Is there valid evidence for a climate change trajectory that could lead to human extinction?

6 12 2025

by Dennis Meredith

In a recent memo, Bill Gates declared that climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.” He decried a “doomsday outlook.” Similarly, climatologist Michael Mann and pediatrician Peter Hotez have denounced a “doomism” that is “marked by dramatic but unsupported claims of collapsing ice sheets, runaway warming, and imminent extinction.”

But is there valid evidence for a climate change trajectory that could lead to human extinction?

Central to such a trajectory would be a relentless rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning. High emission levels are continuing, but regardless of whether carbon dioxide emissions go up or down, carbon dioxide levels will continue to rise. Such rise continues because a large fraction of emitted carbon dioxide has a hellishly long atmospheric lifetime—measured in centuries. And millennia will pass before the carbon emitted today will be thoroughly absorbed. Thus, carbon dioxide levels have steadily risen and will continue to do so. And this rise will produce an increase in global temperatures that is accelerating.

Driving this increase will be unabated production of fossil fuels, as well as high demand. Such demand will continue because no nation will take the enormous political and economic risk to cut back on fossil fuel production—as evidenced by the weak agreement from the international COP30 climate conference that did not even mention the role of fossil fuels in climate change. Fossil fuels will remain indispensable because they produce the vast majority of the energy that underpins the global economy, providing food, shelter, transportation, and other necessities. Only a small percentage of energy comes from renewable sources.

The climate consequences of the increases in global carbon dioxide level and temperature have been drastic. For example, wildfires are on the rise, The Great Barrier Reef faces demise, the Amazon rainforest ecosystem could rapidly collapse, and Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets and glaciers are melting.

Such looming catastrophes have led scientists to warn of “tipping points” beyond which those systems would not recover. However, those tipping points have already been passed due to the overwhelming momentum of such changes: Once the drought conditions driving vast wildfires arose, they will not fundamentally improve. Once increased ocean temperature and acidity began to kill coral reefs, they will not return to historically safe levels. Once deforestation and climate-caused drought began to destroy the Amazon rainforest, they will not reverse. Once global ice melting began, it will not stop. The Earth will not get cooler. Feedback loops accelerate these processes. Wildfires release carbon dioxide, increasing atmospheric concentrations. When rainforests die, they give way to hotter, drier savanna that generates less rain. Melting ice exposes darker heat-absorbing ocean water and land.

Unchecked fossil fuel production with the consequent rise in carbon dioxide levels will result in a temperature warming of from 2.1 to 3.3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century under current policies. This rise will continue, given past failures to reduce production. For example, with a 4-degree increase, wrote environmental biologist Rachel Warren, “The limits for human adaptation are likely to be exceeded in many parts of the world, while the limits for adaptation for natural systems would largely be exceeded throughout the world. Hence, the ecosystem services upon which human livelihoods depend would not be preserved.” If all known fossil fuel resources are burned, an up to 10 degrees of warming has been forecast by researchers Katarzyna Tokarska and colleagues.

Among the consequences of increasing temperatures: heat waves, megadroughts, wildfires, floods, superstorms, increased environmental toxicity and disease, war, and societal collapse.

So, why are Gates, Mann, and Hotez loath to entertain the possibility of human extinction from climate change? For one thing, scientists such as Mann and Hotez are neither engineers, economists, nor political scientists. They have an innately narrow expertise that leads them to discount the massive technological, economic, and political barriers to abandoning dependence on fossil fuels.

Gates recognizes his shortcomings, writing in his book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, “I think more like an engineer than a political scientist, and I don’t have a solution to the politics of climate change.” He does recognize the unprecedented nature of the technological revolution he espouses, writing, “We need to accomplish something gigantic we have never done before, much faster than we have ever done anything similar. To do it, we need lots of breakthroughs in science and engineering. We need to build a consensus that doesn’t exist and create public policies to push a transition that would not happen otherwise. We need the energy system . . . to change completely and also stay the same.”

Besides their limited expertise, they may also seek solace in an anxiety-reducing “optimism bias,” in which people overestimate the likelihood of positive events and underestimate the likelihood of negative events. They may also experience “apocalyptic blindness”—a concept proposed by philosopher Günther Anders—in which we are unable to imagine the end of our history.

As journalist George Monbiot declared succinctly, such optimists “have failed to grasp the nature of either Earth systems or the political economy that bears upon them. These men are not climate deniers; they are politics deniers.” Monbiot charged that they spin “a simple story with a happy ending, telling power what it wants to hear, this is the Disney version of environmental science.”

In fact, given the stark realities of climate change, one can legitimately argue that a trajectory toward human extinction is the very one we are on now.

Dennis Meredith is author of The Climate Pandemic: How Climate Disruption Threatens Human Survival


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The Climate Journalism Bubble

10 09 2025

By Dennis Meredith

By ignoring fundamental realities, climate journalists downplay the extreme peril of climate change.

Even as climate-driven heat waves, floods, and wildfires increase, Americans’ concern about climate change has not risen, according to a Gallup poll. True, 61 percent of respondents said they worried about climate change “a great deal” or “a fair amount.” But it’s about the same percentage as in polls dating back to 1989. It’s certainly not the level of concern, even alarm, required to drive the economic, political, and technological revolutions required to stave off a climate catastrophe. And, while a global survey found that 89 percent of respondents favor more government action to fight global warming, it has not translated into the dramatic action required.

