Fortress America
Plus, updates on the project.
Earlier this week, mysterious signs appeared on a Mexican beach where the Rio Grande opens into the Gulf of Mexico. (Excuse me, the Gulf of America...) The Trump regime claims that Mexico doesn't know where its own border is. Of course, mainstream media outlets are dismissing it as incompetence.
Meanwhile...
The regime also announced an enormous expansion of drilling sites off the coast of Alaska, California, and Florida. Meanwhile, the U.S. military is proceeding with a massive buildup of marines and aircraft "right on Venezuela's doorstep," including a new "supercarrier" loaded with F-35C stealth fighters. And The New York Times recently ran a piece endorsing the overthrow of the country's president.
Richard Crim has coined a term for what's going on.
He calls it "Fortress America."
I've been reading Crim's takes on the climate crisis for years now, and he's right. A few other writers have correctly pointed out that when you look at the Trump regime's moves through the lens of climate breakdown, it makes sense. They're not simply embracing ignorance and cruelty for its own sake, although they certainly enjoy what they're doing. Even Douglas Rushkoff has indicated that they're transforming ICE into a military force that protects the leadership and silences dissent.
Meanwhile, a record number of Trump officials are now living on military bases. Yes, they're scared of protests and political violence.
But...
It looks and feels like there's something deeper and darker going on here as well. They're establishing a new precedent, where "elected" officials live in bunkerized spaces, much like the super rich, who now spend a great deal of their time on their super yachts, on their fortified ranches, on their private islands, as insulated as they can possibly be from war, civil unrest, and disasters.
And then we have the presidential bunker, under swift renovation, funded by big tech companies and military contractors. A piece in The Brooklyn Rail explains the rationale very well. The Trump administration will likely finish dismantling key aspects of our democratic institutions within the next year or two, complete the installation of loyal fascists in key positions, and possibly take direct control of elections, citing a national emergency as the reason. Federal courts are fighting all this, but we simply don't know what the final outcome will be.
If that weren't enough, the regime continues efforts to undermine the sovereignty of Greenland and Canada. It's clear that they're following Putin's lead and implementing plans of coercion and sabotage in order to bring these countries into their sphere of influence, precisely in order to gain access to their resources.
That's the entire plan.
While the public fixates on Trump's "weakness," his backers stride toward their greater goal of bringing North and South America under their control. As Crim points out, they intend to wall themselves off from the world, erecting physical and technological barriers against the millions of climate refugees on their way within the next few years. They intend to plunder countries like Venezuela for their resources, and they intend to recruit Argentina to help tamp down South America. Honestly, they already have. It's one reason why they gave Mielei's government a $40 billion bailout.
The Trump regime pretends to dismiss climate change as a hoax.
It plays well with their MAGA base.
Their actions show otherwise. Between booting up nuclear power plants, cutting off aid to the world, virtually eliminating healthcare, testing American supply chains with fake trade wars, and building massive AI installations, everything this regime has done so far indicates they're planning for the climate crisis to get significantly worse over the next several years. They know what's coming.
An article I wrote last month explored just how bad it's going to get. We're looking at 2-3C of warming by 2050. We'll almost certainly cross 2C in the 2030s while breaching multiple tipping points. It will trigger a population collapse anywhere from 20 to 50 percent through heat waves, drought, food shortages, and violence. This isn't fun to talk about, but it's going to happen.
The difference between the first and second Trump administrations is night and day. Unfortunately, a naive public continues to trick themselves into thinking they're dealing with the same bumbling, incompetent administration of ten years ago. It's nothing short of astonishing to see a president who spent his days playing golf and watching Fox News turn into a force of destruction who has already raised hundreds of billions in cutthroat tariffs, dismantled a quarter of the federal government, torn down an entire wing of the White House, stormed multiple cities under the pretense of an immigration crisis, bombed at least one country, ushered in plans to build a crypto paradise in Gaza, prepared a massive invasion of an oil rich country, gutted affordable healthcare once and for all, and presided over the longest shutdown in modern history.
He's been busy...
This is not the same crew of jokers from last time. These are the actions of a highly coordinated group who are moving as fast as they can to gate up the continent. It's a plan drenched with intense panic, but that's what it is.
Should we just sit back and die? Should we just let our children figure out how to survive without any clue how to navigate a hostile planet?
No.
I've already spent the last year doing research and working through the mental geography of what to do. If you're anything like me, you fall somewhere in the vast middle between the bunker bros and the community carebears. We know bunkers won't save the rich or the politicians, no matter how deep they dig. And yet, we also see right through a lot of the noble talk about communities.
