Over last weekend I finished reading Jared Huffman’s book. To say is was good would be an understatement. It was excellent.
I will print the last paragraph of the last chapter.
CONCLUSION
We don’t need to agree on everything, but right now we must come together as fellow Americans who agree on the most important thing: Our beleaguered democracy remains the best system of government the world has ever seen, and it belongs to all of us. Let us be worthy of it by confronting the myths, defending the facts, and honouring the Enlightenment inheritance that made pluralistic democracy possible. And as we do, let us remember Thomas Paine’s words that echo across the centuries: “The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.” (My emboldening.)
Last Saturday evening, the 5th September, 2026, we had a violent and sudden rainstorm. In twenty-four minutes 0.85” of rain fell. Luckily there was no damage.
On Thursday, The Conversation published a post about the potential dangers of hiking in canyons when storms hit,
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Hiking canyons can quickly turn deadly when storms hit – what you should know before going in
Mud and debris, including a mangled piece of construction equipment, remain after a flash flood in Grand Canyon National Park on Aug. 31, 2026. Katherine Hensel/National Park Service via AP
Hiking a picturesque valley or climbing a craggy gorge are some of the most exhilarating experiences in nature. As a geologist, I have hiked and climbed some of the most intense terrains in the world, including in the Andes, Middle Eastern deserts, the Balkans and the Appalachians.
I am particularly drawn to canyons that provide beautiful windows into the rock record and the geologic history of a place. However, these narrow valleys can quickly become extremely dangerous when water pours in.
At Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, at least two hikers died and a third was missing after powerful monsoon storms sent a deluge into one of the narrowest parts of the canyon on Aug. 29, 2026. Two of the survivors who were rescued described seeing the water quickly rise over the trail as they clung to a ledge, fearing they might never see their families again.
So, how do you balance a love for outdoor activity with managing this risk and hike canyons safely?
Why canyons are prone to flash floods
To understand the dynamics of a flash flood, it helps to start with the geomorphologic aspect – understanding the landforms and how they change over time.
In canyons and arroyos – steep gullies common to the Southwest – flash flooding can occur even when the heavy rainfall happens great distances away. A person can be hiking under clear skies in the canyon and not be aware that heavy rain falling upstream or even outside of the canyon means a disaster is unfolding.
The steep gradients and narrow passageways that define these landscapes channel the water, sending vast amounts of it rushing downstream. Under these conditions, water can rise quickly in the narrow space of a canyon.
The Grand Canyon flood involved heavy downpours in the heart of monsoon season. The intensity of the rainfall matters in a canyon. Even in arid regions, which generally get low amounts of rain annually, heavy rainfall within a short period of time can create devastating floods.
In 2018, a flash flood in Israel’s Tzafit Canyon – an environment similar to the part of the Grand Canyon where the 2026 flood occurred – claimed the lives of 10 recent high school graduates who were hiking in the canyon.
I grew up in that region and had hiked there many times, and I remember thinking about the incomprehensible suddenness: One moment you are appreciating the breathtaking views of the desert, and within minutes you are fighting a torrent of water you never imagined in such an arid place. A year’s worth of rain fell near the canyon that day.
The hydrogeologic aspect
How well the ground absorbs water also affects flood dynamics. Soils that are highly porous and permeable can transmit water easily vertically into the ground.
However, in arid regions such as Arizona and the Negev Desert, where Tzafit Canyon lies, the dry ground tends to form hardened crusts that make it harder for the water to sink in. That exacerbates surface flooding.
What’s more, the lack of vegetation in dry and rocky environments means that water can flow more rapidly down slopes.
What should hikers do to stay safe?
As an avid hiker, I value the beauty of nature and geology that canyons offer, and I believe in enjoying them. However, it is important to understand the risks and to prepare before hiking, climbing or backpacking in these areas.
Carefully study your environment before going in, so you know the risks and the escape routes that will let you get to safety in the event of a flash flood.
Gear up properly. Prepare for your trip so you have the equipment you need. Make sure you have a flashlight with extra batteries, a whistle to signal first responders, and extra clothes in case you get wet. If you know you will be hiking in high-risk water zones, you may consider an inflatable personal flotation device.
Talk to park rangers before going in so you know the current conditions and so someone knows where you’re going.
Always be aware of the weather – not just above you but upstream. Clear skies can be deceptive. An added challenge is that cellular service is often shaky in deep canyons and remote areas. Check the weather forecast before you go down a canyon, not just for the specific location, but also for the surrounding area. The National Weather Service provides warnings of flash floods and other extreme weather events.
When you are in a canyon, a good general guideline is to try to stay as high as possible and to be alert to the sound of an incoming flood. One person described the rush of water in the Grand Canyon sounding like a freight train.
If heavy rain starts, use extra caution and seek higher ground. Be aware that the timing of floods can vary widely – scientists analyzed 74,814 flash flood events in the U.S. and found the average duration was around 3½ hours, but some persisted for more than 48 hours. A flood can start quickly and strand people for long periods of time. Muddy water or debris in a normally clear stream are two signs of flooding developing. Rising water or the distant sound of rushing water is another clear warning to get to safety fast.