Some of that lack of progress is likely due to the fact that people see climate-driven events as “natural disasters,” and carbon dioxide emissions as a usual, human-driven process. Imagine instead if aliens landed on Earth and began spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate of human-caused emissions. There would no doubt be a military response.

However, I contend that climate journalists are responsible for some of this lack of a sense of urgency. They have sequestered their reporting in an information bubble that excludes alarming realities that would reveal the extreme peril of climate change. Thus, they have downplayed the climate emergency.

Conveying a sense of urgency is particularly important now, given the Trump administration’s endemic climate change denialism. It has issued inaccurate climate change reports, and taken actions to obscure the reality of climate change including refusing to publish a major climate assessment and seeking to end the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Here are some of the stark realities often excluded from the climate journalism bubble.

Carbon dioxide emission levels are meaningless. Whether carbon dioxide emissions go up or down, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will continue a relentless rise because of the hellishly long atmospheric lifetime, measured in centuries, of emitted carbon dioxide. The complexity of carbon dioxide processing in the environment means that millennia will pass before the carbon dioxide emitted today will be thoroughly absorbed. So, articles reporting carbon dioxide emission levels should include that reduced emissions will not cause reduced atmospheric concentrations.

Global temperatures will rise inexorably. Given that fossil fuel production will continue unabated, carbon dioxide levels will continue to rise, and so will global temperatures. Articles reporting new global temperature levels should include this context to accurately reflect the dire nature of the climate emergency.

Global temperature limits are a scientists’ con. The 1.5 degree C temperature limit set by scientists as a goal is naïve at best, perhaps even disingenuous. For one thing, no single number could possibly convey the immense complexity of climate change and its hazards. What’s more, scientists basically pulled the number out of their . . . hat. The original 2 degrees C limit scientists proposed arose not from an analysis of scientific data, but was merely the global temperature rise believed to occur if atmospheric carbon dioxide level doubled. And the 1.5 degree C limit was decided on only because scientists believed it was less damaging than a 2 degrees C increase. It is telling that they chose 1.5 degrees, rather than 1.4 degrees, or 1.6 degrees, or some other number that would indicate scientific rigor. Despite this lack of validity, scientists continue to promulgate the 1.5-degree limit, and journalists continue to uncritically cite it, e.g. this article.

U.S. climate policy is globally all-but-irrelevant. U.S. climate journalists understandably center their reporting on U.S. climate policy, but invariably without global context. In reality, U.S. climate policy has almost no global implications. For one thing, regardless of any U.S. policy change, it is only one country and a relatively minor contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2024, the top emitters were China (32%), United States (13%), India (8%), EU (7%), Russia (4%), and Japan (3%), according to the Global Carbon Budget. And, according to the UN, the world is failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid a major temperature increase.

Fossil fuel companies are not villains. They are rattlesnakes. While corporations comprise people who possess a moral compass, the corporation as an economic entity does not. The corporation is less like an individual human and more like a rattlesnake. Both serve a useful purpose—in the case of rattlesnakes, controlling pest populations—and both are laser-focused on survival. One would not expect a rattlesnake to have a conscience; nor should one expect a corporation to. Corporations readily commit unethical acts to survive and profit. While journalists should certainly report such acts, their practice of simplistic, knee-jerk demonizing of corporations avoids a critical and profoundly disturbing question: Why are fossil fuel companies so successful? It’s because they provide the energy that underpins the global economy. Even as climate journalists inveigh against the perfidy of fossil fuel corporations, their lives are made possible by the food, shelter, transportation, and other necessities fossil fuels provide.

Renewable energy won’t replace fossil fuels. The oft-cited statistic that the vast majority of new electricity generation comes from renewables is misleading. First of all, additions to generation capacity do not mean significant replacement of the massive existing capacity, which is overwhelmingly fossil-fuel-powered. Also, electricity production meets only one component of energy demand. A huge portion is fossil-fueled, such as industrial processes. As of 2022, the share of the global energy supply of solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and ocean energy was only 5.5 percent, and renewable energy is not rising enough to even come close to replacing the massive consumption of fossil fuels and its huge production infrastructure and production plans. And, despite renewable energy’s seeming economic advantages, its increase must overcome logistical and political barriers, as well as industry’s reluctance to abandon massive investment in fossil-fuel-based equipment.

Experimental climate-saving technology are not “promising”. Journalists may dub promising experimental climate-related technologies such as carbon capture and renewable energy. However, laboratory success is far, far from marketplace success. Experimental technologies must overcome massive economic and technological hurdles, and most end up in the developmental Valley of Death. So, prematurely calling them promising amounts to optimistic hype.

Climate journalists ensconce themselves in a coverage bubble because of both personal and editorial exigencies. Like all of us, they have an anxiety-reducing “optimism bias,” in which they overestimate the likelihood of positive events and underestimate the likelihood of negative events. They may also experience “apocalyptic blindness”—a concept proposed by philosopher Günther Anders in which we are unable to imagine the end of our history. Journalists must also defer to editors who declare that distressing apocalypse-tinged stories do not sell—an irony, given that fictional apocalyptic tales are highly popular. And while editors may brand bluntly realistic reporting as alarmist, when the future is, indeed, alarming, the label is entirely apt.

