient heat can interfere with the transmission wires. It can melt the insulation, or it can overheat components, it can cause oxidation. And here’s the thing. Hot wire shows more electrical resistance, which reduces its efficiency.
Moreover, overheated wires or components can cause fires. California is a big tinderbox at certain times of year, with dry forests, which overheated electrical wires can set off. The smart thing to do will be to bury all the electrical wires, but that is an expense the power companies do not want to bear. Another possibility is that people will put up solar panels and use home batteries, and disconnect from the grid.
Hot river water causes nuclear plants to go offline because they can’t cool the rods. Heat and droughts reduce hydro-electric production. Just generating electricity for the air conditioners can be a challenge. Your best bet will be solar panels, an industry Trump is trying to crush, and the banks are happy to help because of their fossil fuel investments and their willingness to kowtow to Trump’s diktats.
Then there is the air conditioner itself. It isn’t magic. AC’s don’t function well at over 100º F. They may break down. They may not be able to displace the heat outside. Cooling down things by more than 26º F. is a challenge. So if it is 120º F. out, don’t count an getting lower than the 90s inside.
In fact, it has recently been discovered that a combination of 122º F. and 80 percent humidity will just kill you dead right there.
All this is not to mention the massive hurricanes that will repeatedly knock down the electricity poles. Already, Duke Energy filed with the state of Florida for $1.1 billion in compensation for all the grid repair work it had to do after the 2024 hurricane season. What if the costs rise so much that the state can’t bear them, and Duke Energy goes bankrupt? I mean, these are little dinky storms compared to the ones we’ll be having if temperatures rise another couple degrees Fahrenheit. Some scientists argue that the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which only goes up to 5, is increasingly inadequate, and that we are already seeing sixes. Can force 7 hurricanes be far off?
Duke’s press release says, “Given the severity of these three storms, the filing covers a range of costs, such as deploying hundreds of Duke Energy crews from the entire span of the company’s service territories and acquiring significant mutual assistance from across the country and even Canada; standing up staging sites, basecamps and temporary lodging, while also providing meals for thousands of lineworkers and field personnel; and repairing, rebuilding and replacing critical infrastructure, including poles, wires and transformers, that were damaged and/or destroyed by catastrophic storm surge and wind.”
I don’t think they’re going to be getting that help from Canada anymore. And this is just the beginning.
Hurricanes are caused by warm ocean water. The oceans off Florida are already getting up to 100º F. in the summer. That kind of temperature whips up a lot of wind. It is now clear in the data that the intensity of hurricanes is increasing because we are burning so much coal, fossil gas and petroleum.
Not only will the hurricanes be fiercer, damaging homes and businesses and knocking down those made of wood, but they will dump more and more water, causing massive flooding.
Stefan Rahmstorf writes, “our planet’s current coastlines are home to more than 130 cities larger than a million inhabitants, plus other infrastructure such as ports, airports, and some 200 nuclear power plants with seawater cooling (such as Sizewell B on the British North Sea coast). Even 1 m [3 feet] of sea rise would be a disaster.”
Those banks that see a 5.4º F. temperature increase as an opportunity to sell more consumer goods such as air conditioners are not reckoning with the likelihood of climate chaos and climate breakdown at that level, of a sort that will make maintaining current levels of civilization challenging. We’ll survive it. We’re unlikely to survive it in style.
And the billionaires who think that they can sell us gasoline and coal and gas for another century and just protect their families with big mansions in the mountains or on islands are fooling themselves. The mansions will slide down the side of the mountain in a massive downpour, and the seas will swallow up the ones on islands with storm surges.
March 31, 1492 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered the expulsion from Spain before August of all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity under penalty of death.
March 31, 1776 Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John (later to be the second U.S. president): I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation. That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness.
March 31, 1968 President Lyndon Johnson announced he would not seek re-election, ordered a partial bombing halt in Vietnam, and appointed W. Averell Harriman to seek peace negotiations with North Vietnam.
March 31, 1970 The Oakland, California, Induction Center revealed that over the prior six months, half those drafted for the Vietnam War had failed to appear, and 11% of those who reported then refused induction into the U.S. Army. Later that Spring 2500 University of California-Berkeley students at once turned in their draft cards to the Oakland Center.
March 31, 1972 Protesters – singing, blowing horns and carrying banners – launched the latest leg of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s 56-mile Easter march from London to Aldermaston, Berkshire, England. The banner used in the 1960s Aldermaston marches.
March 31, 1985 Throughout Australia, 300,000 demonstrated in peace and anti-nuclear rallies.
March 31, 1991 Before dawn on Easter, five Plowshares activists boarded the USS Gettysburg, an Aegis-equipped Cruiser docked at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. They proceeded to hammer and pour blood on covers of vertical launching systems for cruise missiles. “We witness against the American enslavement to war at the Bath Iron Works, geographically near the President’s home.” They also left an indictment charging President George H.W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, the National Security Council and the Joint Chiefs of Staff with war crimes and violations of God’s law and international law, including the killing of thousands of Iraqis. Remembering Aegis Plowshares
March 31, 1997 Four East Timorese were arrested in Warton, England, at the British Aerospace factory where Hawk fighter jets were built for the Indonesian military, who used them in the ongoing occupation and genocide of their homeland.
March 31, 2004 Air America, intended as a liberal voice in network talk radio, made its debut on five stations.