There are always risks in nature, but that does not mean you should avoid being out in nature. Planning ahead and hiking with caution and awareness can help you enjoy the beautiful outdoors and come back home safely.
Microbes from space have fueled the plots of science fiction mainstays like “Project Hail Mary” and “The Andromeda Strain.” But with more space missions launching each year, finding extraterrestrial life in a microbial form is becoming more plausible. What will the response be back here on Earth if – or when – scientists discover extraterrestrial microbes? Will the international policy and security communities be prepared for the fallout?
When you hear about extraterrestrial life, your mind may go to intelligent life, like the kind present in a lot of Hollywood science fiction. But even the confirmation of microbial life that originated somewhere other than on Earth – which is much more likely – would be a paradigm-shifting event. Thinking about what these consequences might look like early on can help nations and the international community prepare.
Our team is interested in this question. We’re made up of a full professor of international affairs, who earned a Ph.D. in chemistry, and whose expertise is on how emerging science and technologies could affect global conflict and cooperation, as well as an emerging scholar in space policy and security and an expert on social and political implications of frontier technologies, such as AI, space, quantum and energy sources.
The discovery of microbial life would expose significant gaps in international governance related to space.
While there are some existing international agreements, including the Outer Space Treaty, that provide space law guidelines, these are ill-equipped to address the complexities posed by extraterrestrial biology.
However, it doesn’t have much to say about who can own extraterrestrial organisms or what to do about biosecurity risks. It doesn’t have direction for who can use, preserve or destroy living things, such as bacteria or fungi, that may be discovered in space.
Historical analogies and future pathways
While people have yet to discover extraterrestrial life of any kind, there are some major geopolitical events that can help researchers understand what the consequences might look like.
While the space race of the 1950s and ’60s led to exploration of the Moon, it was driven by a Cold War power struggle between two nations back on Earth. Instead of coming together to explore space, both countries experienced a renewed sense of nationalism. They used the new discoveries that came from the space race to invest in their military capabilities.
On the other hand, researchers can look at how states respond to asteroid threats. Since an asteroid could pose a truly existential threat from space, preventing the worst-case scenario requires cooperation and thinking ahead.
Astronomers have built a global, collaborative network to monitor for and sound the alarm about any potential threats. This network has shown that nations can put aside terrestrial rivalries to work together if they perceive something from space as a truly existential threat.
The International Space Station is another example showing how nations that are competing great powers on Earth work together to cooperate in space. Countries have collaborated to solve issues on the International Space Station that have specific, short-term and clearly identified goals.
The ISS is an example of countries cooperating in space research. NASA/Roscosmos
These examples show a range of possible reactions to the discovery of space microbes. The situation could renew space races between competing countries and lead to militarization, or it could create unprecedented cooperation.
Potential outcomes
We’ve identified three main possible outcomes to the discovery of microbial extraterrestrial life.
First, there’s a cooperative outcome, reminiscent of the asteroid threat network or the International Space Station. Here, nations collaborate to regulate research, share data, protect the planet or advance specific interests they share.
This pathway isn’t inherently benign or malignant. It could entail expanding the roles of international organizations or creating new legal instruments.
Second there’s a competitive outcome, characterized by strategic rivalry between countries. Like in the space race, nations could fight to be technologically superior. They might try to monopolize access to the extraterrestrial microbes or to leverage biological discoveries from the microbes for their own economic or military advantage.
Scientific breakthroughs derived from extraterrestrial organisms could lead to innovations in medicine, agriculture, energy and beyond. However, the organisms could also be weaponized, intentionally or otherwise, which would amplify biosecurity risks. In this sense, the discovery of microbial life could create a new form of technological competition, one that merges space exploration with biological research and development.
For example, around 60% of all satellites currently orbiting the Earth belong to SpaceX’s Starlink subsidiary. The company can – and has – chosen to block access selectively, in alignment with its political priorities. When commercial interests and national priorities diverge, who has access versus who is denied access can be uncertain.
A SpaceX rocket launches a load of Starlink satellites into orbit around Earth. AP Photo/John Raoux
Research around biopiracy may come into play. Biopiracy is a term that applies to two primary issues: the patenting of indigenous knowledge or the patenting of natural resources, such as microbes, for profit. The Budapest Treaty prohibits claiming ownership of a naturally occurring microbe on Earth, but there’s no equivalent for microbes in space.
Third is an isolationist outcome, in which states could sever their involvement in international cooperation due to biosecurity concerns or political distrust. The potential for unknown biological risks, however minimal, could trigger precautionary restrictions on data sharing, which limits international collaboration.
Countries may lose or gain allies as they grapple with whether the microbe could cause harm to humans or the environment, or be developed into a biological weapon.
Countries will have to prepare not only for the scientific implications of discovery but also for its societal and political reverberations. The politicization of scientific discoveries from the microbes could complicate or change how countries respond domestically and at the international scale. Misinformation about the microbes could shape policy and public response.