Journalists should free themselves from their coverage bubble. To be accurate and complete, their reporting on the climate emergency must include its uncomfortable, even frightening truths. As journalist Katarina Zimmer wrote in Undark, “… climate communication should not just be about instilling hope. It means also confronting the worst possible outcomes and the tough, transformative work that lies ahead.”


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Is human deep-space travel unethical?

5 04 2025

by Dennis Meredith

Imagine if a pharmaceutical company began giving an experimental drug to people without any clinical trials. The company had conducted only limited studies of the drug on cell cultures and animals. Those tests had revealed dire effects of the drug. Would the drug company’s actions be considered legal or ethical? If you substitute ‘NASA’ for ‘pharmaceutical company’ and ‘deep-space travel’ for ‘experimental drug,’ you have precisely the situation with regard to future human deep-space missions.

In fact, it is certain that a formal clinical trial of human deep-space exploration under established regulations would have been legally prohibited, given the known damaging effects of radiation and microgravity on cells, tissues, animals, and humans revealed by scientific studies. The known effects on humans would have made such a clinical trial legally indefensible.

Even as the Artemis program aims for long-term occupation of the moon, and Elon Musk and the Trump administration push for a Mars mission, human exploration of deep space could be deemed ethically indefensible because of the established hazards of radiation, weightlessness, disease, toxic chemicals, and psychological trauma. NASA itself has recognized such severe, unsolved “Red Risks” of deep-space travel; and researchers have conceded that they cannot reliably estimate the medical risk of deep-space exploration missions. Deep space beyond Earth orbit is particularly hazardous because astronauts are not shielded from the most intense interplanetary radiation by the Earth’s magnetosphere. And on deep-space missions beyond Earth orbit, rescue or resupply may be weeks or months away.

In trying to understand the effects of deep space, scientists are trapped in a cosmic catch-22.  They cannot be sure that humans can survive in deep space until humans are sent on deep-space missions. But they cannot ethically send humans on deep-space missions until they know that astronauts can survive.

What’s more, the profoundly traumatic medical and psychological impacts of long-term lunar and Mars missions could be deemed inhumane under rules governing imprisonment of convicts, treatment of prisoners of war, or other such humanitarian situations.

It’s possible to envision what a Mars mission would be like, given the known effects of deep space and the debilitating impacts on astronauts of missions on the International Space Station. Mars-bound astronauts would be confined for nine months in a windowless craft the size of a small motor home. They would be speeding through a pitch-black, airless, frigid outer space with no possibility of rescue or resupply. They would eat only dehydrated, space-radiation-degraded food. Personal hygiene would be minimal. They could not take baths, and there would no laundry, so they could not wash their clothes. So, the craft would grow more and more fetid with the exudations from their bodies.

Weightlessness would require them to exercise hours a day in an ultimately losing effort to maintain their muscles and bones. Their eyesight would become blurry, and they might even go blind. Amid long periods of crushing boredom, alarms would signal the malfunction of some critical system that provided air, water, or heat. They would have to repair it, or perhaps die.

They could only contact loved ones through a link that would impose long delays. There would be no clinic, with only one trained medical caregiver, little diagnostic equipment, and a limited supply of pharmaceuticals. They would be bombarded by intense deep-space radiation that could kill them immediately, or ultimately give them cancer.

After the nine months, their craft would descend  on a roaring pillar of flame to land on a desolate, lethally cold, airless, radiation-blasted surface covered with toxic dust. Upon landing, they would have to instantly transition from weightlessness to gravity, their muscles and bones weakened. Nearly crippled, nearly blind, traumatized, and depressed, they would have to immediately begin to perform complex tasks crucial for their survival.

After a month on the planet surface enclosed either in the lander or in a spacesuit, they would be launched once more for a nine-month voyage back to Earth. Even with the promise of home, on this return voyage they would continue to suffer whatever medical and psychological problems arose on their outbound voyage and their stay on the Martian surface.

However, this scenario is optimistic. The crew may well have succumbed to any number of medical or spacecraft catastrophes. After all, deep-space travel is a “serial killer,” as are lunar and Mars missions. That is, they are like the serial circuits of old-time Christmas tree lights, in which the loss of one defective bulb extinguished the entire string of lights. Similarly, in deep space a single medical catastrophe amid untold possibilities could end in astronauts’ death or disability. Any organ—heart, lungs, immune system, brain, or eyes—could fail. And the severe limits on medical capabilities in deep space would prevent treatment.

Likewise, in deep space, the loss of any spacecraft system—oxygen supply, temperature control, food, water, or radiation protection—would mean catastrophic failure, ending in death. For example, the loss of both the Space Shuttles Challenger and Columbia were due to the failure of single components of the massively complex spacecraft systems. The Challenger exploded because of a burn-through of a solid-fuel rocket booster, and the Columbia disintegrated because a piece of foam insulation damaged a carbon-fiber tile on the wing.

While astronauts do give informed consent to undertaking space missions, they may not really be “informed,” given that deep-space travel, including extended lunar and Mars missions, has never been carried out and cannot be simulated. Thus, it presents hazards that have never been experienced by astronauts and cannot be anticipated. So the analyses of the hazards of deep-space travel can be no more than limited, educated guesses—not an ethical basis for requiring consent. And, astronauts may well be under coercion in some sense, with their own ambition and dedication compelling them to risk their lives on missions that are hazardous, even lethal.

