Newsletter - Issue 31: The Monster Always Devours Its Own
Weekly thoughts, readings, musings and links from Athena Drakou, best known as The Climate Historian.
The Faustian Bargain of "Othering”
Picture a group of people cheering as arsonists torch their neighbour’s house, smugly believing that the flames will never reach their own. This is the delusion of those who enable oppression for perceived safety or superiority. The reality is that fire spreads. And history shows that those who make deals with power always end up on its path.
Darren Beattie, a conservative journalist has built a career on promoting controversial ideas about race and U.S. foreign policy priorities. His tenure as a White House speechwriter, in the first Trump administration ended abruptly when it emerged that he had spoken at a conference attended by white nationalists. Following his dismissal, he launched Revolver News, a right-wing media outlet known for amplifying false claims about the 2020 election and the January 6 Capitol attack.
Now, Beattie holds a powerful position in the second Trump administration. As acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, he is responsible for overseeing America's public diplomacy outreach and messaging to counter terrorism and violent extremism.
Apart from the incident that caused him to lose his White House speech-writing job, Beattie has made numerous inflammatory comments on X. Just four months ago, on October 4, 2024, he wrote:
“Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”
Privilege Is a Paper Shield
White women who support fascists believing that “They’ll go after ‘the others,’ and things would be better for me,” they now discover one crucial fact: oppression expands. Collaborate with anti-abortion crusaders, and you’ll soon find yourself in a Handmaid’s Tale reboot where your miscarriage becomes a crime scene.
To the white man thinking, “I’ll be fine – I check all the boxes”: fascism devours its “model citizens” too. You might share a skin tone with the powerful, but when the economy collapses or protests erupt, you’ll discover how thin that shield of protection is. Moderate Republicans learned this the hard way.
The Monster Always Devours Its Own
Fascism thrives on selective amnesia. Power structures built on exclusion operate on a logic of ever-narrowing circles of loyalty and purity. The problem is that the definition of loyalty constantly shifts. The result? Even early supporters eventually become enemies of the state when perceived as insufficiently committed, ideologically impure, or simply inconvenient. Just remember Stalin’s Purges in the 1930s-40s, Mussolini’s Italy in the 1920s-40s, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China from 1966-76. If you think these systems are distant and irrelevant, think again.
Fascism is the world’s worst game of Whac-A-Mole. You smash one marginalised group, and another pops up – until you realise the mallet’s swinging toward you. It’s like handing a bully your lunch to avoid being punched, only to realise he’s still hungry – and your dessert is next.
As Bertolt Brecht once warned, “The womb that spawned the monster is always the first to be devoured.” This is history’s irony—its own form of poetic justice.
This Week on The Climate Historian
January 2025 was the warmest on record globally, despite an emerging La Niña
In January 2025, global surface air temperatures reached unprecedented levels, marking the warmest January on record. The planet’s average temperature hit 13.23°C, which is 0.79°C higher than the 1991-2020 average for January and 1.75°C above pre-industrial levels.
And if that sounds concerning, consider this: this is the 18th time in the past 19 months that global temperatures have exceeded the crucial 1.5°C threshold above pre-industrial levels. Climate change isn’t a distant threat—it’s happening right now.
Read the article here
The Race Against Time: Why the Climate Crisis is Worse Than We Thought
In 1988, James Hansen, a NASA climate scientist, made history by warning the world that human activities were causing the planet to warm. . Now, nearly four decades later, Hansen is sounding the alarm again. But this time, his message is even more urgent.
The authors of the study argue that the pace of global heating has been significantly underestimated, and the international goal of keeping warming below 2°C is now impossible. The climate crisis is unfolding faster than scientists predicted, and if we don’t act urgently, we may soon cross a threshold from which there is no return.
Read the article here
An “Iron Dome for America”: A History Repeating Itself
How America’s Search for Total Security Keeps Making the World More Dangerous
On January 27, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "The Iron Dome for America," launching an ambitious initiative to develop a next-generation missile defence shield for the United States. Modelled after Israel's Iron Dome, this system aims to protect the U.S. against ballistic, hypersonic, and advanced cruise missiles. But this is not just an expanded version of the Israeli system—it’s far more ambitious. The plan includes space-based interceptors and non-kinetic defence technologies, pushing missile defence into a new frontier.