Preparing for the unprecedented
The discovery of extraterrestrial microbial life would not merely mark a scientific milestone. It would be a geopolitical event.
Rather than attempting to predict a singular outcome, policymakers could adopt scenario-based planning approaches in the meantime to anticipate and prepare for a range of possibilities. In these approaches, participants explore multiple futures through structured activities similar to professional or military wargaming or path games, in which they explore multiple outcomes systematically to test strategies, to plan and to analyze potential outcomes under realistic uncertainty.
In our view, the question is not whether humanity will discover life beyond Earth, but whether it is prepared for the consequences when it does.
As wildfire smoke plumes travel thousands of miles, sunlight and atmospheric chemistry bleach their color, strip away their campfire aroma and add them to the mix of urban smog.
Living in the western U.S., I am no stranger to this scene. Wildfires and the thick smoke they produce have become a fixture of summer life here. I also study wildfire smoke as an atmospheric chemist, in particular how the smoke evolves as it moves downwind from the flames to the communities where people breathe it.
To understand what’s in the smoke you might be breathing, you have to look at where it’s been.
Wildfire smoke is often too high in the atmosphere to be noticed, but when atmospheric conditions bring it close to the ground, people are left breathing unhealthy particles. Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory
Smoke from a wildfire lofts high into the air. As it moves, its chemical composition changes. Steven S. Brown
In contrast, lower-temperature smoldering wildfires release a different mix of compounds, but it is still enriched with toxic aromatic oxygenates and ammonia, which can irritate the respiratory system. This isn’t to say that these wildfire emissions are safer for human health, but rather that burning conditions dictate the chemical makeup of the smoke and its subsequent chemical fate.
Wildfires are rarely just one or the other; they are dynamic mixtures that shift throughout the day as air temperatures rise, humidity drops or evening thunderstorms roll in.
The Twin Otter research planes that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists use to study wildfire smoke are packed with instruments. Steven S. Brown
Once smoke leaves the flames, three main factors govern its journey: wind speed, atmospheric temperature and sunlight.
Think of a campfire. If you are sitting in the wrong spot, the prevailing wind blows smoke directly in your face. This horizontal movement is called advection. Small fires often don’t generate enough heat to loft their smoke high, meaning you can smell your neighbor’s campfire.
However, massive wildfires generate immense heat and powerful upward winds. This buoyancy acts like an elevator, lifting the smoke plume out of the planetary boundary layer and injecting it into the free troposphere, roughly 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) above the ground. Up there, high-altitude winds take over, transporting the smoke thousands of miles across the continent.
A large smoke plume rises high into the atmosphere. Michael A. Robinson
On occasion, wildfire plumes can generate their own weather, making smoke-laden pyrocumulonimbus clouds, which can inject large amounts of particles into the stratosphere.
How sunlight ‘ages’ the smoke
As smoke travels, it undergoes rapid physical and chemical changes.
First, the plume dilutes as cleaner background air mixes into it. Close to the fire, the smoke is dense and opaque. As it moves downwind, it spreads out and grows more diffuse.
When the Sun shines through thick wildfire smoke, it turns the sky a dirty orange. Steven S. Brown
If smoke is lofted high, into cold free tropospheric air, the chemical aging process can temporarily freeze. The smoke can remain chemically fresh until the air parcel sinks closer to the surface, below about 1.25 miles (2 kilometers), where warmer temperatures can restart the chemical reactions.
When an aging smoke plume passes over a major city, it can mix with urban pollution, such as car exhaust. This interaction can rekindle chemical reactions, creating additional local ozone on top of the fine particulate matter emitted from the fire.
Why distant smoke smells and looks different
Have you ever noticed that long-distance wildfire smoke doesn’t smell like a campfire? There is a chemical reason for that.
The specific compounds responsible for the classic smoky aroma of a campfire – phenolic compounds like guaiacol and syringol – are highly reactive. Sunlight and the associated chemistry destroy them in a matter of hours. By the time the smoke has traveled across several states, the smoky smell is completely gone.
Sunlight also alters the color of the smoke through chemical bleaching of aerosols. Fresh smoke contains dark brown and black carbon particles that absorb light. Over several days of exposure to sunlight and oxidants, chemical reactions break down these dark compounds.
A sailboat passing a lifeguard stand along Chicago’s Lake Michigan is obscured by Canadian wildfire smoke that blanketed the city on July 16, 2026. Scott Olson/Getty Images
The result?
Dark, light-absorbing particles turn into light-scattering particles, transforming dark, dense plumes into the milky white haze seen drifting across the eastern skies. These particles efficiently scatter the blue and green light while letting red and orange wavelengths pass through, creating the uncanny feeling of an all-day sunset.
The wildfire smoke inhaled hundreds of miles downwind is chemically distinct from the smoke that left the flames, but it remains a serious health threat and an area of active research. Consequently, smoke transport and its associated atmospheric chemistry represent a major North American air quality issue, one projected to intensify in the coming years.
