Richard, I appreciate the work you put into keeping your readers informed about our current climate reality. You are providing fair warning to the reader who wants to assimilate climate facts from an unbiased source. You are risking your own mental calm to delve into the science and make connections to logical trends for inevitable outcomes. I hope you can find peace.

Climate science is the most reliable indicator of our near-term future as regards livability for our planet. Other factors that push societal collapse are not as well understood or discoverable as climate science. Knowing how we will collapse, and predicting the timeline of collapse, become the murkiest aspects of our unfolding future as an advanced and complex culture. We have never been here before.

I picture myself in the role of an observer to our climate predicament; and I try to think of data points and/or occurrences that will manifest over the unfolding months of 2024 (and beyond) that might reinforce the severity of our downfall as a civilization, or that might point to a pause in the downward journey. Global average temperatures will be important and measurable indicators. Migration statistics will tell a story about societal impacts. I think the current political rush to embrace authoritarian governance is also telling of the angry stress in our social fabric.

Looking specifically at the United States, I'm anticipating a rapid devolution away from federal governance in favor of independent decision making by individual states and perhaps large urban areas as well. The federal government will be overwhelmed by climate disasters and border security issues. When Texas and other "Red" states insist they want to dictate border security and oppress its citizens with "Christiam fascism" then those ideas will more than likely win out as the practice of nationwide rights and understandings about right and wrong become atomized in the boiling heat of our climate emergency. Until of course everything about modern society gets overwhelmed by global boiling.