Connecting Climates 7
Independence, and Boycotting
Welcome to the 7th edition of Connecting Climates, where we will talk about… the 4th. There’s plenty of emotion this newsletter. Strap in.
Climate 1: A Big, Ugly, Nauseous Political Climate
Cardboard truths (Credit: fellow protestor’s ingenuity)
Hopefully none of you are eating for this thought experiment: What would a nausea-inducing climate look / smell like? Acid rain with a tinge of rotten eggs? A sea breeze of sulfur?
Perhaps we are in a political climate where the skunks reign supreme, forcing us to inhale the political equivalents to their spray, lest we care about the state of affairs and think differently than the rotten people running the United States Federal Government.
I went to sleep July 3rd with a pit in my stomach, and awoke on the 4th with it very much intact. One cannot say the same, however, for education, Medicaid, FEMA, IRS, NASA, NOAA, SNAP, and the remaining acronyms not named ICE. The Republican megadonor mission of dismantling government while redirecting its power to mass upward theft from the American people -- aided by their former puppet turned puppeteer -- has taken one step closer to fruition via the 2025-26 federal budget.
Nausea was the universal feeling from many I spoke to on July 3rd and 4th. Of course, this bill will produce other feelings: pain, insecurity, fear, confusion, lostness, remorse, disappointment. But the batch we were attuned to on Independence Day was sickness to one’s stomach.
I often wonder, as explored in the first edition of Connecting Climates, whether our own ignorance of future consequences is some valid excuse for approving or enabling current political decisions. Essentially, who’s complacent? (The voting members of Congress sure as hell are.) Are we all complacent? (Is anything the public does today ever enough?)
Don’t get it twisted: Voting members of Congress knew this bill’s mission was to steal from the general public. Whether the government functions was of no concern.
It was a remarkably unpopular piece of legislation with gross priorities, opaque processes, and backdoor add-ins. Potentially that made it all the more passable in our current iteration of American democracy. When the history books are written, we can thank Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) acting as if this were a deal to save Alaska at the rest of the country’s expense. Here’s her explanation; sure looks like she’s nauseous about it.
Knowingly, millions of people will needlessly suffer. Key institutions will be decimated. A few thousand people will unnecessarily feed their own greed. We almost assuredly continue finding more in support of those general conclusions, even if some pain won’t be felt until 2026 or 2028. The unknown unknowns have multiplied.
Sickeningly, floods in Kerr County, Texas, which killed at least 130 people, are a manifestation of those known and unknown unknowns: DOGE pressure encouraged vital National Weather Services staffers (who would communicate with local authorities to spread word of impending emergencies) to resign, and FEMA call center contracts were not renewed on July 5th, because the Department of Homeland Security’s put all its funds to immigration instead of disaster relief.
Yet — as I discovered early in Trump’s first term among MAGA Floral Parkers — there’s still this 35-38% of the country that will blindly support Donald Trump, whatever he does. What is the rest of the American public to do? Wait until the others snap out of it?
When the Supreme Court rules that the President can do whatever he wishes, what is the American public to do?
When that same President empowers ICE with extrajurisdictional authority, what is the American public to do? Does public life simply shut down in Los Angeles? Are we to simply stay nauseous, and stay home? Go to the beach, and forget all about it for a few hours?
We arrive at many of the same questions for climate breakdown: how are we to resist, when the totality of powers that be support, well, this? Can facing grief become a tool to move from apathy to action?
Seriously, can somebody please hand us all a guide to navigating the onset of authoritarianism?
Climate 2: Independent Anger
Outspoken anti-American sentiment overseas began to rise in March and April, bringing accompanying discomfort for those of us living here, despite our (likely) political affiliations. Beyond the dismay, fear, and disappointment, I sense many have been waiting to flip history around and point fingers at the moral inconsistency of their former forced idol democracy.
Some Americans abroad boycotted the Fourth altogether; others at home were forced not to partake out of fear for their safety. It contributed to making the Fourth tense, and celebrating it somewhat unorthodox, especially with the awareness that celebrating overseas was, for the first time, safer than for many people at home.