As you can see from the second image, the map of wildfire smoke, here in Oregon there has been substantial smoke, albeit because we live to the west of the Cascades, we have not been directly affected.
However, the summer of 2027 is predicted to be an even drier period than this year, and the potential for wildfires and the associated smoke is a problem that is not going away.
We areresearchers affiliated with Arizona State University’s scientist opinion panel survey, known as SciOPS, a 5-year research program designed to monitor, understand and improve how scientists communicate with the public. We wanted to know more about the reality inside today’s universities as researchers grapple with Trump administration policies.
Alongwithourcolleagues, we fielded a survey of randomly sampled members of the academic science community participating in the SciOPS panel. We obtained responses from 280 scientists from several fields, including biology, chemistry, civil and environmental engineering, computer and information science engineering, geography and public health from 131 universities.
Our results show dramatic, mostly negative, effects of federal policy changes on researchers, the research system and American competitiveness.
Declines in federal funding have had knock-on effects. Around one-quarter of scientists reported that state and local and university internal funding have also declined. Another 9% reported that internal funding has increased, presumably as universities have provided emergency funds to researchers to support critical studies.
According to the scientists who responded to our survey, Trump administration policies have also affected the scientific workforce pipeline, hampering their ability to recruit internationally and domestically.
We hypothesize that these hiring issues can be related to visa and immigration policies, which make it difficult for international graduate students and postdocs to work in the U.S. or attend international conferences. Just over half of scientists in our survey reported that international students or postdocs have expressed concerns to them about deportation.
Concerns about longer-term career impacts are also to blame for trouble recruiting the next generation of researchers. Over 80% of surveyed scientists reported that graduate students or postdocs on their research team have increased concerns about future job prospects.
These impacts have taken a toll on scientists’ professional work environment and overall outlook. Over two-thirds reported more work-related stress and almost half reported increased workloads since January 2025. About half reported decreased work motivation.
How are scientists and engineers reacting?
We found scientists’ responses to be a mixture of resilience, acquiescence and considering an exit.
While many scientists said they were less motivated at work, most reported no change in their efforts to obtain federal research funding. Small proportions did report successfully increasing their efforts to obtain funding from non-federal sources.
Our survey also asked scientists whether they had taken any self-censoring actions since January 2025 due to concern over potential negative consequences for their work or career. Over half reported having reviewed or adjusted key words in research proposals, and almost half said they’d reframed research topics. Forty-three percent had also cautioned students or collaborators to be careful what they say publicly and more than a third had abandoned plans on one or more research topics.
Although scientists are adopting strategies to cope with the new challenges, nearly two-thirds of the scientists in our sample appear to be considering one or more other career options.
Scientists look to the long term
Scientists and engineers in our sample have strong opinions about the impacts of current U.S. science policy. A large majority (87%) believe the administration’s actions have influenced research priorities more than previous administrations. Most scientists in our survey had a negative opinion of the Trump administration’s overall changes to science policy.
Scientists in our sample believed that administration policies have had a negative effect on the future scientific workforce and the ability of scientists and engineers in the U.S. to produce breakthroughs and discoveries and contribute to national welfare.
Large majorities believe these policies have harmed public perceptions of the integrity of U.S. scientists (85%) and hurt public trust in science (84%).
Academic scientists’ reactions to the Trump administration’s changes to science policy are perhaps not surprising given the perceived level of threat these actions represent to the research community. What is less certain is whether the dramatic changes we are currently witnessing – cuts to grant funding, politicization of research, downsizing of federal agencies, restrictive immigration policies, attacks on the autonomy of higher education and more – are temporary or if they represent the initial phase of a transition to a new research environment with less federal support for American science.
The last paragraph contains the essence of the argument, as in a temporary change or the first phase of an environment with less federal support for science.
I follow George Monbiot, and have had his permission for some time to republish his articles.
I was born in November, 1944, some six months before the end of WWII. Over all these years, I have read countless essays and articles about the state of countries, and the world.
However, George’s latest article is the most serious reflection on the state of things, effected by the rich and powerful, that I have ever read. I’m sure I speak for millions of other people.
Read this now!
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Our 1933 Moment
Posted on the 4th August 2026
At astonishing speed, around the world, fundamental rights are being cancelled at the behest of oligarchs and corporations.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 31st July 2026
No more resistance in the US. The era of human rights is over, and dissent is once more forbidden. This is what certain billionaires and their concierges want, and this is the model they’re also seeking to project across the world. If we fail to resist, if our new prime minister is as weak and suggestible as the last one, this is what we will get. In fact, we are halfway there already.
Why? Because successive governments in the UK have succumbed to a global campaign to cancel our fundamental freedoms, a campaign led by oligarchs and corporations, the media they own and the junktanks they fund. A campaign that has become definitional for the second Trump presidency.
