I’ve been dealing with aging parent stuff, a bit of depression, and job weirdness as science - and especially climate science - increasingly disappears in the US. But I’ve been fortunate to have had a holiday break filled with good people and love.
I’m doing OK. Not great, but OK. For now, I’ll take that.
It’s been hard to know how to talk about all this crazy stuff. The entire year of 2025 felt like a time warp. The staggering cruelty and bottomless stupidity of Trump and his fascist minions left me consistently at a loss for words. Parody is dead; so is analysis. You can’t analyze the actions of a clown. That’s kind of what makes a clown a clown.
I think I’m still grieving for my beloved neighborhood of Altadena burning down, and for the genocide in Palestine, and for all the ICE kidnappings, and for the destruction of science in America, and for the planet continuing to get a little hotter each and every day with almost nobody seeming to talk about it or care anymore. (And, even at the peak of the climate movement, we could have used a billion or so additional climate-caring people.) I’ve started dozens of posts for this substack that remain unfinished.
I feel grateful that my life is so full of love. I’ve been recalibrating over the last few years to focus more on all the wonderful people in my life. I was socialized to be a workaholic, to be overly concerned with my career and the external validation that went with it. To “achieve” and “contribute.”
And living under this form of extractive capitalism feels less and less tenable. The growing wealth gap, with its accompanying “policies” of enclosure, making food, healthcare, and shelter out of reach for an increasing number of people. The rise of AI which will be increasingly used for billionaire security (how long until they unleash killer police drones for “law and order”?). All the bullshit jobs, and all the dogshit priorities of hyper-consumerist culture. The for-profit destruction of far too much beauty and life on Earth. I know we can do better.
I have come to only care about my career insofar as it allows me to provide for basic necessities for my dependents and me, and allows me to contribute to helping stop this growing dumpster fire of fascism and climate chaos.
To sum up my feelings about 2026 in a word: “uncertainty.” And to summarize why we’re in this intensifying predicament: “billionarism.”
Anyway, I’m worried about a lot in 2026. Crazy climate impacts and the end of climate science in the US. An economic crash. Unaffordable healthcare. A superpowered ICE with an essentially unlimited budget (hundreds of billions of our taxpayer dollars diverted from science, the arts, education, international aid, all things good) and manned by fascist goons getting $50K signing bonuses. Midterm elections that aren’t anywhere close to free and fair, illegal wars, false flag attacks, sliding us into full dictatorship.
But I also see a lot of important things going in the right direction. More people are realizing we need to tax billionaires out of existence. More people are realizing that democracy depends on accountability, and that the corrupt rich and their fascist goons need to be recognized, remembered, and put to trial. More people are recognizing that “American exceptionalism” was always a kind of ignorance that allowed people in power here to get away with murder, and that we can learn from other nations (which, for example, do healthcare far, far better than us). More people are realizing that we need leaders who fight against the donor class and the status quo, and for the working class and systemic change. Maybe we can have a real opposition party led by the likes of Mamdani, and set the likes of Schumer out to pasture.
I am cautiously optimistic that we will avoid a full descent to American Naziism. A lot of us want a better world, a world that’s not spiraling deeper into climate chaos, fascism, and billionairism, and we definitely outnumber the fascists. The resistance is growing. May it continue to grow!
Some stuff happening in my life:
After COVID, all the employees at NASA-JPL were offered remote work. I took this option, and I’ve been living in North Carolina for three years with my sons. However, starting in November, JPL employees were all forced to return to full-time in-person work. Since then I’ve been mostly in Los Angeles, trying to wrap up some projects and make some sense of things. My younger son is finishing his senior year of high school, and I need to be with him. I can’t be in two places at once, even with airplanes! Given that, and given all the funding chaos due to this anti-science Trump regime, I currently do not see a satisfying path forward for my career in climate science. In any case, I strongly feel that more climate science papers won’t help stop climate change at this point. While this contributes to a feeling of chaos and uncertainty in my life, it will also open up new possibilities. Part of me is sad, but a bigger part of me is genuinely relieved and excited!
I’ve started flying in planes again. I have thoughts and feelings about this that I will write about soon.
With rage and love,
Peter
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