All Bets Are Off
March 27, 2025
by William P. Meyers

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Climate, Economic, and Political Chaos are walking down a road . . .

This week marked the lowest ever ice-coverage maximum in the arctic, at least since scientists started measuring it. You can play with the Interactive Sea Ice Graph if you want. That is a reasonable proof that the earth is warming. Sea ice extent is volatile over time, which means that records are not set every year, and even a couple of weeks can make a significant difference on the graph. What the news media watch most is the summer ice minimum. The record for that was back in 2012. Just because we just had a record low for March does not mean we will see a record low for that this September. When trends are erratic the past is easier to record than the future is to predict.

The same is true in economics. No one predicted the Great Depression that started late in 1929. Sure, many people knew the stock market was much higher than the real economy could support (most famously, Joseph Kennedy, father of future President John F. Kennedy). But usually what happens is a stock market correction (prices go to realistic levels), not the complete meltdown of a national economy. In theory free markets are self-balancing. Until they are not. Economies are complicated. They have many feedback loops, and the most dangerous of all is the human mind. Change one thing, and that may be it, or it can change many things. The Federal Reserve tries to correct for events that steer the economy off course, but at least a couple times in its history it has made matters worse. The main bet right now is that the Trump tariffs will reignite inflation. But his economic policies, including shutting down critical parts of the government, could also throw the U.S. or the world into another depression. Or they might have very little effect.

Back a few decades ago scientists and popular science followers liked to talk about the butterfly effect. The idea was that in a fractal or chaotic (super complex) system, the flight of a single butterfly could set off a series of events in the atmosphere that could cause a significant storm somewhere else. The idea had some merit but was mostly misleading. Even during this insect apocalypse, there are billions of butterflies and only a few major tropical storms each year. A better analogy is the effect of recreational drugs on the human body. A few beers may have the secondary effect of causing a traffic accident, or even multiple deaths. Or consider the classic of raising the prices of the goods you sell, in order to make more profit, only to have people refuse to buy them, ruining your business.

Let me throw in a third aspect: politics or governance. Trump and a bunch of the usual suspects. How they act and react can affect politics, the economy, and the earth itself.

If a butterfly in theory can cause a hurricane, or at least a tornado, a large expanse of ocean that was typically frozen 20 years ago might be worth considering as an agent of chaos. Ice reflects sunlight, open water absorbs it. Reflected sunlight does not heat the earth. Absorbed sunlight does. So we have a feedback system: less ice leads to more heat, which leads to even less ice. That could effect weather in ways we have never seen before.

That melting ice feedback system is in a context. Global warming is mainly caused by burning fossil fuels. So ice was going to melt, at some rate, anyway. And Trump and crew (oil and gas and coal companies) want to burn baby burn.

Which brings us to Canada. Most Americans think Trump is a little bit crazy talking about annexing Canada. But actually, that makes sense. Drill baby drill, closing down environmental protections, that means the southern tier or the United States is going to become uninhabitable. Canada, being further north and cooler, is beginning to look good. This is a long-term project, it could be a decade or two before people realize how stupid it is to live south of the Mason-Dixon line. Mar-a-Lago will be under water soon enough. Trump's descendants will need a Mar-a-Lago North.

But that is just what is predictable. All bets are off. Mar a Lago could be flattened some time this summer or fall. Probably not, but certainly not impossible. New political cults, or religious cults, often emerge as a civilization sinks towards a Dark Age. Economic conditions can change almost overnight. Towns and even cities can burn. Worst of all, droughts and heat domes can suddenly make crops fail. If they fail on a big enough scale, there can be famine (which we have already seen in several African nations). And since Americans take vast quantities of cheap food for granted, no one knows how people will behave when they are genuinely hungry. They might become passive, or they might revolt. History affords examples of both outcomes.

On the other hand, the Trump tariffs may surprise us all and reinvigorate the American economy. People may just live out their lives in air-conditioned contentment. Storms may come and go with no overall impact on our economy. Bitcoin could go to a million dollars each and everyone might move around in self-driving Teslas by the end of 2027.

Once you become a junkie, the only thing you care about is the next dose. The only thing you use your brain for is to get the next dose. And now that Trump has regained control of U.S. borders, fentanyl will be 100% manufactured in the U.S., meaning plentiful jobs for everyone in the trade.

You can't be prepared for every scenario. The unknown unknowns are the most dangerous. Still, the only good advice these days is to pay attention and prep a bit for a wide variety of scenarios.

Because it is a brave new world, and all bets are off.