At a global summit convened by the US government earlier this month, the Trump administration officials Marco Rubio, Stephen Miller and Scott Bessent explained that they were redirecting counterterrorism efforts away from Islamic jihadism and towards “the political left”. Most of the examples they cited to justify this shift were more than 30 years old. Several times they had to dig down to the 1970s to find a sufficiently menacing threat. You could hear the barrel being scraped.
Without producing a shred of evidence, Rubio, the secretary of state, claimed that the Cuban government is “inextricably linked to the far-left groups and movements across and beyond the west”. The following week, his department sought to justify this claim with a report containing a long list of leftwing legislators, journalists and activists that attempted to link them to Cuba in ways that ranged from the tenuous to the hilarious. This is a well-honed tactic, used prolifically by the Nazis among others: they claimed dissenters, by definition, were part of an international communist conspiracy. They insisted, as Rubio did, that “it is time to crush this evil for ever”.
That wasn’t the only crude reminder. Miller, Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff, maintained that when you see antifascist protests, “not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They’re all deformed in some way – in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism … their outer appearance becomes a manifestation of their inner hatred.” I’m just surprised he didn’t say “untermenschen”. The US government, by contrast, promotes “normal, healthy, ordered living”.
But what hit me even harder was Miller’s attack on “jury nullification”: jurors acquitting people who, he said, were “obviously guilty”. Shutting down this possibility has been an aim of illiberal governments and conservative judges around the world. We saw it in the UK in the prosecution of Trudi Warner and others for holding signs that state an ancient principle in English law: “Jurors have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to their conscience.”
We see it in the astonishing prosecution, being pursued at the moment, of Rajiv Menon KC, who reminded jurors of this right at the trial of the Palestine Action campaigners he was defending. He became, as a result, the first lawyer in English history to be charged with contempt of court for a closing speech. If convicted, he faces up to two years’ imprisonment and will be struck off. Prosecuting lawyers for defending their dissident clients is more or less the definition of authoritarianism.
We also saw it in the assault Keir Starmer launched on jury trials as a whole, greatly curtailing, without any coherent justification, our strongest defence against injustice.
Starmer was a weak man, without a clear vision of his own, who was rolled by any powerful state or corporate lobby. He was no match for a well-funded and highly effective international campaign. A network of groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, funded by corporations and billionaires, has been producing “model legislation”. The groups test these laws in sympathetic jurisdictions. If they are found to work, they then press for their adoption elsewhere. The result is a sustained assault on our rights to protest, to political equality and to a habitable planet.
The globalisation of this attack on our fundamental rights is a key conservative aim. As capital operates everywhere, so should its ability to crush our objections. The long series of vicious anti-protest laws in the UK is an outcome of sustained lobbying by junktanks, the media and other governments. The result is a country that now keeps hundreds of political prisoners, a country in which you can get six months in jail for marching slowly down the street.
These oppressive laws have culminated – so far – in an act of parliament passed in April that enables the police to shut down any protest they deem to have a “cumulative” impact on the community. The only protests that have ever succeeded are those with a cumulative impact. Protest is acceptable as long as it’s useless. Let the people have their say, but only if we can’t hear them.
The new laws have been accompanied by that age-old trick, traditionally associated with fascist regimes, of smearing leftwing dissidents as terrorists. As the rights group Liberty has pointed out, the definition of terrorism here has greatly expanded, to incorporate tactics formerly regarded as civil protest. This is what enabled Starmer’s government to ban Palestine Action.
The judge who referred Menon for contempt, Mr Justice Johnson, was also the first – at the same trial – to use the extraordinary powers quietly inserted by the Conservatives into the Sentencing Act 2020. These enable someone tried for one crime to be sentenced for another. The four Palestine Action protesters were convicted of ordinary crimes. But, without informing the jury, Johnson marked the case as having a “terrorist connection”. He then sentenced them for terrorist offences, which means much more prison time.
Already, his example has been followed by another judge: a different group of pro-Palestine protesters, who sprayed red paint and broke some windows of a branch of Barclays Bank, are about to be sentenced as terrorists, though neither they nor the jurors were told of this possibility during their trial for criminal damage. This means, of course, that they were unable to defend themselves against this far more serious charge.
Nothing is safe from the billionaire assault on humanity. None of our rights, however ancient and familiar, are impregnable. Fight for them now or lose them, perhaps for ever.
Air Force One used to be a high-flying symbol of American technology, ingenuity and power. For many, it was also a source of national pride.
The current Boeing 747s that serve as Air Force One are a combination transport vehicle, command center, press room, medical center and apartment, complete with bedroom and office for the nation’s chief executive.
Now, to many, Air Force One has become scandalous.
This article is not part of that story. Nor is it the standard story of Air Force One that appears in numerous documentaries, which tend to be gee-whiz accounts of the amazing capacities of the president’s airplane.
I am a historian writing a book about the technologies that have shaped the long history of the American presidency, in which Air Force One looms large. I believe it is important to see Air Force One as more than a cool gadget or political flash point. Von Hardesty, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, certainly understood this when he wrote that “by the end of the 20th century, Air Force One had evolved into an essential arm of the American Presidency.”