If this sounds familiar, it is because it is.
It echoes a past that began with Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—or as it was more famously (and mockingly) called, “Star Wars.” The nickname, coined by Senator Ted Kennedy was inspired by the science fiction movie “Star Wars” that had only been released a few months earlier.
Read the article here
Climate News
Britain is lagging behind - it's time to stop holding nuclear energy back
In the Daily Express, UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband warns that Britain is falling behind in the global energy race but has a powerful, overlooked solution: nuclear power. He highlights the country’s strong nuclear history, which has powered homes, created jobs, and supported economic growth.
Miliband argues that the government's new plan will boost energy independence, drive investment, and create jobs by expanding nuclear power, including small modular reactors. Citing rising energy costs due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he stresses the urgency of action. “We will move fast and build things,” he concludes. (Daily Express)
Democrats accuse DOGE of going after NOAA
On Wednesday, Democratic lawmakers accused Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) of improperly interfering with NOAA, the agency responsible for weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and ocean mapping.
NOAA is a target in Project 2025, a conservative policy plan by The Heritage Foundation, which proposes privatizing parts of the agency and redistributing its functions. (The Hill)
Jeff Bezos’s $10bn Earth Fund cuts ties with climate group
Jeff Bezos’s $10bn Earth Fund has cut ties with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a key global climate standards body, amid growing scrutiny of its influence.
According to three sources, the move—affecting companies like Apple and H&M— is seen as Bezos’s latest attempt to gain favor with former President Donald Trump. (Financial Times)
Book of the Week: The Odd Woman and the City
Vivian Gornick walks the streets of New York City, collecting fleeting encounters, misunderstandings, eavesdroppings, and brief moments of unexpected intimacy. Her observations are sharp and unsentimental, but also deeply intimate and never cruel.
There’s a line in the book that lingers: “We lived out our conflicts rather than our fantasies.” It’s a striking observation of modern life -where, instead of realising their dreams and aspirations, people are caught up in the ongoing challenges and disputes of their daily lives.
What Else I’m Reading
Life Is More Than an Engineering Problem
“ONCE IN A WHILE,” Ted Chiang tells me, “an idea keeps coming back over a period of months or even years. […] I start asking, is there an interesting philosophical question that might be illuminated by this idea?” To read Chiang is to experience a master world-builder critically exploring philosophical questions in new ways—from how we should care for an artificial being to what would be the consequence of having a perfect record of the past.”
A transcript of an interesting interview with sci-fi writer Ted Chiang in the LA Review of Books.
What is the cause of the many earthquakes near the volcanic island of Santorini?
Since 24 January, a series of earthquakes have been recorded around Santorini, Greece. The GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences Potsdam have provided a Q&A to classify these events. (Phys.org)
How to sabotage a fascist regime
An old CIA manual, freely available online, recently went viral—for obvious reasons. It offers guidance on subtle methods of disruption: clogging bureaucracy, slowing down procedures, and quietly sabotaging the regime’s operations through widespread, collective action. Until it falls. (404 Media)
Image of the Week: “When the Aurora Meets the Milky Way”
“When the Aurora Meets the Milky Way”
“On that night, I had originally planned to photograph the Perseid meteor shower, but the aurora forecast also looked promising, though it wasn’t my main focus at the time. I took a few photos of the stars, and then I noticed a pink glow in the corner of the sky. It was the aurora! I pointed my camera toward the southwest and took my best shot. The weather conditions were perfect, with fog adding to the atmosphere. Around midnight, the aurora display became truly stunning.”_ Jānis Paļulis (Bauska, Latvia) From the 2024 Northern Lights photographer of the year
Quote of the Week
"If you voted Republican, and you care about your country, please act rather than rationalize. Unless you cast your ballot so that South African oligarchs could steal your data, your money, your country, and your future, make it known to your elected officials that you wanted something else. And get ready to protest with people with whom you otherwise disagree."_ Timothy Snyder
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