There is no point getting upset about Donald Trump and Climate.

Change this one thing.

Donald Trump’s denial of Climate Change is irrelevant.

Climate change is a scientific reality and the denial of climate change as a problem does not make the threat go away. The reality cannot be changed by the personal beliefs of the President of the United States. This is akin to King Canute demanding that the tide cease to rise. When he failed, he proclaimed, “let all men know how empty and worthless the power of kings is.”

Presidents like kings have no authority over nature.

And when you really think about, just what is the difference between a President that denies climate change and a Prime Minister who acknowledges it, yet acts as if he is denying it?

It is of course the politically correct thing to acknowledge climate change as a reality but none of these world leaders are actually doing the ecologically correct thing and doing something about it.

Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and others are saying that Trump’s presidency poses a direct and real danger to our climate and environment.

Just how is President-elect Donald Trump any different from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney or Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or any other world leader.

There is this myth that Carney is doing something to address climate change. He’s not. His energy policies are not much different than former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He has not stopped development and extraction in the Tar Sands, he’s pro-pipeline, pro west coast tanker traffic and pretty much pro anything that is going to profit the energy corporations.

At COP 21 in 2015 former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau he said he was going to take real action on climate change…. like someday—-maybe, or maybe not. He did nothing.

Before becoming Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney was the United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance and was behind the United Nations near net zero banking alliance so we had reason to believe that he’d prioritize climate action if he won the election. After the election he now describes fossil fuel infrastructure as pragmatic. He has also been very silent on connecting climate change with severe forest fires ravaging Western Canada

What did the U.S. under Obama do? Trump will not diminish the Obama, Bush and Clinton efforts. He would actually have to try hard to do less than they did.

I very vividly remember that it was Al Gore who refused to sign the Kyoto Accord and I also remember everyone in Canada and Australia giving the Americans hell for not signing that accord, yet the Canadians and the Australians were creating more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than the Americans at the time and continue to do so.

So, it seems that signing a climate change agreement is more important than doing something about the problem and acknowledging climate change and doing nothing about it appears to be more significant than denying it and doing nothing about it.

Many people will now throw their energies into fighting Trump on this issue and this will make leaders like Carney in Canada or Stamer in the U.K. look relatively good while they do nothing more substantial than Trump in reality.

We humans do love our illusions.

Fighting Trump on this issue serves to send a message to all those who voted for him that he’s, their man. Making the Democrat, the Greenies and the Lefties angry is something that will endear him even more in their minds. They want him to be seen as the climate changer denying hero. Instead, we need to ignore him because climate change deniers are irrelevant to reality. By challenging the deniers, we validate them, we engage them and thus they are taken even more seriously.

Donald Trump is not really stupid man, (debatable of course) although he plays the role quite well. He knows damn well that climate change is real, but he needs to tell his base what they want to hear and challenging him on this helps him to send that message even stronger.

Trump is not a scientist and therefore does not need to score any points with science. He is a populist politician wooing people who he knows want to hear the message that climate change is a hoax and, as is his way, he embellished it with a silly explanation that the Chinese created it. Does he really believe that? Of course not, but he wanted the people who want to hear him deny climate change to think that he does. It’s called politics, also known as the ‘art of the possible’.

Confronting Trump on climate change achieves less traction than ignoring him. Saying he is a dunce with the science does not hurt him, in fact it only makes him stronger with his base and his base has demonstrated that science pulls very little weight when it comes to their self-interested priorities.

What he and his climate change denying constituents will not be able to ignore is when mother nature continues to slap them in the face harder than the year before. They can only ignore super-storms, floods, drought, rising sea levels, devastating fires, etc., for so long until the realization that something is not quite right sinks through their hard skulls into that area of their brain that can comprehend consequences.

Trying to get a politician, any politician, to actually withdraw from energy addiction is akin to trying to get a hardcore junkie to lay off the needle.

The Greenpeace message states that Trump poses a direct and real danger to our climate, our environment, and our democracy.

But does he? The threats to our climate, our environment and our democracy have been the same threats for decades, well before Trump. He did not just jump out of the bushes to scare us with these threats. Are the Native Americans at Standing Rock being pepper sprayed and beaten because of Trump? Did the Deepwater Horizon disaster happen because of Trump? And what could be a greater threat to our environment than BP’s disaster in the Gulf and the fact that they were never really punished. If I deliberately poured a barrel of oil into the harbor I would be in jail. This double standard is not Trump’s creation.

I think the oligarchs would love nothing better than to scapegoat Donald Trump for their sins. He is after all a loose cannon in their eyes. They would much rather replace him and most likely they will.