Given all these issues, a key ethical question is: At what point does exploration become exploitation, in which the advocates of human deep-space travel become willing to sacrifice the lives of astronauts for scientific, political, and economic gain?

Dennis Meredith is the author of “Earthbound: The Obstacles to Human Space Exploration and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence.”


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AI robots, not humans, are the future of space exploration

3 04 2025

by Dennis Meredith.

On the moon, the CADRE lander, to be launched this year, will touch down with a unique task. It will lower down three briefcase-sized rovers that will work as a team. Coordinating via a radio network, they will roll across the lunar surface, using cameras, navigation sensors, and ground-penetrating radar to map the terrain in 3D. The CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) robots will plan their strategy with no human intervention.

On Saturn’s supercold moon Titan, the Dragonfly rotorcraft, to be launched in 2028, will fly through the nitrogen atmosphere and methane rain, scanning the terrain and choosing landing spots to drill into the ice and analyze Titan’s chemistry. Looking like a bobsled with propellors, it will maneuver autonomously, its AI brain enabling it to make decisions without instructions from scientists on Earth.

These craft comprise only two of  the ingenious menagerie of artificially intelligent robotic explorers envisioned by space scientists. The multi-armed ReachBot could explore Martian caves, using its telescoping spined appendages to grasp the walls. The all-terrain DuAxel robot could hoist itself up and down treacherous, rock-strewn Martian hills via detachable wheeled axles, mapping and gathering samples. And, the multi-legged Freeclimber could use Velcro-like grippers to scale the steepest Martian mountains, recording its explorations.

On the frozen Jovian moon Europa, a nuclear-powered cryobot could drill through the ice with its heated tip, gathering samples for analysis. Once it breaks through to the moon’s subsurface ocean, it could release a swarm of micro-swimmers, small fish-like robots that would venture forth to sample water and search for life.

On Venus, a solar-powered plane could sail through sulfuric acid clouds, depositing a rover to gather samples on the 450-degree Celsius surface and generate propellant from the Venusian atmosphere to power its return to Earth.

None of these robots has lungs that could be choked by swirling lunar or Martian dust; muscles and bones that would be weakened by weightlessness; or organs that would be damaged by radiation. So far, almost all astronaut missions have been limited to Earth orbit, where the planet’s magnetic field shields against the far more hazardous, even lethal, radiation of deep interplanetary space.

None requires a livable temperature or a constant supply of air, food, and water. None requires the gargantuan amounts of fuel and supplies necessary for human missions. And, unlike humans that come in only one basic model, they can be designed for a specific mission.

They can readily survive the hazards of radiation, weightlessness, disease, toxic chemicals, and psychological trauma—revealed by scientific studies on organisms from cells to humans—that astronauts would endure in deep space. NASA itself has recognized the severe, unsolved “Red Risks” of deep-space travel, and researchers have conceded that they cannot reliably estimate the medical risk of deep-space exploration missions.

Despite these overwhelming obstacles, advocates of human space exploration have offered rationalizations that turn out to be deeply flawed. They are basically vague, hand-waving arguments; and when their merits are closely examined, they lack substance. One might compare them to hollow chocolate Easter bunnies—appetizing on the outside, but with nothing on the inside.

For example, advocates assert that human spaceflight inspires students to become scientists or engineers. However, a  National Research Council report on human spaceflight cast doubt on this rationale, concluding that: “The path to becoming a scientist or engineer requires much more than the initial inspiration.” Of such inspiration, the report noted that “it is difficult to separate the contributions of human and robotic spaceflight.”

Advocates have also claimed that spinoffs from the human space program have proved its economic worth. But would these technologies have been more cost-efficiently developed by robust funding of research and development, without the massive overhead of a space program? As the NRC report pointed out “. . . even if NASA’s human spaceflight activities have had a substantial favorable effect on US technical, industrial, and innovative capabilities, it is difficult or impossible to ascertain whether similar effects could have resulted from similarly large R&D investment by other federal agencies.”

Advocates have also pointed to the jobs created by the human space program. But so would the same amount of money expended on infrastructure, environmental restoration, basic research, and countless other endeavors in which the product was not literally shot into space.

Instead, of a massively expensive, and in the end inevitably tragic, human program, deep-space exploration should be mounted by neuronauts—artificially intelligent space probes collaborating with scientists. Exploring  exotic realms from Martian caves, to Europa’s oceans, to Venus’s murky, superhot atmosphere, the data they gather could be used to create a Virtual Cosmos that would enable all of humanity to experience the wonders of our solar system. This sensible space program would be far more realistic and productive, as artificially intelligent robotic space probes become the technological and sensory extensions of humans.

NASA and private companies are already extensively developing and using AI for space exploration. They are using AI to land rockets, dock spacecraft, assist astronauts, manage maintenance, design spacecraft and missions, navigate satellites, analyze data, track space debris, monitor astronaut health, detect planetary geological features, and recognize patterns in astronomical images.

Abandoning the unrealistic plans for human deep-space travel would enable us to chart a path to space that will also be infinitely more cost-effective. Imagine the prodigious exploration possible if the immense cost of the human space program—almost half of NASA’s budget—were applied to robotic explorations. And imagine how inspiring and educational those explorations would be if the world’s peoples could join the experience through virtual reality technology.