Put simply, the presidency as we know it today would have been impossible without Air Force One, which has shaped and defined that role for decades.
President Richard Nixon waves to the crowds from Air Force One with his wife, Pat, as they arrive at Ireland’s Shannon Airport on Oct. 3, 1970. Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
Horse-drawn carriage to the ‘Sacred Cow’
It was only recently that Americans or their presidents could imagine things this way. When presidents left the capital throughout most of the nation’s history, it was a lengthy, at times arduous, process that severed their connection with government offices.
As a result, presidents rarely traveled while in office and were more likely to depart Washington for extended vacations than for official business. Likewise, no serving president left the United States until Teddy Roosevelt visited the construction of the Panama Canal in 1906. Woodrow Wilson became the first sitting president to cross the Atlantic when he boarded the USS George Washington in 1918 to join the negotiations in Versailles at the end of World War I.
If few presidents got away from Washington to see the country and its residents before 1900, the flip side was also true: Few Americans saw presidential candidates or incumbents in person, especially Americans who lived outside the eastern third of the United States. Instead, the connection between presidents and average citizens was mediated through political parties, the press and eventually through broadcast media.
The first designated presidential aircraft arrived in 1933, but Franklin Roosevelt never flew on it. His first flight as president came in 1943, when American Airlines loaned a flying boat called the Dixie Clipper to ferry Roosevelt to meet with other Allied leaders at the Casablanca Conference. In 1945, Roosevelt traveled to Yalta on a Douglas VC-54C called the Sacred Cow, the first plane specifically built for presidential travel.
President Franklin Roosevelt and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower on the president’s plane en route to the Tehran Conference in December 1943. George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images
Despite these flights to important international meetings, Roosevelt and successors Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower made limited domestic use of aircraft, preferring instead to travel by railroad. International trips remained lengthy journeys in loud, propeller-driven aircraft that encountered the greater turbulence of lower altitudes.
All this changed in 1962, when President John Kennedy acquired a brand-new Boeing 707, the first jet-powered Air Force One.
Presidential ubiquity
Flying higher, faster and quieter than their predecessors, the jet aircraft used for Air Force One made possible one of the central facets of the modern presidency: The nation’s chief executive could be a ubiquitous player in national politics and world affairs.
Presidential travel increased dramatically, both in its frequency and in the number of stops on each trip. This was not simply the result of the growing use of air travel worldwide. Where Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower understood world leadership as their ability to coordinate American power from Washington, Kennedy and his successors sought to make themselves the center of the story.
This seemed particularly important during the Cold War. As the United States asserted its leadership in the struggle against the Soviet Union, American presidents positioned themselves as the symbols of freedom in opposition to communism.
Consider President Richard Nixon traveling to China in 1972 to normalize relations, or Ronald Reagan flying to Iceland for the 1986 Reykjavík conference with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to negotiate the future of intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The presence of a president at these conferences elevated both the importance of the event and the image of the president as a statesman who was able to quickly pivot back and forth from national to international leadership. As American presidents struggled to maintain their power and their relevance after the end of the Cold War, their international travel only increased. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama each made over twice the number of international trips as Ronald Reagan did.
Presidents specifically visited international hot spots, positioning themselves as global peacemakers. The sight of the American president descending the long stairs from Air Force One, smiling and waving along the way, became a symbol of American diplomacy.
President Jimmy Carter meets with reporters aboard Air Force One on July 1, 1979, while flying from Seoul, South Korea, to Honolulu. AP Photo/Ira Schwarz
Official business – and campaigning
If Air Force One enabled presidents to announce themselves as statesmen abroad, it also revolutionized politics at home.
During the 1970s, the two major parties moved from selecting their nominees at national conventions to a system where state primaries decided who would lead the ticket.
This change emerged from demands that political power move from party leaders to party members. But a primary system would have been unimaginable without aircraft to shuttle candidates around the country. That was particularly important for incumbents, as air travel enabled them to be both sitting presidents and active candidates.
Presidents and their handlers learned how to combine official government business, which permitted the use of Air Force One, with campaign opportunities. These moments not only changed how presidents operated; they changed how Americans understood their presidents.
This change began with Kennedy’s use of the jet-powered Air Force One for domestic travel, including the tragic decision to visit Texas in November 1963, where he was assassinated. In just his first year in office, Bill Clinton visited 37 states over the course of 73 days.
Air Force One is a symbol of presidential power, but its problems only reinforce the fact that technology shapes the presidency.
The clearest demonstration was on 9/11. President Bush was in Florida that morning. Air Force One whisked him into the air, delivering him first to the safety of an Air Force base in Louisiana and then to the fortified headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command in Nebraska, and still had him back at the White House by the end of the day.
It was a grim reminder of the other task for Air Force One: a safe transport for the president during a national crisis or nuclear armageddon. While the aircraft fulfilled its promise to keep the president safe in a crisis, its legendary communication systems faltered. Crucially, Bush struggled to coordinate with senior officials in Washington, leaving him momentarily out of the loop at a terrifying historical juncture.