Yet, as I boarded the bus alone wearing a Dream Team jersey heading to the Dems in Berlin protest outside the Embassy, I felt extremely uncomfortable being prideful on our national holiday. There was nothing about my appearance that could indicate political affiliation. En route to the after party, with a few protest buddies and their fantastic signs (like you saw above), we were able to thread the needle of what we actually celebrate on July 4th: channeling No Kings energy into barbecue
For the after-after party, friends of mine and I went for burgers and fries; on principle, I only ate the fries with ketchup. As things wound down, the four of us remaining took to chatting politics, genuinely minding our own business. With a Canadian, a Scot, and an Irishman, we joked about the insane 51st State rhetoric and the tariffs crippling intra-North American trade. Then, as we would say, very much out of left field:
Jackass within earshot: “Fucking fascist!”
Ich: “Um, what? C’mon man, it’s the Fourth of July…”
Girlfriend of said jackass: “It’s the Fourth of Fascism!”
Aspiring diplomats? Not quite.
When conversations start with that kind of an opening salvo, it’s clear basic facts are not welcome. It did not matter that I’m also a German citizen, or I’m a Democrat who worked against Trump and joined that day’s anti-fascism protest at the Embassy, or that the person who made the joke about tariffs was… Canadian. This German couple associated both of us with their anger towards the United States, and by virtue of our accents and hearing something related to the current political situation, felt compelled to turn hanging out into an accusatory shouting match attempting to establish some moral high ground. Something tells me they wouldn’t dare try that stunt among their own in Brandenburg.
While I’d probably been better off with a more Buddhist response to their nonsense, rather than upping the ante via shouting those inconvenient facts, I was genuinely pissed off. They should know better not to associate the people of a place with a fascist government. I guess that couple, growing up in a place where patriotism is taboo, just could never grasp our celebration.
Leading up to the Fourth, I had a pretty clear answer to the question as to whether one can celebrate with state capture underway. And I still say: yes, we can. America is a deeply flawed place, and this holiday celebrates some of the not fucked up parts. We should enjoy this summer day celebrating our literal overthrow of a king and delicious (albeit meat-heavy) food that has improved greatly, thanks to immigrants, since 1776.
Yet many may see this holiday as overlooking everything else. As Frederick Douglass said, “‘This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” Has the Fourth’s meaning always been to protest against those fucked up parts, too?
Imagine some Venn diagram of anger towards the U.S.. Many Americans’ are mad at specific parts: everyday bigots and indifferent elites, political backs, systemic racism, rural neglect, healthcare companies. I can’t speak for the likes of Frederick Douglass, or Malcolm X, or many outside the U.S., but more sections in that diagram are about what the whole country — not just Trump and tech bros — represents via the military-industrial complex, mass tourism, insatiable capital appetites, power, and ignorance as to the U.S.’s global impact, among others.
And this is something that, as Suzy Hansen brilliantly outlines in Notes on a Foreign Country, I may never fully be able to internalize as a white American person, with the idea of our collective innocence drilled into me by virtue of a suburban U.S. upbringing. In my mind, I’m able to selectively extricate myself from American misdeeds, but cannot expect everyone else to do the same, especially while I benefit from the likes of the U.S. petrodollar, write this with an iPhone on Google Docs, and navigate the world being understood in my native tongue.
To that couple: while there is something to your anti-American anger, I just can’t feel all of it. Hopefully the day doesn’t come that writing on Substack will be a reason to deny Americans entry into the country, too.
An aside on boycotting
What gives way when the good and the bad about the U.S. collide, or become conflated?
This thought train has been rolling in my head for some time, but in the wake of a Fourth where I know many Americans boycotting, things crystallized a bit. To me, the growing prospect of anti-U.S. boycotting, both by Americans and by everyone else, gets real interesting.
