Joyfully fighting, in community

My former house, courtesy https://recovery.lacounty.gov/eaton-fire/

The last few weeks have been a LOT. Things have felt crazy. There’s a sensation of falling, as a society, together. Or maybe we’re like the coyote already over the cliff, impossibly suspended for a moment, clinging to what was before.

I want to say so many things that I don’t know where to start. So I’m just going to start, and see what comes out.

The images of Musk spewing a word salad of hypocrisy and unsubstantiated accusations in the Oval Office next to a silent, glowering Trump sitting behind the “resolute desk” were surreal. Hearing Trump and Vance bully Zelenskyy was embarrassing and horrifying. The US is all in for Putin now, and allies we forged in our existential, formative fight against fascism eighty years ago are destroyed in a matter of days. Under the cover of an alternate informational ecosystem, Musk and Trump are destroying the government and the critical services it provides, and MAGA, for now at least, continues lapping up their lies and cheering them on. The goal appears to be to consolidate power, crush opposition (and to simply take revenge, these are the biggest glass egos I’ve ever seen), and liquidate the government into the pockets of the billionaire class. This is class warfare, as I recently wrote for The Guardian. Not class warfare as a metaphor, but actual, life-and-death class warfare. People will die from lack of medicine, lack of healthcare, lack of air traffic control, lack of vaccinations, lack of food, and climate disasters. Deaths of capitalism have long afflicted the most vulnerable. They will now accelerate. Massively.

The foolish and cruel purge of dedicated researchers in government and academia is the talent equivalent of dumping precious water from reservoirs in California for no reason. In a matter of weeks, narcissistic billionaires are undoing systems that took a hundred years to build. The damage will undermine our country, and what our country was supposed to stand for, for a generation or more.

And there are signs of the rise of actual fascism here in the US. When someone tells you they’re a Nazi, believe him.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve also experienced three major life events in quick succession.

First, my beloved town of Altadena burned to the ground. Many of my friends and neighbors lost their homes. Altadena is (was?) a quiet hamlet in northeast Los Angeles County. I lived there for 14 years, and it feels like a really big part of my past has burned down with it. My former house went up in smoke, which is a strange thing. I remember the hard times in that house, and the good times. I remember standing on the balcony with my wife Sharon at dusk, feeling the cool breeze and watching the city lights turning on far below. I remember the stone terrace walls I sweated over during the COVID lockdown, and all the fruit trees I lovingly planted around the yard. I remember the stale smoke from earlier wildfires in the living room and kitchen when I’d emerge from the taped up bedroom to make some food. I remember singing songs on the street corner. I remember trading saved seeds and veggies with my neighbors. I remember pumping up bike tires with my sons in the driveway before riding the roller-coaster “bike loop” around our neighborhood with them.

In addition to my grief, I feel furious at the fossil fuel industry. As the fires raged, I felt an overwhelming need to let people know that they weren’t “natural disasters,” but instead crimes committed by fossil fuel executives, slowly, over decades. So on that horrible first day of the fires, I stayed up all night and wrote an article. I think the reason it resonated so widely is because the NYT’s audience has been desperate for voices that don’t downplay the severity of the climate crisis, and that provide an appropriate indictment of the fossil fuel industry. I have more to say about writing that piece, and the media blitz that followed over the next two weeks, but that’s a story for another post, maybe.

Second, I’ve had to accept that my own job as a climate scientist at a NASA center could be on the chopping block as part of the purge, despite getting consistently excellent performance reviews (and despite being honored over the years with NASA’s Early Career Achievement medal and NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement medal). I’ve long been the most outspoken NASA scientist about the urgent need to address climate breakdown. But the planet keeps on overheating, so I’ll keep on speaking out - and with vengeful climate deniers in charge, that makes me a target.

Additionally, like all NASA workers, I’ve received some stunning emails from the new Acting NASA Administrator. In one, she asked us to rat out colleagues working on programs to advance diversity, equity, or inclusion, which “divided Americans by race… and resulted in shameful discrimination,” warning that “failure to report” any such activity “may result in adverse consequences.” Being a scientist at NASA has been my dream job, and I have the deepest respect for the agency. It’s Orwellian to receive emails like these from NASA. In another, she informed me that as a remote worker I could lose my job if I don’t move back to Los Angeles, despite the community that my kids have built here in North Carolina at their schools, and despite my entire neighborhood in Altadena having just burned due to climate breakdown. The email signed off with the phrase “embrace the challenge.” The challenge of tattling on each other? The challenge of not having a job?