The role that presidents have assumed at home and abroad, as well as the ways Americans interact with their presidents, have taken form through the possibilities – and the limitations – of presidential aircraft. Air Force One is not just a great way to travel or a nifty gadget, nor is it peripheral to the presidency. It is central to it.
The last sentence of the last paragraph spells out how Air Force One is central to the presidency. The aircraft serves as a symbol of presidential power.
In a weird way, this post published by Geo Monbiot on the 24th July, 2026, reveals a similar vein to yesterday’s post about the Save Europe Act. I mean they are both about the unfair and unreasonable power held by those in political command.
Over to Mr Monbiot (and I have his permission to republish):
ooOOoo
Chickened-Out
Posted on 24th July 2026
Trashing the living world on behalf of corporate power: is this really all we can expect from the ministers in charge of protecting it?
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 23rd July 2026
There’s a slightly mean question I often ask British people with an interest in the living world: can you name the Environment Secretary? I don’t intend to show them up: it’s not them I’m testing. I watch the brows knit, a finger go up, the mouth open and close. “It’s, you know, the one who … no, they went, didn’t they? That other one …” It’s been like this for seven years.
Why? Because throughout this period, we’ve not had environment secretaries. We’ve had portals through which corporate lobbyists may pass. The last incumbent to represent the wider public interest (and I can scarcely bring myself to type these words) was Michael Gove. In his other roles, he’s widely remembered with loathing and disgust. Out of office, he continues to poison public life, as editor of the Spectator. But in this role, to general astonishment, he placed the public good above special interests.
Standard operating procedure, by contrast, is exemplified by the final acts of the outgoing secretary, whose name, to put you out of your misery, is Emma Reynolds. To give just one example – which could be seen as an embodiment of everything that has gone wrong here – she spent her last weeks in the post trying to remove the brakes on industrial chicken farming.
In front of a parliamentary committee this month, she railed against the planning constraints holding back yet more giant chicken factories (let’s not grace them with the name of farms). If only these obstacles were demolished, she mused, “there is great investment out there waiting to be made … I want to bring down these barriers as much as you do”. She said she had spoken to other departments to ensure permission for new chicken factories was easier to obtain.
Neither she nor the MPs questioning her gave any hint of why these buildings have run into trouble with the planning system. In fact, there was no mention of any of the problems the factories cause: the MPs’ only apparent interest was in what the industry wanted. What’s the point of MPs if they simply channel corporate demands? But these factories are killing some of our most beautiful rivers. They generate far more dung than the surrounding fields can absorb. The surplus washes downhill into the nearest stream.
The only decision that counts is the planning decision. As soon as permission for a chicken unit is granted, the local tributary, and possibly the main stem of the river it drains into, is as good as dead. It’s not even as if these factories support jobs and growth: by killing the rivers, they help to destroy local economies.
I thought we’d won this argument. But argument, it seems, is no match for economic power. Reynolds’s loyalties appeared to lie not with the ecosystems she was meant to protect, but with the lobbyists threatening them. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising: before she joined Keir Starmer’s government, she worked as a lobbyist, representing the financial sector.
Disturbingly, it was the new environment secretary, Angela Eagle, while working as Reynolds’s deputy, who sought to drive through the “planning reforms” the poultry industry is demanding, telling chicken lobbyists “planning should enable ambition, not stifle it”. Will she now take Burnham’s “circuit breaker” promise seriously, and junk this appeasement of one of our most destructive industries?
At a recent farming festival, Reynolds claimed that boosting the poultry sector would enhance our food security. I don’t know how many times we need to point this out, but isn’t it bleeding obvious that it has the opposite effect? The feed sustaining chickens in these factories must be either imported or grown on land that could otherwise directly feed people. There could be more soya in chicken than in tofu: one report estimates that it takes 109g of soya to produce 100g of chicken breast. Yet this is just one of several components of their diet.
The chicken business in the UK is also controlled by a handful of giant companies: another security red light. If food security were the objective, the government would encourage us to eat fewer chickens and other animals, and more plants. But in parliament, Reynolds also proudly announced that she was disregarding the targets set by the government’s Climate Change Committee to reduce livestock numbers. I find myself asking, over and again: “Are they trying to harm this country?”
To advance their dismal agenda, Reynolds and Eagle set up something called the Farming and Food Partnership Board. Its aim is to encourage “closer collaboration between farming, industry and government”. How could it possibly be closer? The environment department, Defra, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the farming industry. The only members of this new board are government ministers and corporate representatives and lobbyists. Among its objectives is a “poultry sector growth plan”, to address the issue of “planning barriers”.
This chickening out is just one of many examples of how, by working for special interests, the environment department has harmed the ecosystems and the people it is supposed to protect. Another is the government’s “delivery plan” to restore nature, released by Reynolds just before she left office. It’s not a plan, and it won’t deliver: just a catalogue of vague hopes and blandishments. It could be summarised as “do nothing, for fear of offending landowners”. Far from meeting its promise to protect and restore 30% of the land in England by 2030, Reynolds’s department has presided over continued decline. That’s her legacy: less nature, less resilience, less security.