And these COP conferences are accomplishing absolutely nothing but talk, talk, talk and more freaking talk. We’re up to COP 30 now with this recent meeting in Azerbijan and without the charisma and energy of a Nichola Hulot who organized COP 21 in Paris, hardly anyone even heard anything about COP 29.

How many COP’S will there be before anything substantial is actually done. COP 33? COP 57? These charades are simply cop-outs from action.

Not one of these COP gab-fests has shut down a single coal fired generating plant or a single pipeline. Not one.

The only thing that excites any government appears to be the possibility of imposing a tax. Politicians love taxes and carbon taxes are just another scam to secure tax dollars. Carbon trading is yet another scam.

There is not a single nation that is undertaking the effort to realistically and effectively address climate change.

Is anyone shutting down fracking, drilling, open pit mining, deep water exploration? No. Is there a single nation cutting subsidies to energy companies or to the destructive fishing industries? No. Will we stop slaughtering 65 billion animals a year to reduce a carbon footprint that is even greater than that of transportation? Hell no, “I like my hamburger” is the answer.

Is there a single world leader ready to make economic sacrifices for the environment? Absolutely not.

“Oh but….,” say my critics, “there are great educational programs underway.” How’s that working? Not that great?

And now some people want us to waste our energies battling Trump the climate change denier as if that’s going to accomplish anything. It won’t. When will we stop reacting to the circuses so we can actually focus on taking the initiative?

My point is that Donald Trump simply is no worse and no better than all the rest of these so-called leaders whose agenda is to serve the corporations and to enrich themselves.

He won’t do much, but he will most likely do just as much as any other world leader.

The embarrassment of the Dakota Access Pipeline happened under the Obama administration. Would Kamala Harris have stopped it has been President? Would she have done a damn thing to address climate change if she had won? The evidence indicates that she would have done everything to maintain the status quo which has brought all these problems to us and will present much greater problems in the near future.

I did not vote for Trump and I don’t know of a sane person who did but I’m not going to pretend that on this issue i.e. climate change anyone else would mean anything different.

I can see fighting Trump on women’s issues, LGBT+ issues, immigration issues and many more important social issues and I will support any such efforts with both passion and action BUT I have no intention of fighting Trump on Climate Change because to do so would simply be a distraction away from the fact that not one goddamn world leader is actually doing anything at all to address the problem and I have no intention of contributing to making them all look good compared to Trump.

Because when it comes to climate change Trump is on par with everyone else in power, meaning that they all are pursuing agendas that are contrary to the reality of climate change.

So where do we look for answers?

Individual passion. Individual imagination. Individual initiative. Individual courage. These are the keys to our survival.

Depending on a politician to solve any of these problems is like depending on an oil executive to promote solar energy. It is simply not in their interest or as James Carvil once put it, “It’s the economy stupid.”

That is reality. Politicians serve the economy. They do not serve the Environment.

It’s like asking a Kindergarten teacher to teach advanced calculus. They won’t do it because they can’t do it. Not in their job description.

We need to look beyond the limited horizons of elected officials because the answers are to be found well beyond their restricted and blinkered worldviews.

To paraphrase Matthew in Matthew 22:21 “Render to the Donald the things that are the Donald’s.”

Climate change is not one of his things and never will be. It is our thing, those of us who understand the consequences and thus it is our responsibility to explore and invent alternatives and to fight the technologies, not the hired mouthpieces of these destructive technologies

Ohio governor: 15.5 million birds depopulated across the state due to bird flu

ByJohn Drake,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johndrake/2025/08/27/bird-flu-in-the-us-seventy-human-cases-mostly-mild-but-with-warning-signs/

Contributor. John Drake is a professor at the University of Georgia.Follow Author

Aug 27, 2025, 07:40am EDTAug 27, 2025, 07:43am EDTShareSaveComment0

When a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus jumped into American dairy cows in the spring of 2024, scientists worried about the next step: spillover into humans. Sure enough, that is precisely what happened. Between March 2024 and May 2025, seventy human H5N1 infections were confirmed in the United States.

Now, a new study in Nature Medicine, led by Melissa Rolfes and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), provides the first systematic look at those cases. Of the seventy infections, four required hospitalization and one proved fatal – a stark contrast to the nearly 50% global death rate for H5N1, yet still a fatality rate over a thousand times greater than that of seasonal influenza, according to CDC data.

Despite a recent lull, human infections have been almost continuous in workers exposed to infected animals. Furthermore, a small number of severe cases linked to backyard poultry suggest the risk to the general population is not insignificant.