A neuronaut exploration program avoids the pipe-dream-planning and rush to space driven by advocates. Rather, it proceeds rationally, building a foundation of knowledge that will create the most benefit from space for humankind.

Dennis Meredith is the author of “Earthbound: The Obstacles to Human Space Exploration and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence.”


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What will be the impact on climate change of Trump’s policies?

6 12 2024

Short answer: None. No US policy change will have an impact on global carbon dioxide emissions or climate change.

President Trump is widely expected to roll back policies aimed at fighting climate change, and to emphasize fossil fuel production, given his denial of the reality of climate change; and the climate-related policies outlined in Project 2025. However, none of those policies will have an effect on global climate change.

For one thing, regardless of any US policy change, it is only one country. Carbon emissions are global. In 2024, the top emitters were China (32%), United States (13%), India (8%), EU (7%), Russia (4%), and Japan (3%), according to the Global Carbon Budget. And, according to the UN, the world is failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions enough to avoid a major temperature increase.

Although US carbon dioxide emissions are projected to decrease, overall global emissions will continue to rise, according to the Global Carbon Budget. In any case, reducing carbon dioxideemissions will not affect the continuing rise in carbon dioxide levels. Any such reductions are not a sign of “progress,” but rather a lowering of emissions amid a huge, continuing release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels will continue to rise because a large fraction of emitted carbon dioxidehas a hellishly long atmospheric lifetime—measured in centuries. The complexity of carbon dioxide processing in the environment means that millennia will pass before the carbon dioxide emitted today will be thoroughly absorbed.

No Trump policy, however regressive, will accelerate the continuing environmental impacts of climate change—for example, melting of Arctic, Antarctic, and Greenland ice sheets and weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation.

In fact, an unrelenting global temperature rise is literally baked in because analyses have revealed that there is about a decade-long lag between a given carbon dioxide level and the maximum effect on temperature. And, since carbon dioxide levels have risen steadily over the past decade, so inevitably will temperatures.

President Trump will no doubt withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but that withdrawal will have no effect on climate change. The Agreement is toothless, with fatal structural flaws. Those flaws include that the agreement is voluntary, with no penalties for violating it, and with nebulous wording that allows evasion – e.g. “a Party may at any time adjust its existing nationally determined contribution. . .” What’s more, honoring the agreement would require countries to compromise their economic well-being, for example by giving up lucrative income from fossil fuels. And, no government will risk its survival by seeking to eliminate fossil fuels, given the economic disaster such an effort would create.

President Trump’s administration will likely skip the COP climate meetings. But those meetings have become little more than an empty spectacle that yield only weak, nonbinding declarations. For example, the call in the final text of the UN climate conference COP28 for a “transitioning away from fossil fuels” means nothing because it constitutes little more than naïve handwaving. 

That naive advocacy of a phaseout of fossil fuels ignores that they are the overwhelming energy source powering the global economy and will continue to be. For example, coal power continues to increase globally, despite decreases in the US.

President Trump will likely gut policies aimed at encouraging renewable energy development, but such energy sources are trivial compared to fossil fuels. As of 2022, the share of the global energy supply of solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and ocean energy was only 5.5 percent, and renewable energy is failing to meet a goal of rising enough to even come close to replacing the massive contribution of fossil fuels and its huge production infrastructure and plans.

Understanding the impacts—or rather lack of impacts—of President Trump’s policies is critical to grasping the realities of the climate crisis discussed here. Those who warn of a dire climate future have been called “doomists.” It’s a simplistic pejorative of the type used to dismiss the validity of a group without actually examining its legitimacy—e.g. “fake news.” In fact, those who ignore such realities could be termed climate delusionists. Unlike climate denialists who reject the reality of climate change, climate delusionists, particularly scientists, tend to perpetuate comforting fallacies that have downplayed the true impacts of climate change. It is time to realistically face those impacts. It might just propel us to the unprecedented action to save ourselves. As journalist Katarina Zimmer wrote in Undark, “… climate communication should not just be about instilling hope. It means also confronting the worst possible outcomes and the tough, transformative work that lies ahead. That means inspiring not only the optimists among us but the pessimists, too.”


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The ELFS (Eat Less Food, Stupid) Diet

5 05 2021

Are you suffering from the notorious COVID-15 weight gain?

To help you totally lose it (!), here are the principles of my totally un-patented ELFS (East Less Food, Stupid) Diet, based on what’s known about the physiology of appetite and weight loss.