Let’s tease out those grey areas, shall we? Sure, there are clear ways people have meeting particular boycotting appetites; say, for travel (just go anywhere else), or buying cars (new Tesla sales, anyone?). But what about American tech services (bye-bye Amazon Web Services, Google Drive, and Microsoft Office?), or social media? Have we got such a monopolistic grip that it’s impossible to really turn away? (and turn to… China?)
Sports, as a moral Litmus test, proves revelatory, disillusioning, and fascinating. The Club World Cup, which concluded this past weekend at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, was a test run for the 2026 World Cup to be held along with Canada and Mexico. FIFA got what they wanted — money and an American foothold — but the event definitely could have gone better. FIFA cannot control the weather; Donald Trump cannot make fans cheer.
Players’ resistance to the playing conditions (yeah, it’s fucking hot and humid in July) might be tinged with political undercurrents. FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who seems like a grade A sleezebag, just signed a lease at Trump Tower, keeping up with FIFA’s Swissness and flushing morality down a golden toilet. In the wake of public complaints about the heat, Infantino has insisted that all day matches will take place in domed stadiums; MetLife has no roof, and will host next year’s final at 3 PM. Yet, I highly doubt any country who qualifies for the World Cup would be willing to sacrifice their football team to make a political statement. Football is life.
But what about the 2028 Olympics in — of all places for anti-Trump resistance — Los Angeles? Will the money still be too good for countries’ delegations then? Was it ever that good for badminton, anyway?
By that point, will the rest of the world want to show up? I suspect the many American-led protests of the Olympic Games, including the last Cold War dual boycotts of the Moscow and LA Games, set some precedent. But can anyone imagine, for example, Chinese athletes boycotting the Games? Why would they, especially for badminton?
What if Trump turns it into a campaign stunt, ala Hitler in ‘36? Will American athletes protest? If so, how? With raised fists, or at home, with a lazy boy? Will American spectators complain? What if there’s concentration camp labor involved in the LA games?
The LA Olympics start July 14th, 2028. Something tells me that year’s July 4th will be real damn interesting.
A nod to collective brilliance
Jason Hickel, the brilliant author and proponent of degrowth, strikes again.
Hickel, along with a global cohort of researchers, has launched The Global Inequality Project to make research and data on global inequality accessible to a broader audience. Masterfully, they simply re-present data that’s already available from public sources, like the United Nations.
As it pertains to my current work, they also turn narratives of sustainable development upside down, which is something I so very much appreciate. Often, I find the presumed route of learning from Global North to Global South to be misplaced, inaccurate, and downright insulting. We use unconscionable amounts of resources and produce unending emissions to achieve, particularly in the American case, far less prospering-for-buck than much of humanity.
The Global Inequality Project has developed a Sustainable Development Index (SDI) to correct flaws from the Human Development Index (HDI); SDI incorporates consumption and emissions, meaning the likes of Costa Rica reign supreme, while Germany ends up ranking a paltry 140th. It removes the veil of ignorance central to my post-Secret Life of Groceries conversation with Charlotte (her Substack is live!) from last edition. There are countries acting like this historical moment is an infinite opportunity, others branding themselves as meeting the historical moment, and many being on the receiving end of colonial marketing.
Somewhere I’ve traveled to recently
Back in Connecting Climates 1, I spoke to biking by the Buddhist Center hundreds of times while having never gone inside. This time around, I made my way further down the same stretch of road in Kreuzberg, heading down towards Tempelhofer Feld, where the city gives way to gardens, cemeteries, playing fields and RV parking. My destination was a restored pond, the site of ‘Floating University’. To the very niche audience of Floral Park, think of Floating University like a legal, academic version of the sump, where instead of teenagers jumping the fence for clandestine beer sips, you have lectures and workshops with a tinge of sulfur in the air.
I joined one of the afternoon sessions as part of a festival, THE NIGHT OF IDEAS: We are the RIVER. It was only my second time there, but my sense of shame (especially for being a touch late to the workshop, a German cardinal sin) was quickly set aside with a warm welcome from Régis, my friend who led this afternoon’s workshop. We were traveling not just to Floating University, but to the future.
