THE VENUS SYNDROME

I met James Hanson several decades ago, and remember him all the back to 1988 when he first testified in Congress.  This was six years after I had left the U. S. Senate, a time period when global warming was an issue of importance only to a very few scientists.  I am on his mailing list, and this morning received his views on The Venus Syndrome and Runaway Climate.

Paper starts with:

Mars, Venus and Earth are the Goldilocks planets – too cold, too hot, and just right. These planets reveal how a planet’s surface temperature depends on atmospheric gases as well as the planet’s distance from the Sun. The physics is energy balance: a planet sends back to space, as (infrared) heat radiation, the energy in sunlight that it absorbs. Absorbed solar energy depends simply on the Sun’s irradiance,ⁱ the planet’s distance from the Sun, and the fraction of incident sunlight that the planet absorbs (the remainder being reflected). The surface temperature is then given by the Stefan-Boltzmann law¹ (physical principle), if the planet has no atmosphere.

If the planet has an atmosphere that partly blocks heat emission, the surface must be warmer than given by the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for emission to space to match absorbed solar energy.² This “greenhouse” warming depends on how opaque the atmosphere is in the infrared. Mars’ atmosphere has small infrared opacity, so its surface is only a few degrees warmer than it would be with no atmosphere. Venus has a thick atmosphere of (96% CO₂) with sulfuric acid clouds and water vapor that absorb at wavelengths where CO₂ absorption is weak; resulting greenhouse warming on Venus is about 500°C. Earth has intermediate greenhouse warming, about 33°C, enough to change Earth from an ice ball at –19°C (–2°F) to a hospitable +14°C (57°F).

How did these planets get to this situation? Can Earth end up like Venus, a lifeless hothouse? Yes, it can, but the runaway greenhouse story described in Storms of My Grandchildren needs correction. To explain the change, we should first discuss what happened on Venus.

Hanson explains that Venus became that way because at some point in its history, it lost its oceans.  Earth has a lot of ocean and is not anywhere close to losing it.  So we have no Venus Syndrome potential, right?  Wrong!!!

Read my posting of 24February2014:  THE INTERMINABLE ADVANCEMENT OF THE VENUS SYNDROME.

• I started with a series of my articles published in the Huffington Post:

• 
  The Venus Syndrome (Part One)
• The Venus Syndrome (Part Two)
• The Venus Syndrome Revisited
• The Venus Syndrome Revisited Again

• 
  Read those summaries to find out why Planet Earth could enter into a Venus Syndrome.  Interesting that the reason of our demise is our ocean and how marine methane hydrates can become the source from which we relatively suddenly go from okay to The Venus Syndrome.

• 
  Part One of the above four articles reported on one of my efforts to find an Albert Einstein, who in 1939 with Leo Szilard wrote a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt about Hitler and his possible Atomic Bomb.  In our case, the concern was about global warming, and we thought that James Hanson did not have enough clout to convince President George W. Bush and VP Dick Cheney to do something about this coming doom.  So I instead wrote a book as a scare tactic.

Well, pure logic was not working, so I tried something even more offbeat--FEAR! I wrote a book (SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth), with Chapter 5 on The Venus Syndrome. What are some strategies?

• If all the ice melts, the oceans will rise by 250 feet.  Unfortunately, this would take a thousand years and longer, and society will instead build walls around coastal cities instead of cutting out fossil fuels.  Something known as the Iron Lung Syndrome, that is, treat the symptom, but avoid the root of the problem.

• 
  Most only think that carbon dioxide is a problem.  I've long worried about methane, for each molecule this gas is 20-60 times more serious that a molecule of carbon dioxide.  I checked Google AI Overview today, and it says 28-126 times worse.
• But there isn't enough methane in fossil fuel combustion to make any real difference.  However:

• 
  There is more mass in just in ocean bacteria, viruses and archaea than all forms of life on land.  This microscopic marine mass die, drop to bottom, and with other forms of chemical conversion, they all become methane trapped in ice as marine methane hydrates.
• How much mass is this?  TWICE AS MUCH ENERGY IN METHANE IN METASTABLE EQUILIBRIUM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN THAN ALL THE KNOWN COAL, OIL AND NATURAL GAS DEPOSITS, WHICH ARE RATHER SAFELY RESTING DEEP UNDERGROUND.
• Over our geologic history, every few tens of million years, our planet naturally heats up. This is accompanied by heightened carbon dioxide and methane levels, or more probably, these gases caused the temperature rise...just like today. Some scientists have speculated that the primary cause might well have been a rather sudden release of marine methane hydrates into the atmosphere.