  •  Exercise doesn’t help you lose weight. You expend only a trivial number of calories in exercise, compared to the calorie reductions you need to lose weight. Exercise does enhance muscle strength, stamina, and brain function and protect against heart disease, diabetes, etc. It also gives an endorphin high, similar to that from opioids. Never exercise so much that you don’t enjoy it. The dictum “no pain, no gain” is bullshit.
  • Hunger pangs are not an alarm, but only a hormonal signal from the stomach that it would like to be fed. You can fool the stomach and manage your hunger pangs.
  • Don’t count calories, read food labels, constantly weigh yourself, or do other food-related activities. The object of the ELFS diet is to reduce thinking about food. That practice actually reduces hunger because you’re not obsessing over food. Diet plans don’t work because they involve constantly thinking about what you’re eating and what your weight is.
  • Don’t eat between-meal snacks.
  • Don’t eat after 7:00 p.m.
  • Eat slowly. It takes about 20 minutes for the satiety hormone from the stomach to reduce hunger.
  • Put only a modest amount of food on your plate, and use a small plate. People have a tendency to eat everything on their plate.
  • At restaurants, put half of your food in a container before you begin eating.
  • Realize that everybody is trying to make you fat. At dinner parties your friends will entice you to eat more. And your relatives will comment on your efforts, as my nephew did when I’d lost weight, asking “Are you doing that on purpose?”
  • Don’t eat red meat and other high-fat foods. Chicken and fish are better. Also, consider going vegan. There are tons of tasty vegan recipes, and restaurants are featuring creative vegan dishes.
  •  The first bite of a dessert is the best. The rest is just feeding. The first cookie is the best.
  • Go to bed a little hungry. If the pangs are too much, eat a few crackers, a few nuts, etc. It fools the stomach into thinking it’s being fed, so the stomach shuts the hell up. You lose weight while sleeping.
  • If you go to bed hungry, you’ll be surprised to find that you wake up not hungry. The body has begun to use energy from fat, and it’s perfectly happy.


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How to make plot ideas pop into your head

15 08 2017

Novelists are often asked how they get their plot ideas. I get many of the plots for my science thrillers to pop into my noggin from extensive reading about science and technology. However, sometimes the idea will come before any research, often as little more than a phrase or sentence. I’ve found “What if…?” questions to be the most fruitful.

My first published novel, The Cerulean’s Secret, arose from the simple question “What if there was a blue cat?” The notion nagged and nagged at me, until I started spinning a plot around it. I realized the plot had to revolve around genetic engineering, so I began doing research, coming up with lots of articles that helped form the plot. As with all my novels, I included a list of those sources on my web site.

Similarly, The Rainbow Virus started with “What if there was a virus that turned people colors?” The plot and details from that novel also grew from research that I ultimately posted on my web site.

Authors have also gotten their ideas from some odd phrase or sentence that somehow pops up when their mind is wandering. My advice: let it linger! My favorite story is how J.R.R. Tolkien got the first idea for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He was grading student essays at the time.

“I’d got an enormous pile of exam papers there and was marking school examinations in the summer time, which was very laborious, and unfortunately also boring,” he recalled in an interview. One paper had a page left blank.

“So I scribbled on it, I can’t think why, ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’” At that point Tolkien had no idea what a hobbit even was. But to the enormous benefit of readers worldwide, he let the idea blossom!

For me, sometimes it’s a passage in an article I’ve read that sparks a plot. For example, the idea for The Neuromorphs arose from two quotes. In 2014, Science magazine quoted computer researcher Todd Hylton as saying “We think robotics is the killer app for neuromorphic computing.” Of course, Hylton didn’t literally mean killer robots, but the idea stayed in my head that the kind of robots based on brain-like neuromorphic circuitry could somehow become lethal.

The kicker that really launched the plot was a chilling passage from an article on artificial intelligence by Jason Tanz in Wired magazine:

“With machine learning, the engineer never knows precisely how the computer accomplishes its tasks. The neural network’s operations are largely opaque and inscrutable. It is, in other words, a black box. And as these black boxes assume responsibility for more and more of our daily digital tasks, they are not only going to change our relationship with technology—they are going to change how we think about ourselves, our world, and our place within it.”

Of course, I needed a plot to go with those ideas, so I decided on a theme that no safeguards against artificially intelligent robots escaping control could protect against human greed and depravity. I found lots of good resources to help formulate a plot to support that theme.

In that plot, Russian mobsters bribe the chief programmer of a company that makes lifelike androids to alter the operating systems of androids belonging to wealthy people. Those androids would then kill their owners, be re-engineered to mimic them, take their place, and loot their wealth for the mobsters.

Sometimes, though, it won’t be articles I’ve read, but technology-related experiences that trigger a plot idea. The plot for my latest novel, The Happy Chip, arose when I realized how extensively companies like Facebook and Google were compiling data on my personal habits. That data, I realized, could evolve into a form of control. I wondered “What if people could have chips implanted that would give them data on themselves?” From there, the plot evolved in which corrupt company executives transform data chips into control chips.

My plot-conceiving technique has worked incredibly well. I now have 20 novel plots lined up and more coming. Now, I just have to write the books!


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Categories : Books, Uncategorized

Should an author rewrite a published novel? I did.

1 08 2016

While non-fiction authors routinely produce new editions of their books, novelists don’t, with only rare exceptions. 3D Rainbow Virus 2nd edition webFor example, after Random House bought Andy Weir’s self-published novel The Martian, an editor streamlined the prose before republishing it, helping it become a massive best-seller.

But how about wholesale rewriting of a published novel? Is it a good strategy editorially? Or is it just a case of an obsessive-compulsive writer who can’t let go of a story?

Such rewriting is certainly more feasible these days. Since it’s simple to publish a new ebook or a print-on-demand paperback, authors can readily go back and improve their stories. They can tighten text, streamline plot, enhance action, and draw characters more sharply.

That’s exactly what I did in rewriting my science thriller The Rainbow Virus, and I think my experience offers a useful case study of both the advantages and disadvantages of reshaping a novel.

I published The Rainbow Virus in 2013 to very good reviews on such sites as Amazon, Goodreads, and LibraryThing. While I was gratified, I came to believe that I could greatly improve the novel, based on what I learned from reader feedback and my experience publishing subsequent novels.