Much worse is planned: Starmer’s government proposed a “regulating for growth bill”, whose text we haven’t yet seen, but which appears to threaten even greater assaults on nature protection. It may contain one of his government’s most alarming proposals: creating a system that could be described as pop-up freeports, in which companies all over the country would be able to operate in temporary “sandboxes”, where the usual rules don’t apply. We should see this as a key test of Burnham’s promise to end neoliberalism: will he drop this nonsense?
I’ll keep asking the question, regardless of who occupies this office: do you know the name of the environment secretary? The answer is likely to depend on one factor: whether they are ready to break the grip of corporate power, and defend us and the rest of the living world. Whether, in other words, they want to do their job.
When I first read this article, I thought everyone will be aware, such is the awareness of wildfire smoke in so many places, and media.
Then I realised that this was wrong, and if only one or two people benefit from the advice then it should be republished. The original was on The Conversation.
ooOOoo
Yes, breathing wildfire smoke can harm your health – here’s what you can do to protect yourself
Wildfire smoke is a complex mixture that includes nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particulate matter. When homes or buildings also burn, they can release an even more toxic stew of chemicals from burning electronics, furniture, plastics, paints and much more.
What you see when you see a smoke plume or when the air is hazy with wildfire smoke are the tiny particles that are too small to fall to the ground right away with gravity.
These particles, which scientists call particulate matter, are very small – we measure them in microns. When you breathe them in, they can harm your health. The smaller the particles, the deeper they can get into your lungs and body.
EPA air quality monitors show high risks from smoke in many parts of the Great Lakes and northeastern U.S. on July 15, 2026. Reds are considered very unhealthy levels. Purples are either extremely unhealthy for light purple or hazardous for areas in maroon. AirNow Fire and Smoke Map
You may have heard the term PM2.5. It means particles that are 2.5 microns or smaller in diameter, many times smaller than the width of a human hair. High concentrations of these particles in the air during wildfire smoke episodes are what trigger air quality alerts.
Has wildfire smoke been increasing recently, and why?
Yes, wildfires have become more frequent and more intense just in the past couple of decades, and when wildfires become more frequent and intense, so does the smoke.
Scientists have found that wildfires are becoming more frequent due to a variety of factors that include increases in fire weather – hot, dry, windy conditions that fuel the spread of fires due to climate change – as well as other natural and human factors. The reasons for the increases in wildfires vary in different parts of the world.
Other studies have found that wildfire smoke makes up an increasing portion of the PM2.5 in the air in the U.S., and in many areas it is offsetting the decreases in air pollution that the U.S. has gained through regulations of industrial and vehicle emissions under the Clean Air Act.
How could wildfire smoke affect my health?
Some effects of breathing wildfire smoke include shortness of breath, coughing, itchy or watery eyes, headaches, rashes and itchiness. But smoke can cause more serious harm. Numerous epidemiological studies have shown that hospitalizations and emergency department visits for asthma and other respiratory diseases increase during wildfire smoke events.
After you breathe in the particles, they cause inflammation and oxidative stress, and they can move into the blood and spread throughout the body, affecting other organ systems.
The height of a smoke plume, like this one from Colorado’s Aspen Acres fire near Pueblo on July 1, 2026, affects the amount of particles and chemicals people on the ground are exposed to. But generally, if you can smell smoke, you’re breathing it in. Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
Where can I learn more about wildfire smoke risks where I live?
The first thing to do to protect yourself from wildfire smoke is to know how bad the smoke is and how long it is going to last.
One great place to get information for where you live on current wildfire smoke is fire.airnow.gov. You can zoom in on the map to where you live and find color-coded circles reflecting data from both U.S. EPA air-quality monitors and PurpleAir sensors that people have put in their homes.
The colors show the level of PM2.5 at that location and suggest the associated health risk.
What can I do to protect myself and my family from wildfire smoke?
First of all, depending on the level of the air quality index where you are, there are different recommendations. When wildfire smoke reaches unhealthy levels, stay indoors as much as possible, with doors and windows shut to keep the wildfire smoke out.
If you have an air cleaner, use it, but check the filter, as filters can fill up quickly. Similarly, check the filter on your home HVAC system and replace it if needed.
If you have to go outside, consider wearing a well-fitting N95, KN95 or KF94 mask. These masks can protect you from inhaling particles in the air around you. Looser masks, such as surgical masks, mostly protect others from what you breathe out instead. They do not have a tight seal around your mouth, and when you breathe in, the air with all of the particles can find its way around the sides of the mask.
Having a tight fit of the mask to your face is important so that when you breathe, the air is going through the mask and capturing the smoke particles rather than letting them into your body where they cause harm.
If your home is leaky and you can see haze inside, consider going to a public space, such as a library or mall, with a good HVAC system. Some municipalities have designated clean air spaces where anyone can go.
Learning from Dogs 