Exposures Tell the Story

Nearly all U.S. cases were linked to direct contact with animals. Fifty-nine percent involved dairy cows, while another third stemmed from work with infected commercial poultry, often during large “depopulation events” i.e., when bird flu was detected in a flock and the entire flock was euthanized to prevent further spread. Two cases, however, came from backyard poultry. Both required hospitalization, and one was fatal. Three additional infections had no clear source, but genetic sequencing tied them to cattle-associated viruses.

“The 70 human cases of A(H5N1) in the U.S. continue to be linked to exposure to infected or dead animals, mostly dairy cows and commercial poultry. That trend in exposures supports our assessment that the risk to the general population remains low,” Rolfes said. She added, “There have been 2 cases associated with exposure to infected poultry kept in backyards; both cases were hospitalized and 1 of these patients unfortunately died. These cases occurred during a time when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was reporting increases in influenza A(H5N1) virus detections in backyard poultry, which highlights that anyone who interacts with animals infected with influenza A(H5N1) viruses may be at risk of getting sick themselves.”

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Readers can monitor the situation for themselves by visiting a USDA dashboard reporting detections of bird flu in commercial and backyard flocks. The latest report is of infection in a backyard flock in California on August 15, 2025.

Why Illness Looks Different in America

Globally, H5N1 is infamous for its high lethality: about half of reported human cases since 2003 have died. In the United States, only four patients were hospitalized, and one died. Why the difference?

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The short answer is that we don’t fully know.

“The reason why most U.S. cases have been mild are not fully known at this point, but multiple factors could be contributing,” Rolfes explained. “The affected farm workers were generally younger and without many reported co-morbidities; the more severe, hospitalized cases were significantly older than the non-hospitalized cases and tended to have underlying health conditions. Clinical severity may also be related to how quickly infections were identified and linked to care and treatment; there has been active monitoring among exposed persons in the U.S. that rapidly identifies signs and symptoms and links ill people to care. The duration, dose or route of exposure to A(H5N1) viruses in the U.S. cases may also play a role in clinical severity. Finally, there are some data suggesting that prior immunity to other influenza viruses may play a role. Any combination of these factors may be at play.”

Transmission Appears Limited

One of the most important findings is what has not been observed. Among 180 household contacts of infected patients, none tested positive. Blood samples from close contacts were also negative for antibodies against H5 viruses. This strengthens the assessment that the virus is not spreading efficiently person-to-person.

“CDC has characterized viruses from the human cases looking for signals that the influenza A(H5N1) viruses have changed in ways that would impact our diagnostic tests, susceptibility to influenza antiviral treatment, or the capability to spread to or between humans,” Rolfes said. “We have sporadically seen viruses that have markers that are associated with mammalian adaptation or slightly reduced susceptibility to commercially available influenza antiviral drugs. But the collective sequencing data indicate that the A(H5N1) viruses circulating in animals and those detected in the human cases largely still have avian receptor binding properties with no changes in circulating viruses that would impact infectivity or transmissibility in humans and no known markers have been seen that suggest these viruses are resistant to oseltamivir, the main influenza antiviral used for treatment.”

What Rolfes is referring to is that influenza viruses tend to be adapted to efficient circulation in either birds or mammals, not both at the same time. But this is just a general tendency based on the biochemistry of the surface of the host cells. In fact, avian viruses can infect mammals and mammal viruses can infect birds and there are some species, such as pigs, that are pretty permissive to both types of viruses.

A Seasonal Pause

Since February 2025, no new U.S. infections have been reported. That does not mean the risk has disappeared.

“In the United States, based on data reported to the USDA, we tend to see fewer reports of avian influenza virus detections in wild birds and commercial poultry during the summer, and we saw a decline in detections during the spring and summer of 2025. We’re also seeing fewer reports of A(H5N1) infections in dairy cows this spring and summer. It follows that with fewer detections in animals there are fewer people who are working with infected animals on dairy farms and commercial poultry farms and thus fewer opportunities for human infections to occur. State and local health departments and CDC have not reduced public health surveillance efforts for H5 viruses in humans.”

Clinical Lessons

The study also carries practical guidance for clinicians. “Seasonal influenza viruses attach to cellular receptors that are mostly in the upper respiratory tract (nose and upper throat) in humans but the receptors that avian influenza viruses attach to are mostly in the lower respiratory tract and lungs in humans,” Rolfes explained. “We recommend that clinicians collect specimens from both the upper and lower respiratory tract of patients with severe illness who have suspected A(H5N1) to increase the ability to detect the virus and that conjunctival specimens be taken from people with eye symptoms.”