I didn’t get a consistent answer when I asked publishing experts about whether to rewrite the novel. My book designer nixed the idea, surprised I’d even considered rewriting, since the reviews were good. On the other hand, a highly respected book marketer absolutely loved the idea of relaunching the title as a rewritten novel.

In the end, I decided to rewrite because of what I perceived as significant editorial shortcomings in the first edition, of both its length and plot. I didn’t feel that edition fully reflected what I wanted to create—a dynamic science thriller, a vivid cautionary tale of bioterrorism, and a satiric exploration of our pathological obsession with skin color.

Regarding length, I learned from experienced editors that authors have a tendency to write novels that are too long. I realized that was the case with The Rainbow Virus. The length problem was due to

  • Scenes that didn’t advance the plot. This problem arose because, like many novelists, I loved my characters so much, I wanted them to “have a life.” So, I wrote scenes depicting that life—for example a romantic dinner date—that didn’t propel the plot forward.
  • Lots of dialog instead of action. This violated the maxim among novelists “Show don’t tell.” I wrote too many scenes portraying meetings in which characters discussed events and strategy. Since meetings are not action, this slowed the plot.
  • Too much technical detail. In some cases, I fell into the old trap of “showing my research.” As a certified science geek, I included too much detail about biological concepts and laboratory procedures.

The plot shortcoming involved the unrealistic portrayal of a main character, Kathleen Shinohara. She is a CDC scientist who is obsessively dedicated and strong-willed. But in the novel, she falls into bed far too easily with the other main character, the disgraced, alcoholic FBI agent, Bobby Loudon. And the sex scenes between them, while not graphic, were far too extensively described.

Given these perceived shortcomings, I rewrote the novel in a way that I believe fixes both the length and plot problems. In the process, I cut it by 22,000 words, from 138,000 to 116,000. And while I kept the romance angle, I changed the plot so that Loudon had to reform himself and earn Shinohara’s respect before she would even consider a relationship.

I think the rewritten novel much more effectively achieves my literary goals. But the question remains: Should I have done it?

In a publishing sense, I had to. For one thing, I had to remedy some significant procedural mistakes I made in publishing the first edition. For one, I didn’t recruit an extensive enough cadre of beta readers, who could have pointed out the novel’s shortcomings. And, I wasn’t self-critical and ruthless enough in tightening the text and streamlining the plot. Basically, I made the kinds of mistakes that self-published authors too often make in this era where we have to be our own editors.

Indeed, readers reviewing the published novel pointed out significant shortcomings that I needed to take into account. True, reader reviews are very much a two-edged sword, because readers are “amateurs” in both the pejorative and complimentary senses of the word.

In the pejorative sense, as amateurs they lack the analytical experience of professional critics. However, in the complimentary sense, amateurs are people who do something for the love of it. These kinds of amateurs have extensive reading experience and will not be bashful about commenting on shortcomings in the novels they read.

So, I decided to take readers’ reviews as a form of crowdsource criticism—not dwelling too much on individual comments, but looking for trends. For example, several readers commented that the romance/sex angle took up too much text and got in the way of the plot.

In crafting the rewrite, I was confident I was making the novel better for new readers. But one question haunted me: Was I somehow being unfair to readers of the first edition by not having given them what I now consider my best effort?

I finally concluded that I didn’t cheat those early readers, because I published the best book that I could, and their reviews were highly positive.

Another quandary was, once I decided to produce a new edition, what should I do with it? Should I upload it as just another routine edit of the original? Or, should I trumpet its existence as “new and improved?”

We decided finally to do a total relaunch of the book as a second edition, with its own ISBN number and a new cover.  Financially, since we’re now just beginning to market the new edition, I don’t know whether the cost and effort will have represented a good investment. But creatively, I believe it was a great investment.

Authors immersed in this new era of self-publishing will face many such thorny questions. While I still haven’t figured out the wisdom of this rewrite, I hope the story of my story will benefit both authors and readers alike.


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Categories : Publishing, self-publishing, Uncategorized, Writing books

Response to “Some Questions re Eligibility for Office in the NASW”

1 07 2016

(This post is in response to NASW President Robin Marantz Henig’s answers [LINK] to the questions I raised in my post “Some Questions re Eligibility for Office in the NASW” [LINK]”

Robin, thanks for your answers, which did clarify things—but only a bit. There are major questions you did not address, which I believe are important in the debate over the proposed amendment that, if passed, would allow any member to hold office. It would be helpful to have at least an indication that the board and officers will be addressing those questions.

For one thing, your answer regarding writing news releases implies that writing even one release, not to mention occasional releases, would trigger the requirement that an officer step down. Is that true?

Also, I would join Rick Borchelt in asking you to address the conundrum whether an officer seeking media coverage for his/her book—which these days often requires an author to write news releases—would require the officer to step down.

Nor does your answer indicate that that there is any policy—or indeed any discussion at all—of how to interpret the vague requirement that “A substantial majority of an officer’s science-writing activities shall be journalism.” This is of significant interest to freelancers like me who engage in an eclectic, ever-changing mix of journalistic, quasi-journalistic, and news-release-writing projects to keep our heads above financial water.

Earle Holland’s point about the ambiguous nature of my communication workshops exemplifies the problem.

Your comment that “Luckily, you would have to turn down the more lucrative work of writing press releases only during the two years that you’re an officer…” reflects a very problematic reality for freelancers who contemplate seeking office.