Third, my younger son came close to dying. He spent six nights in the ICU, including three days on a ventilator. On the Monday of Trump’s inauguration, he started showing flu symptoms. A doctor’s visit on Thursday confirmed the flu, and that afternoon he seemed to be getting better. But by Friday he seemed worse. I couldn’t get an appointment until Saturday morning, and when the pediatrician read his blood pressure she turned ashen-faced and told Sharon and I to take him straight to the ER.

We did. A team of doctors and nurses went to work while students watched, putting in multiple lines and preparing to intubate. Before the intubation, we were led to a waiting room off to the side. After a few minutes, the attending doctor came to us, looked at us gravely, and told us our son was “very, very sick.” His body was in shock, his organs were shutting down. We were also in shock. We cried. They placed four peripheral lines, one arterial line, and a central line in his jugular vein in his neck. They started him on nine antibiotics. They started him on epinephrine and norepinephrine to bring up his blood pressure. His cells were in acidosis from lack of oxygen. His veins and arteries were so inflamed that they were leaky.

For the next six days, Sharon and I took turns sleeping in the hospital. I kissed my barely conscious son on the top of his head and told him I loved him so fucking much. I read to him from this old Robin Hood book my dad handed down to me as a kid. We were carried by community. Friends reached out, doctor friends translated the care and spent hours with us in the room, friends brought us meals and walked our dog. Our baby began to heal and get stronger.

During one of the hospital days, while walking around the Duke gardens in the sublime but too-early spring, all these things happening at once hit me with a blast of sun-like clarity: my real work is to speak out no matter the consequences. I may lose my job. I may be harassed. I may be imprisoned, or worse. But for each of us, this is our brief moment on this wonderful planet. We are spinning through the cosmos with each other. This is our time to love, fearlessly. I’d rather die than roll my soul up into a little ball in order to be “safe.” That rolling up, that fear and compliance and relinquishing of moral compass is the most dangerous thing of all.

This blast of clarity also reminded me how limited I am, and how limited we all are. We are mammals, doing our best. We need cuddles. We get tired, we get sad, we get sick. We fight, and we hurt. People we love pass away. Hours, days, years fly by. We procrastinate and we doubt ourselves. We desperately need community. We are community animals. We can only survive through community, and we can only fight back through community.

As we slide further into fascism and as the planet continues to heat up, I know there will be many dark moments. But they, too, shall pass. I will stand up for the truth. I will stand up for vulnerable people. I will stand up for life on this planet. I will stand up for love. I will keep fighting for what’s right, no matter what. I believe that you will, too. I have your back, and you have mine.

My son is healthy once again. The leading theory is that he developed a staphylococcus aureus infection in his lungs, and the bacteria produced toxins to defend themselves. The toxins put his body into shock. His time in the hospital feels like a bad dream. But nothing feels “normal.” I do not hope for a return to “normal.” I hope for more people to join the fight.

A few days after this bad dream, I went running through the Carolina forest, my body gliding over roots and stones and through turns under the pines and maples. My lungs filled with good air and my heart pumped strong. I felt resonant with joy. I’m going to do everything I can to fight fascism, stop the fossil fuel industry, and spread love. I’m going to do it in community, and I’m going to do it with joy in my soul. We’re here, we’re alive, we’re together on Earth. And it’s wonderful.

What this substack is

I’m still trying to figure out what this substack is. I’m still not sure what to call it, or how to do it. This post was hard to write because the last few weeks have been an emotional whirlwind; I’ve had a lot to process. But I aim to get into a rhythm of regular posts and to use this space to explore our shared predicament on a planet that’s growing hotter and more authoritarian by the day.

From 2004 until now, my full-time job has been science, first astrophysics and then, from 2012, climate science. I’ve been speaking out, doing activism, starting non-profits, organizing, and getting arrested - a huge amount of work - all in my “free time.” My workplace has been discouraging of these outside activities, and for years I’ve felt at risk of losing my job. I’ve been subject to institutional investigations and warnings. This has all made it even more challenging to speak out. It has been difficult, both logistically and psychologically, and, frankly, limiting.

I would like to make my communications and activism work a central part of my work life, not just something I do on the side as time permits. I’d like to spend at least half my time doing the work of fighting and speaking out. At this weird moment in history, I feel that this work is at least as important as my work of doing climate science. But like you, I still have bills to pay.

Right now, as I navigate this transition, every paid subscription I get is a vote of confidence in this new phase of prioritizing speaking out. If you value my voice in this brave new world, please consider supporting me! And please spread the word.