Honestly, romanticized notions of community sound just as naive as the bunker fantasies. Some of the biggest advocates of community I've ever encountered have also been some of the meanest. But we have to try something, don't we?
So, I'm going all in on my new project.
As I announced earlier this week, I'm writing a survival manual. After reading through dozens of these things over the last year, I've noticed a few things. They're lacking in detail. They presume knowledge and abilities a lot of us don't have. Some of them speak from a particular political and cultural, even religious background that influences their approach to preparedness and survival.
Above all, almost none of these guides really speak to the kinds of threats we and our children will be facing. While I've learned a lot, it's not enough.
Anyway, here's an update:
Since my last post, a few people have reached out to me with knowledge and skills that I've already started integrating into the table of contents. I'm going to be digging into research on edible weeds that grow almost anywhere, and also the prospect of sourcing antibiotics from the soil. Someone else reached out with 500 gigs worth of survival documents. Yet another reader has offered insights on collapse mindfulness and methods for staying sane as everything breaks down.
If you want to help, contact me here.
I've been sizing up the task, and it's already a full-time job, especially when you include the hours spent keeping up the newsletter.
I consider that a good thing.
A Kickstarter?
A few people have asked me about launching an official Kickstarter or something similar. It's a possibility. Before that, I'm going to complete a sample chapter. I also need to work out some logistics before getting into the rather fraught aspects of supply chains and promising a polished product by a specific deadline.
I might decide to stick with the current fundraising instrument. It's simpler, and it seems to be working (180 supporters so far). We'll see.
I've published six books under different names, some self-published but others with academic presses, so I've got a good sense of how much it costs to print and bind a reference guide/manual. It's not cheap, and it fluctuates. And if I'm going to include helpful illustrations and diagrams, that's another layer.
Meanwhile:
Project 1: A micro rain harvesting system
Going forward, I'm going to work on three fronts: First, I'm going to keep this newsletter going with the usual content. Second, I'm going to be doing rigorous research, organizing sources, and drafting outlines. Third, I'm going to be planning out the first physical projects and experiments to tackle.
It feels important to tackle the rain and dew harvesting systems first.
After all, you can't last long without water.
I've already gathered research on these topics. I'll be doing more. Rain harvesting systems pose a special challenge to someone living in a city or the suburbs. Conventional homes don't have the right roofing material, and the permits are... difficult.
But...
Earlier this year, we brainstormed an idea to install a micro rain harvesting system on a backyard shed. This would get around a lot of obstacles, and it would be a lot more practical and affordable than, say, replacing your roof.
So, that's the first trial.
Why are you doing this again???
Since I was strongarmed out of a tenured teaching job last year, I've thought a lot about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. And I haven't just sat around daydreaming. I've been trying on careers. I learned a range of new skills. When I thought about going back to formal teaching, it didn't make me feel good. It filled me with dread and futility. That really says something about the state of the world.
So, this right here, this is it. This is what I'm going to do. This is what gives me a sense of purpose. This is what makes my days feel meaningful.
Before I left my university, I gave them two free textbooks filled with lesson plans and assignments. (So, actually, I guess that makes nine books total.)
Now I'm writing a textbook about survival.
It almost makes me smile.
Do you have any idea what you're doing???
None of us really know what we're doing.
Not anymore.
Maybe I'm not the most qualified survivalist in the world, although I did spend almost all of my teens and 20s camping and hiking, climbing rocks, kayaking, getting lost, getting thrown off mountain bikes, almost dying, training for half-marathons in subzero conditions, traveling around the country, freezing my butt off in an unheated apartment for a year, sweating it up in apartments without air conditioning, and dealing with a schizophrenic parent. Maybe I know something about survival after all. And I definitely know how to do research, and how to teach things to people in ways they can understand, even if they have no idea what they're doing at first.
I do not want to live in Fortress America. I'm guessing you don't either. And we sure as hell don't want our kids to grow up in it. But we're going to do it, whether we like it or not. The decision has been made for us. What we get to decide now is how we're going to survive it and resist it. They're becoming the same thing.
Even if humanity will be flirting with extinction by the 2050s, this book is an act of grounded hope. It's not the hope that everything will be okay. It's not the hope that civilization will magically beat back collapse fascism and return to a golden age that never really existed for everyone. It's a hope that somewhere, somehow, at least for a little while longer, good people will manage to find ways to survive. More importantly, they'll find something to survive for. Even knowing what I do, I'd still rather try than just give up. My brain likes problems. Doesn't yours?
That's what this project is doing.
Solving problems.
