Yes, it’s happening and by “it” I distinctly mean climate change. No question about it, this planet is simply getting hotter (and hotter, and hotter yet). Only recently, an international team of scientists reported that greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high globally. And if you happened to be one of the estimated 109 million Americans living in certain parts of the Midwestern, Mid-Atlantic, or Northeastern United States recently, then you undoubtedly experienced your sky turning a grim grey (or weird orange) with smoke from those Canadian wildfires that once weren’t but now are a regular summer experience along, of course, with startling heat.

And you might not even have noticed, for instance, that Europe was blasted by heat early, hard, and in a record-setting fashion this summer with its hottest June in history. (It wasn’t a good time to take the London subway, that’s for sure!). Meanwhile, even before those Canadian fires hit, much of the Midwestern and Eastern United States experienced a record-setting heatwave (with more to come). And oh, yes, then there was that report on Legionnaire’s disease breaking out in my hometown, New York City, possibly also linked in some fashion to climate change.

And yet, explain it as you will, surging climate hell (and it does now seem to be happening ever faster), including a possible “super” El Niño weather cycle in the year to come, seldom proves to be a truly headline-making story for long, not in this country, not in the age of President Donald J. Trump. In fact, he’s distinctly into what’s coming to be known as “climate hushing.” Unfortunately, “hush” isn’t really a word that can be used effectively in any context when it comes to him, since he’s not truly quiet about anything on this planet of ours—or, these days, do I mean his?

Under the circumstances (and, yes, I’m already sweating!), consider it strange that an American president should be so visibly set on doing anything he can to ignore—oh, sorry, that’s certainly understating the situation—I guess I mean, anything he can to actively promote the further overheating of this planet of... well, I might once have said “ours” but not in the age of You Know Exactly Whom.

Neither many of the Democrats, nor Donald Trump and his—and these days it is distinctly his—party seem ready to face the world that we’re truly in as the November 2026 elections approach.

And hey, let me not simply dump all the bad karma on him, not when Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine almost four-and-a-half years ago, launching a war that still shows not the slightest sign of ending and war, of course, turns out to pour greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in a genuinely remarkable fashion. Not when Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu can’t stop blasting the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon. Not when the US Air Force almost daily continues to bomb what it considers its enemy in Somalia (something you can only hope to keep track of if you read Dave DeCamp at Antiwar.com). Not when Donald Trump (yes, him again!) just can’t stop blasting Iran (and the Iranians continue to respond by blasting their neighbors and US military bases in those countries).

And honestly, that’s just to start down a list—or do I mean to start into deep chaos?—on this distinctly crazed planet of ours. It’s generally growing ever harder to find any version of good news relating to the (yes, again!) distinctly (over)heating world we’re now living in. Under the circumstances, give China some credit. Admittedly, that country still pours more fossil fuels into the atmosphere than any other place on Earth, but in its imperial rise, it’s also taken something remarkably close to full-scale control over making (and selling globally) just about anything from solar panels to wind-turbine equipment that might effectively produce green energy or capture carbon. In fact, give China’s leadership full credit for realizing that the overheating of this planet could prove to be an imperial money-making proposition of the first order.

And yes, give President Trump........

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