Régis transported our 20-person workshop group to the 2035 Spreeversammlung, an annual meeting of the organization responsible for maintaining the river Spree, who by 2035 had gained personhood, like other rivers and bodies of water have begun to attain legal standing across the world. We were collectively tasked with speculating a future investment project for the Spree, and split into different role groups to satisfy different decision-making considerations. My quartet was the research group; naturally, we settled on an idea to include microorganisms’ perspectives into decision-making, attempting to render them able to be conversed with. This would both foster inclusion and render their billions of years of knowledge translatable.
I left right before the winning idea was announced. Guess I’ll have to wait til 2035.
Pennies for your thoughts
This edition’s batshit crazy headline
“Andrew Cuomo set to run as an independent in NYC mayoral race — but there’s a catch”
Seriously, can we all just agree to boycott this dude?
Random notes
While attempting to contextualize the linguistic diversity of Italy prior to our upcoming trip there, I ended up on the Wikipedia page for the number of languages by language family. New Guinea, with over 800 languages spoken across 62 language families, makes Italy look like a monoculture. It’s an extraordinary factoid, all the more so when you realize that fewer people live there than in Berlin.
Is Jeffrey Epstein MAGA’s line in the sand? Something revelatory and fascinating is happening in Washington, with Trump loyalists and MAGA hardliners clashing over whether the Justice Department must protect the President. Even Mike Johnson is siding against Trump this time. After all, Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandals pushed the calls for him to resign over the edge. Perhaps pedophilia is what America, finally, won’t tolerate about the 47th President.
I’ve been volunteering with the New York-based Effective Transit Alliance, typically jumping in as a second pair of eyes for copyediting, writing, and messaging. It’s been a real pleasure contributing in some way back home. ETA dropped a piece a couple weeks ago on the ineffectiveness of Two-Person Train Operations, an arcane heave by transit unions to ensure each subway is required to have two staffers, even though the rest of the world uses one. I’m normally pro-worker; this is a ruse that simply makes train operations less efficient. Take a read.
Something delicious I’ve eaten
While that burger on the 4th was pretty tasty, that conversation left a bitter taste in my mouth. And it wasn’t even the best burger I had that weekend. That distinguished title goes to… Le Grand Bleu.
It’s about time I profiled the artisan Zoé Burger on Cuvrystrasse in Kreuzbreg. Zoé, the partner of my friend Andres, is a French burger chef who had her own truck in Paris before moving to Berlin. After a few years, she’s finally resurrected her burger joint in ghost kitchen form, with a small takeout window or for delivery orders. I prefer to pleasantly surprise them in-person :)
While awaiting the contractors, Zoé and Andres tested for over a year to get every detail right: the bread (custom baked focaccia buns from a local bakery); the meat (locally-sourced from Brandenburg, ground to-order); the cheese (trust her, she’s French); the homemade sauces. It’s a ton of work, and has very much paid off in all of our taste buds.
A flock (?) of burgers mid-conversation (credit: @PipeGavilan)
Andres celebrated his birthday at their joint, allowing me to finish my tour through the meat portion of their burger menu (veggie soon to come) with Le Grand Bleu: blue cheese, caramelized onions, and homemade mayo. Goodness was that good. Not getting overflowing caramelized onions from Burgermeister, I’ll tell you that.
If you’re reading this from Berlin, go try them out!
An ode to the penny
My friend Flore and I were celebrating the final meeting of our School for Moral Ambition Circle at a bar last week when some change fell out of her wallet. A dimly lit bar is not the ideal venue for putting one’s hands under a table in search of currency; alas, we emerged unscathed, with a pleasant (albeit functionally useless) surprise: a West German pfennig!
Obviously, they’re no longer in production, but it appears there’s still a few of these critters faking their way through circulation, like the British pound coin masquerading for a Euro at the produce market from CC2z Flore, if you’re reading this and held onto that seemingly worthless penny, think again: there’s an absolutely wild range of prices for them on eBay.
And here, on the 7th occasion of this newsletter, we reach a tremendous milestone of actually featuring a specific penny in an ode to the bygone currency.