The U.S. Will Transform Into Mars

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Climate disasters are multiplying in the United States, the world's leading greenhouse gas emitting country. However, ecology is struggling in political discourses and climate skepticism is still very present.

In a presidential election crushed by the Trump-Harris duel, Jill Stein does not weigh much. According to the latest polls, the Green Party candidate receives just 1% of the votes. “A record,” analyzes Romuald Sciora, director of the IRIS. This crumb could also cost the Dems victory in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, three pivotal states of the “Rust Belt” where the Democrat sees her lead over her Republican rival reduced to less than one point.

Could this relative breakthrough be attributable to an awareness of the American people on the climate emergency? Not really. Even if the climate has caught up with the election – recall the hurricanes Helene and Milton which hit the south-east of the country at the beginning of the month, causing hundreds of victims and billions of dollars of damage – even Jill Stein, however candidate of the environmentalist party, has campaigned very little... on ecology.

It is on another front that she has led her meetings since November 2023: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"A strategy that pays off, since it recovers votes from Democrats critical of the Biden administration's position on the situation in Gaza and Lebanon,"

says Romuald Sciora. This is especially true in some "swing states", such as Wisconsin or Michigan, which have a large Arab-Muslim community.

On Harris' side, either, ecology is not at the heart of the electoral strategy. And for good reason: she must realize "a big gap impossible to keep". From the "center-right", the candidate must appeal to moderate Republican voters and the Democratic left.

"To flatter the Republicans, whom she will absolutely need to govern, Harris cannot afford to be too radical on ecology,"

says Sciora.

Even if she willingly takes on board the ecological record of the Biden administration, the Democratic candidate, who assured that she wanted to put an end to hydraulic fracturing of shale gas, has, for example, backtracked so as not to lose the workers in the fossil sector.

Even more than disinterest, ecology and any environmental policy arouse distrust among a large part of Americans.

"This is an ultra-individualistic country. However, the climate or biodiversity are global problems."

Worse, ecology is regularly pointed out as "contrary to the founding values of the United States". Perceived as an obstacle to individual freedom, it would therefore be "un–American" - stands for "anti-American".

In his Agenda 47 acting as a program, Trump thus considers the ecological transition policy as an "anti-American crusade by Biden on energy" causing "a massive increase in taxes on everything". And to add that "the country that benefits the most today from the "Green New Deal" [Green Pact, editor's Note] of Joe Biden is China".

The direction to take according to the Republican candidate would rather be to bring US energy prices back to their pre-crisis level:

"We are going to make thousands of Americans work to build the power plants, pipelines, networks, ports, refineries and shipping terminals of tomorrow. We will find very cheap energy again, as was the case only two and a half years ago,"

he assures.

#Mars #US #IRIS #Dems

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None of the candidates "has an interest in focusing on ecology, we have all chances to be become a Mars on earth," Sciora points out. And if Trump election would be “catastrophic,” the researcher predicts it:

“Let's not expect more from Harris than nice words on the fight against global warming.”

The fact that ecology is not at the heart of the exchanges between the candidates is hardly surprising. With the exception of Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, the contenders for the White House have rarely focused on these issues, without their constituents holding it against them. Despite the climate disasters that are multiplying in the country, the situation has changed very little: Americans are more concerned about inflation, immigration or abortion rights than global warming.

"It must be said, there is a total lack of interest in the ecological problem, explains Romuald Sciora. This is not surprising when we know that almost one in two Americans would be at great pains to explain in detail what global warming is. "Almost 40% of the population would even question its existence.

To explain it, we must go back to the late 1990s and the development of neoconservative think tanks in the country. These lobbyists, partly financed by the oil industry, have produced articles in scientific journals to question the work of researchers and the role of fossil fuels in climate change. "Exactly on the model of the tobacco industry" which financed unscrupulous doctors who swore that cigarettes were not harmful to health, summarizes the sociologist Albin Wagener, in an RFI podcast.

As for the school, which could rectify the situation with the younger generations, it regularly finds itself in the crosshairs of climate-skeptical Republican elected officials. Without national school programs, the United States leaves indeed to each state, school district, or even to each institution, a great freedom of education.

"In many schools and universities, especially in the most disadvantaged areas, there is no climate awareness,"

says Sciora.

#Mars #US #IRIS #Dems

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Moon Is a Better Deal Than Mars

Trump’s pick to run NASA sought to reassure US Senators on Wednesday that he wouldn’t abandon the agency’s multibillion-dollar push to put US boots on the moon in favor of Musk’s longstanding goal of a human mission to Mars.

Jared Isaacman tried to walk a political tightrope, arguing the agency can pursue the Mars effort — championed by Musk’s SpaceX and, increasingly, Trump — and America’s Artemis program in parallel.

“We don’t have to make a binary decision of moon versus Mars, or moon has to come first versus Mars,”

Isaacman told a packed hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee.

When pressed about how NASA would do both within its limited budget, Isaacman argued that the agency has a history of doing the “near impossible” but was light on specifics about how any programs might change.

Isaacman came to the hearing equipped with an extensive space resume and a close relationship with SpaceX, an indispensable NASA contractor that has long-prioritized Mars as a pillar of its space exploration ambitions.

The chief executive officer of Shift4 Payments Inc. invested his own money into SpaceX to create a human spaceflight program called Polaris and performed the world’s first commercial spacewalk wearing a SpaceX-designed suit — though Isaacman says he will terminate all his financial agreements with the company if confirmed, according to an ethics statement.

His closeness to SpaceX, Musk and the potential bias toward the company came up multiple times at the hearing.

Responding to a question from Michigan Democrat Gary Peters, Isaacman said he hadn’t been in contact with Musk about his plans to manage the agency.

#Moon #Mars #Deal

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US and China Are Struggling for Future 🚀

Advanced technology has always been the key to conquering space. With plans for bases on the Moon and Mars, it has not become less important for the two leading space competitors — USA and China. 🌕

The two have no cooperation plans. They have their own technology, each has its own space program, and each has its own rockets.

If everything goes according to plan, there will therefore be two bases on the Moon in 2035.

But who will be first? Americans are leaders in many areas. But the Chinese are catching up. 🛰
It is clearly shown by something that happened out in space on the last Sunday in April.

\#Americans #Chinese #Mars

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A dust vortex on Mars hit the camera lens of the Rover Perseverance

Dr. Dong Wu, a physicist from NASA, explains that “the vortex may indicate the presence of certain strange processes hiding deep under the surface of Mars (...), and we can't just shrug off the artificial nature of such activity”.

#vortex #dust #mars #perseverance

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