Part II of The Venus Syndrome then says the following:

• Much of these marine methane hydrates are located around the Pacific Rim of Fire.

• 
  To make a longer story short (read this Part 2 to get the details), what if:
• Global warming begins to destabilize these methane hydrates and stops the thermohaline ocean circulation.
• Then, many of those volcanoes around this Rim of Fire erupt.

• 
  There will be a sudden influx of methane from the ocean into the atmosphere.  Quoting one paragraph:

It had to take the Global Warming equivalent of a Perfect Storm to catalyze an expedited Venus Syndrome: portions of the ocean surface at critical positive feedback temperature; cessation of the cooling currents thus warming the marine methane hydrate (MMH) deposits; a major subsea earthquake combined with a cataclysmic undersea volcanic eruption; resultant tsunami which slightly lowered the sea level over the MMH deposits near the coastlines; and, most importantly, crossing over of the dynamic equilibrium pressure-temperature condition allowing marine methane to explode to the surface. Yes, and that troublesome water vapor influx.

• 
  This is hypothetical, but:

Scientists at the International Marine Methane Hydrates Research Institute at the University of Hawaii calculated that one teraton, a million times a million, of methane will be released into the atmosphere over the next year or two. The early Eocene, 55 million years ago, experienced a similar event, resulting in a temperature rise of about 16 degrees Fahrenheit across the now populated regions of the world.

The chairman of the IPCC reported that we had reached and tripped over the tipping point. THE VENUS SYNDROME had begun, and, now, could probably not be stopped. Humanity at large, and most of life, would cease to exist within a century, providing a short period to develop solutions for survival, the only rational one being to leave Planet Earth, although emergency efforts are being planned to release air pollution particulates and sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere. Fortunately enough, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (see Simple Solutions for Humanity in box on the right) project, headed by a non government organization, had recently detected signals from an apparently advanced civilization in the Orion constellation. The data is being interpreted and....

• I end with:

A long time ago, according to Greek mythology, there was a very beautiful princess of Troy by the name of Cassandra. Her younger brother Paris was the character who kidnapped Helen, the wife of the King of Sparta, and brought her to Troy. Apollo, son of Zeus, fell in love with Cassandra and gave her the power to know the future if only she were to marry him. She was given that power, but refused to marry him, so Apollo put a curse on her predictive capabilities, and doomed her to despair, for while her powers remained, no one would believe her.

From the New York Times this morning:

There isn’t a universally agreed-upon song of the summer. So, to take the pulse of the season, the “Popcast” hosts Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli asked 10 cultural figures for their picks.

Jeff Goldblum chose “Lover Girl” by Laufey, which he said reminded him of “those ’60s bossa nova things that I was enchanted with.” Questlove picked “Hot Fun in the Summertime” by Sly and the Family Stone. And Zohran Mamdani made the case for “Funds” by the Nigerian artists Davido, Odumodublvck and Chike. Check out the other picks here.

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SHOULD YOU COMPLETELY STOP DRINKING ALCOHOL?

From Stanford Medicine:

• For a long time, drinking in moderation was considered socially acceptable, and maybe even healthy.  You supposedly protected your heart with red wine, and even reduced diabetes.
• But what's the current truth about moderate drinking?
• The idea that moderate, occasional drinking is good for your health is outdated.
• Decades ago, large surveys of adults began showing an association between how much alcohol someone drank and their risk of death. People who said they drank heavily had an increased risk, but those who drank nothing at all also had an increased risk compared with those who drank one or two servings of alcohol per day.
• These findings were well promoted by the alcohol industry.
• Turns out that even at low levels, alcohol can have significant negative effects on your body.