Who Is Most Affected

The demographics of U.S. cases raise another important point: ninety-one percent of patients identified as Hispanic or Latino, reflecting the composition of the agricultural workforce. Protecting these workers requires not only personal protective equipment (PPE) but also broader safety systems.

“Our study could not address the question of whether PPE use is different in general among dairy workers or poultry workers, because we only looked at data from cases,” Rolfes said. “However, there have been other reports on PPE use in dairy workers, and PPE is only one part of a suite of activities recommended to reduce exposure to avian influenza viruses among those working with infected animals or contaminated products. Other activities include engineering and administrative controls.”

Backyard Flocks: A Familiar Risk

Perhaps the most sobering detail is the severity of backyard poultry–associated cases. “The clinical severity of the two cases in the U.S. exposed to infected backyard poultry is more similar to the clinical severity we have seen in cases reported from other countries,” Rolfes said. “We don’t know, for sure, whether these cases were severe because of baseline health status, older age, the duration, dose, or route of exposure to the viruses, or a combination of factors. But there are important lessons we have learned from the global experience, including risk communication and education around how backyard flock owners can protect their flocks and themselves from avian influenza viruses.”

A Measured Warning

The first U.S. wave of H5N1 infections has not matched the catastrophic scenarios some feared. Most cases were mild, transmission has not spread beyond animal exposures (except for a worrying 3 cases where exposure could not be identified), and mutations remain sporadic. Yet the virus continues to find new hosts, from cows to chickens to people, and every spillover is another opportunity for evolution.

The story is not over. Vigilance in surveillance, protection for agricultural workers, and targeted education for backyard flock owners are all part of the unfinished agenda. As Rolfes emphasized, “anyone who interacts with animals infected with influenza A(H5N1) viruses may be at risk of getting sick themselves.”

https://www.ledburyreporter.co.uk/news/25417388.man-shot-killed-family-pet-cat-accident-court-told/

Park City police informed of possible bow hunter on Park City Mountain terrain

10-year memorandum expires/ Hunting returns, fines of up to 1.3 million for prohibited areas

by Department of Natural ResourcesAugust 26, 2025

• https://thebaynet.com/maryland-begins-migratory-game-bird-hunting-seasons-for-2025-2026/

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The Maryland Department of Natural Resources has announced the state’s 2025-2026 migratory game bird hunting seasons, the first of which begin Sept. 1. 

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.715.0_en.html#fid=goog_199182281

Bag limits, season dates, and shooting hours can be found in the 2025-2026 Maryland Guide to Hunting and Trapping.

“Maryland hunters have been waiting for September with a high degree of anticipation, as fall hunting season begins,” said Wildlife and Heritage Director Karina Stonesifer. “Maryland’s diverse landscape and abundant public hunting opportunities offer many options for new and experienced hunters.”

Unless otherwise noted, official shooting hours begin 30 minutes before sunrise and end at sunset for all early migratory game bird hunting seasons. Season dates are as follows:

Dove, split season

First Season: Sept. 1 – Oct. 18 (note: shooting hours for this segment are noon to sunset)

Second Season: Oct. 25 – Nov. 28

Third Season: Dec. 20 – Jan. 9, 2026

Woodcock, split season

First Season: Oct. 25 – Nov. 28

Second Season: Jan. 12 – 28, 2026

Early resident Canada Goose Season

Eastern zone: Sept. 1–15

Western zone: Sept. 1–25

For Early Canada goose season, hunters are allowed to use shotguns capable of holding more than three shells. Shooting hours are extended to a half-hour before sunrise to a half-hour after sunset.

Teal, September Season

Sept. 18–27

Shooting hours will be a half-hour before sunrise to sunset. The daily bag limit is six teal.

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All migratory bird hunters, including landowners who are license-exempt, must purchase a Maryland Migratory Game Bird Stamp/Harvest Information Program Permit and possess the printed receipt while hunting. All waterfowl hunters, ages 16 and older, must possess a printed receipt of the Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp (Federal Duck Stamp). Licenses, permits, and stamps can be purchased on the MD Outdoors website, by phone at 855-855-3906, at a department service center or any of the 250 sport license agents.

Hunters are encouraged to report banded migratory game birds online. After reporting the banded bird, hunters will receive a certificate of appreciation that includes all known biological information on the bird they harvested.

All of Maryland’s Waterfowl Hunting zones can be viewed by clicking on the DNR website.

Hunters with questions may contact the department at 410-260-8540.

Hunters with disabilities have until Sept. 15 to sign up for fall deer hunt

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