For one thing, it means that many would have to give up a significant income while serving—in essence paying to serve as an officer. I’m sure that would discourage many freelancers from running for office.

What’s more, freelancers/officers would face the prospect that the offer of a lucrative news release assignment would force them to choose between compromising their financial well-being, or being embarrassed by having to step down.

Finally, regarding the journalism requirement for officers, I’d like to explore the issue of what constitutes “journalism” these days. The current rule was written in the last century and reflects an outmoded twentieth-century attitude regarding news releases.

Back then, the sole purpose of a news release was to affect media coverage, because that coverage was the only conduit to the public. Today, research news releases posted on services such as EurekAlert! and Newswise are available to the public online globally. In fact, they are posted right along with media stories on such news aggregators as Google News.  A recent search revealed more than 25,000 EurekAlert! and 6,000 Newswise releases on Google News.

This fact is one reason that there is a case to be made that research news releases are now, indeed, journalism.

Certainly, they don’t offer the independent assessment and perspective of a media story. However, many media research stories don’t either, merely describing the research finding.

And while there may be “flackery” in some research news releases, there also may be “hackery” in some media stories that misinterpret research.

In fact, research news releases may well be superior to news stories in their accuracy. They are usually more detailed, and arguably more accurate than media stories, because in reputable news offices, they are fact-checked by the scientists.

I hope these comments help us clarify these thorny issues of eligibility for office, and I look forward to your response.


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Some Questions re Eligibility for Office in the NASW

18 06 2016

(I’m posting this letter to the NASW board members and officers, so that my fellow freelancers may have the benefit of their answers.)

Dear NASW board members and officers,

I’m writing to ask for clarification of the current rule governing elected officers, as stated in the NASW Constitution and Bylaws. The relevant passage is Article IV, Section 1:

“A substantial majority of an officer’s science-writing activities shall be journalism. Officers may not write press releases or otherwise act on behalf of an institution or company to affect media coverage while they serve in office. Officers who engage in such activities shall notify the Board immediately. They may remain on the Board, but the Board shall appoint another fully qualified member to carry out the officer duties.”

My reason for writing is that, after decades of membership in the NASW, I’d like to consider running for office, and I’d like to explore my eligibility.

As a PIO for four decades, I wasn’t eligible to serve as an officer. During that time, I did freelance for such publications as Discover, Popular Science, Air & Space, Science Digest, and newspapers and in-flight magazines. I also consulted on science museum exhibit design.

Ten years ago I left my last PIO job, and I now freelance and consult on research communication. So, I need to understand whether my mix of writing and consulting satisfies the requirement that a “substantial majority” of my science-writing activities be journalism.

I currently write nonfiction books and novels, occasional news releases, and teach communication workshops for scientists. My last commercial nonfiction book was Explaining Research (Oxford 2010). However, in 2013, I co-authored Danny’s Dream, a privately published history of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Of course, I also write the blog Research Explainer, on which this letter is posted.

Does the “substantial majority” rule pertain strictly to word count, or would a nonfiction book be considered as the equivalent of one media article? I suspect not, and if the appropriate measure is word count—given that Explaining Research is 100,000 words—how many words’ worth of news releases may I write and still maintain a substantial majority? Also, is there a “statute of limitations,” such that a book published a given number of years ago could not be considered in the substantial majority measure?

Would Danny’s Dream count as a published book, given that it was privately produced for an internal audience? If so, since I co-authored the book, and if word count is the criterion, would I count half the words toward my substantial majority?

I am currently writing a nonfiction book on the social impacts of global warming. Given that books take years of writing, could I count the words as I write them toward the substantial journalistic majority?

Do science fiction novels count as science journalism? I write so-called “science thrillers,” which are adventure stories that extrapolate from real science, as opposed to, for example, Vampires vs Zombies. Would a nominating committee want to review the novels, to judge their scientific content?

Does the rule that “Officers may not write press releases” (emphasis added) mean that, if I were elected an officer, I could write a single release and still remain in office? Or, perhaps a limited number? For example, St. Jude asks me to write a couple of releases every six months or so, as a backup for their science writer. How many of those releases over what period may I write before I would have to relinquish my officer duties? Might I be allowed two per year, for example?

I’d hate to forgo the income from those releases. As I’m sure you well appreciate, freelancing is a financially precarious business. Also, I’d hate to risk losing St. Jude as a client. If I’m elected, perhaps my St. Jude editor would understand and keep me on their list of contributors if the Board could provide a statement to the effect that my officer’s duties preclude writing news releases.

Also, I currently write occasional summaries of research for the web site of MIT’s Sloan School of Management Initiative for Health Systems Innovation. Since those summaries are not meant to “affect media coverage,” would they be considered news releases? If not, could they count toward my substantial majority?

Finally, word-counting wouldn’t apply for my communication workshops. If, indeed, those workshops do qualify as journalism, I’d appreciate guidance on how they would count toward my substantial majority. The workshops typically last from a few hours to days, but they may take weeks of preparation and practice.

I’m aware, of course, that there is under consideration a proposed amendment to the constitution and bylaws that would render these questions moot. However, given that the Board has expressed its position that the current rule should remain in place, I’m assuming that the above questions will remain relevant.

Thanks so much for considering these issues, and I look forward to your response.

Regards,

Dennis Meredith


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