Recent research.

• A 2025 report from the American Association for Cancer concluded that more than 5% of all cancers in the U.S. are attributable to alcohol use.
• A 2025 Surgeon General's Advisory reported that a study of 100 women showed:
• Of those who had less than one drink/week, 17% will develop cancer.
• Two drinks/week = 19%.
• Three drinks/week = 22%.
• 
  What happens is that ethanol, metabolizes into acetaldehyde, which damages DNA and other cellular components.
• Especially affected are your mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, liver and brain.  
• There are also signs affecting mental health and psychiatric conditions.
• Even low-level drinking can worsen anxiety and depression.
• There are signs that alcohol interferes with your immune system and accelerates aging.

What is moderate drinking?

• One alcoholic drink/day for women and up to two from men.
• 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of spirits.

Who is most affected?  

• Turns out that East Asians are especially in danger.  And that's me.  
• A mutated ALDH2 gene is the problem.  The expert is Che-Hong Chen of Stanford University, from Taiwan.
• 8% of the world's population have it.
• However, in Taiwan it is 50%, Japan 40%, China 35% and Korea 30%.
• One sign is turning red after drinking:  "Soak the pad of a bandage in strong liquor and put it on your hand for 10 minutes," Chen said. If a red patch appears, you're a carrier; if not, you're most likely in the clear. Chen also notes that, compared to a real genetic test, the DIY version is only about 80% accurate.
• Read this article.
• 
  ALDH2, codes for a protein known as aldehyde dehydrogenase, the main metabolizer of alcohol.  
• Simply put, drink alcohol, and when you sleep, the produced acetaldehyde eats away at DNA and other molecules in the body.
• On the other hand, ALDH2 also turns acetaldehyde into a type of vinegar, which is excreted through urine.

What is the medical field now saying?  As of August 2025, the current U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans:

• Men should consume no more than two drinks per day, one for women.   In other words, this has not been  changed.  Perhaps the latest guideline was completed after the recent research results.  Don't know.
• This new guideline emphasizes that people who don't currently drink, shouldn't start. This is new.
• A Gallup poll released this month indicates that the percentage of adults in the U.S. who report drinking is at a record low.
• Since 1940, the % of drinking adults have wavered from as high as 72% (in the late 70s), but is today at 54%.
• Republicans in particular lowered drinking from 2023 to 2025 by 19 percent.  Democrats? -3%.
• Congress will probably soon add warning labels on alcohol products, similar to those for nicotine.

Internationally:

• The World Health Organization is saying that no amount of alcohol is truly safe.
• Canada is more cautious, advising no more than two drinks per WEEK for all adults.

Read this Time magazine article on Why, Exactly, Is Alcohol So Bad for You.  Says Che-Hong Chen:

We need to treat alcohol more like tobacco. This is causing cancer, even more so for East Asian people who are more vulnerable."

Will report on tobacco someday, but as of 2022, there are still 1.25 tobacco users worldwide (about 22%), a drop from about 33% in 2000.  Read this.  So many are dying, but people are still smoking.

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WORLD PEACE

During the past few weeks I have focused on the theme of War and Peace on this nostalgic Tuesday.  However, I previously only analyzed the War portion.  This all began on August 5 with my first Huffington Post article:  Well, Barack, We have a Problem..., which was published on 29May2008.  That initial HuffPo was an article on peace.

On 23March2009 my HuffPo was entitled The 10% Solution.  This essay provided details to that first attempt:  an ultimate plan to attain World Peace.

• The timing was right, for the world had suffered through the Great Recession from December 2007, and would continue through the date of this article into June 2009.

• 
  The U.S. stock market had dropped 35%, but Chinese and Russian stocks fell 70%.
• There was no serious enemy during this period, for Iran was losing money producing oil, there were ragtag bunches of terrorists in the Middle East and North Korea was not a serious concern.
• Nuclear war was just not a worry during those years.
• The big problem was that the International Energy Agency in 2008 had reported that it would cost $45 trillion to neutralize global warming.

