Bright sunshine for a change this Friday morning on California’s north coast, and supposedly we’re in for some ‘good-as-it-gets’ weather for the next few days, minus, of course, the shoreline fog-bank, and those gusty and chilled ocean breezes.

Yesterday, orange-tinged “shit stain” blubbered-out great anxiety for humankind (the Guardian): ‘Donald Trump pledged to cancel the Paris climate agreement, endorsed drilling off the Atlantic coast and said he would allow the Keystone XL pipeline to be built in return for “a big piece of the profits” for the American people.’

World leaders, along with the rest of the whole-wide world, should be way-more than “rattled” about The Donald becoming president of the whole U.S. of A.
If you think we’re fucked now…

(Illustration: ‘Texas Oil Rig,’ by Amanda Vick Roach, found here).

The near-surrealistic, vomit-inducing asshole presented a so-labeled ‘energy agenda’ speech during an oil and natural gas conference in North Dakota, spouting gibberish to people who worship gibberish, so long it’s their gibberish.

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club environmentalist group, was taken aback by Trump’s address.
“I have never heard more contradiction in one hour than I heard in the speech,” he told the Guardian.
“There are pools of oil industry waste water that are deeper than Trump’s grasp of energy.”

Preaching to the converted, and unrepentant:

The crowd in Bismarck did not seem confused, though.
Cheering wildly, they gave Trump a spontaneous standing ovation.
“I will give you everything,” he promised them, adding: “I am the only one who will deliver.”
They seemed to believe it.

Trump promised to undo essentially every means of battling climate change (via Think Progress): ‘Though he didn’t explain how he would do this, Trump also said he’d restore the American coal industry to its former glory. “We’re going to save the coal industry,” he said. Coal currently makes up about 71 percent of all energy-related carbon emissions in the United States, though the industry is rapidly declining due to increased demand for cleaner, cheaper natural gas.’

Worse even still maybe, and a good example why we’re really, really fucked — also from the Guardian yesterday afternoon:

Five hardline conservative senators, including former presidential candidate Ted Cruz, have demanded the US justice department stop all investigations into whether oil and gas companies lied to the public and shareholders about climate change.
“We write today to demand that the Department of Justice (DoJ) immediately cease its ongoing use of law enforcement resources to stifle private debate on one of the most controversial public issues of our time,” the senators wrote in a letter dated 25 May.
The letter intends to forestall a federal investigation like those begun by states around the US.
In New York last year, the state attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, began an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil lied to its investors about the dangers of climate change, and subpoenaed the oil giant for records.
…
Also on Wednesday, Exxon’s CEO, Rex Tillerson, defied shareholders and activists who have called on the company to acknowledge climate change and change its behaviors.
“Until we have [breakthroughs in green technology], just saying ‘turn the taps off’ is not acceptable to humanity,” he said.
“The world is going to have to continue using fossil fuels, whether they like it or not.”
…
Exxon funded efforts that cast doubt on climate science for years, research shows, and tried to censor a series of lectures to Congress in 2001, according to former officials of the US Global Change Research Program.
But the company’s own scientists warned of climate change and records from the 1960s suggest the environment was on the oil company’s agenda: it was interested in patents to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in cars.
The company was not mentioned by name in the senators’ letter.
…
The investigations amount to an assault on free speech, the senators argued.
“Initiating criminal prosecution for a private entity’s opinions on climate change is a blatant violation of the first amendment,” they wrote, “and an abuse of power that rises to the level of prosecutorial misconduct.”
…
The senators voiced their opposition to the overwhelming evidence of climate change only two weeks after April was confirmed as the hottest on record, and only a month after researchers found alarming signs in cloud analysis and ice levels that suggest the effects of warming are happening faster than predicted.
Forty-one percent of Americans, a record high, now believe that global warming will be a “serious threat” in their lifetime, polling shows.

In the sunshine of our days…