• 
  Keep in mind that World War II (using inflations upgraded numbers) had cost over $4 trillion.  So war money, also known as defense funds, was the only place where, over time, dollars could be found to save the world from carbon dioxide.
• So I ended my second HuffPo article on peace with:

Well, let me be brutally naive. If each country can reduce defense spending by 10% each year, with the resultant savings being applied to renewable energy and climate change, that would be a nice start. It will take time for each country to arrive at a legislated resolution, so the protocol for agreement can be signed in the 2010 Canadian Summit. By 2012, when President Barack Obama hosts the G8 gathering, the world economy should be well on the way to recovery, with oil prices tolerable, atmosphere perhaps already showing signs of healing and a globe at peace. Hey, what's wrong with a little loud dreaming? Maybe someone will take some of this seriously.

A year later on 6July2010 came my third HuffPo peace article:  The 10% Simple Solution to Peace.

• I had just written on 1July2010 a HuffPo:  A Simple Solution for Peak Oil and Global Warming.

• 
  Keep in mind that the price of oil was fickle, for two years earlier it was up to $147/barrel, and oil in 2010 was in the $70-$80/barrel range, just about where it is today, 15 years later.
• A year early, on 30July2009, I had penned in HuffPo my Carbon Dioxide Credit Program, a 5 cents/pound credit program on petroleum, which would translate to an additional $1/gallon at the pump.
• 
  To quote from this third peace article:

When I worked for U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, considerable effort was extended towards legislation for the U.S. Peace Academy. Sparky, who earned a Purple Heart in the European Theater, actually still had a piece of shrapnel in his leg. He felt that if the Nation had all those war universities, why not a U.S. Peace Academy to train emissaries for goodwill. The best he could get was the U.S. Institute of Peace.

• 
  This U.S. Institute of Peace was established in 1984 when Republican President Ronald Reagan signed the bill into law.  Has employed 300 personnel and trained more than 65,000 professionals since its inception.
• However, in Februrary 2025, President Donald Trump essentially dismantled the U.S. Peace Institute.
• 
  Another quote:

However, the world and American people have more recently taken a thrifty turn. As half our Federal budget goes to the military, and we have no obvious enemy (there are only a few thousand terrorists worth worrying over) into the long term future, why not cut our defense outlays? This might be the ideal moment in time to lay the foundation for a more peaceful world of tomorrow.

• 
  A third quote:

I have said this before, in my original HuffPosting, "Well, Barack, We Have a Problem...," and "The Ten Percent Solution." To summarize, President Obama goes to the next G8 summit, and pronounces a Gorbachev-like bombshell: America will reduce defense spending by 10% this coming year, and will continue to slice 10% every year if you all do the same. In just a very few years, military spending will be minimal and the world will be at a higher level of peace forever.

This is the 10% simple solution to peace. Before you make any inane comments, click on those articles to appreciate that Russia is getting feeble and China will also become old before it gets rich. The U.S. will be supreme for a long time to come, and those war funds can better be applied to cure Planet Earth and enhance the fate of Humanity.

As the U.S. seemed disinterested in my peace proposal, I actually wrote two other HuffPos, wondering if China might be interested in becoming the Champion for Peace:

• A Message to President Hu Jintao:  Three Steps for China to Attain Superpower Status.
• I wrote this HuffPo just about the time I flew into Shanghai.
• I was relieved when I was on my flight out of China for Zurich, for it occurred to me while I was there, my article could have been taken in the wrong way, and could have been detained.

• 
  My Second Message to China.
• I was safely traveling in Africa in 2010 whenI wrote again to China, for Xi Jinping was now to become the next president of the country.
• I suggested that he perform two noble acts.

1.  A truly safe, but shocking, pronouncement, soon after you attain presidential status in 2013, is to commit your country to the edicts of the next Kyoto Protocol to check global heating, which by then should have been settled in Cancun. Of course, I can already predict that this second agreement will have all the loopholes necessary to provide another decade of wishy-washy do nothing, but the USA will still be debating the demerits of ratifying anything related to the Cancun Protocol, so your position will, on a relative scale, be statesmanlike.

2.  Now, for the big one, surely to gain a Nobel Prize of your own. You have a couple of years to analyze the sanity and brilliance of the 10% solution. By 2013 the G8 nations should be augmenting this powerful world body to at least ten, and maybe a dozen. China will be invited to join. After your opening remarks at your inaugural presence, you can consider stating:

"Nearly two scores ago, the Group of Seven was originally created to lead the way towards world peace. Humanity today is faced with peak oil, global warming, a metastable economy and a range of wars that, if not immediately and effectively addressed by our Group, will result in a mega depression, compounded by environmental despair and armed warfare that will get out of control. I hereby today would like to announce that China will reduce our defense budget by 10% next year, and continue to do so annually into the foreseeable future. The funds saved will be placed in an international fund to be managed by this Group of 12, but only if every country joins China in advancing the cause of Peace and Prosperity."

Well, Barack Obama, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping ignored my pleas.

By 2011, though, some in the media noted my peace efforts, and I was invited by the U.S. News and World Report Debate club to participate in an international poll on peace, where the question was, Are Cuts to the Defense Budget Necessary?   In a poll of their readers, my contribution placed second to then presidential candidate Ron Paul.  My posting of this debate closed with John Lennon's Imagine.

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DEXTER, RAINMAKER AND SUITS

Dexter Resurrection and The Rainmaker are two series I'm currently watching not from Netflix or Prime.

• Dexter Resurrection (Rotten Tomatoes, 94/86) is the latest continuation of Dexter (RT 71/81) starring Michael C. Hall, which began on Showtime in 2006, and endured for seven seasons.  
• In that original series, Hall played Dexter Morgan, a forensic technician for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department.
• However, he led a secret parallel life as a vigilante serial killer of murderers

• 
  Extremely bloody and gory, but nothing compared to Squid Game (RT 86/66) from South Korea.  In a ranking by IMDb ten years ago, Dexter was #14 in a list of 18 most gory and bloody shows.  Earlier this year Collider had a top ten most violent shows of all time, and neither series was included.  Three were animated productions and most violent was Warrior (2019-present).  Rotten Tomatoes gave it 79/95 ratings.  There were three seasons.    Next most violent was Game of Thrones.  RT scored the 8 seasons 89/85.  Haven't seen either of these two series for they aired on Max.  Good scores, indicating why there are so many of these.
• 
  After Dexter, Showtime had a sequel, Dexter: New Blood (RT 77/74), 10 episodes, from 7November2021 to 9January2022.
• There was a prequel, Dexter: Original Sin (RT 70/78), starring Patrick Gibson as Dexter, going back 15 years to 1991 when he was in his youth, also on Showtime.  Ten episodes.

• 
  The Rainmaker (one full episode) is a new USA Network series based on John Grisham's 1995 novel of the same name.  Stars Milo Callaghan and John Slattery.  Grisham is an executive producer.  
• Rotten Tomatoes gave it 45/80 scores. but there are only 4 episodes, and the first two were interesting enough that I'll watch the final two.  Says Rotten Tomatoes:  Young attorney Rudy Baylor, alongside Bruiser Stone and Deck Shifflet, battles a powerful law firm led by Leo F. Drummond and his girlfriend, Sarah Plankmore, unearthing a dark conspiracy that shows how far his opponents are willing to go to win.
• 
  Rainmaker kind of reminds me of Suits, another law series.  I reported on this series earlier this year.
• I said:

• First season appeared in 2011 with 12 episodes.
• Then seasons 2 to 8, with each having 16 episodes.
• Season 9, only 10 episodes, released in 2019.

• There are two ways to watch this series.

• 
  On the USA Network, which can get confusing if you haven't already begun.
• Or Netflix, because the entire suite of series is conveniently catalogued.  

• I should add that there is a new Suits LA which began in 2023, but is not as well-rated.
• 
  So, anyway, back to the original, Rotten Tomatoes have the series 91/87 ratings, with seasons 4-7 getting 100% from reviewers.  I am yet only in season 1.
• That photo to the right are of two of the stars, Mike Ross and Megan Markle (now the Duchess of Sussex, married Prince Harry in 2018).

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