Strange times indeed. Yesterday the Fed raised its key rate to 5.5 percent, the highest level in over 20 years. Not, mind you, that the rate is especially high by historical standards. Yet given the weirdness of the the times in which we are living, the central bank’s continued push to fight inflation is remarkable.

Economists say that an inverted yield curve is a telltale of an imminent recession. What is a yield curve? Basically, it tracks how the annual rate of return on a Treasury bond varies as its borrowing period (or years until repayment of principal) increases. Typically, the return increases with the borrowing period although it tends to flatten out over longer periods (see below). The basic reason is that bondholders need to be compensated more for lending their money for longer. We call this the term premium.

At the beginning of Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, ostensibly a novel about the near future, a deadly heat wave hits northern India. Everyone but Frank, one of the story’s protagonists, perishes. The tragedy then becomes a pretext for the seeding of the upper atmosphere with silver iodide and other chemicals to cool the planet. After 106 chapters (no typo), the story ends on a hopeful note.

I was thinking about the novel again after reading about the Acropolis, one of Greece’s most popular tourist destinations. Sustained temperatures in excess of 110 degrees Fahrenheit (44 Celsius) have compelled its closure. One wishes such torrid conditions were an anomaly; unfortunately, they are increasingly ubiquitous. Many of Greece’s European neighbors are also facing unprecedented heat, as is the southwestern U.S. Meanwhile, Asia is being ravaged by unusually high temperatures. Beijing and other Chinese cities now face an unhealthy cocktail of extreme heat and toxic smog. Worldwide, many more people than in the past are dying from exposure to extreme heat.

One wonders what if anything it will take to properly address the growing calamity. Why do policymakers not respond? While there are no quick fixes, there still seems much that we can do to avoid the worst. Unfortunately, as is often the case it is the wealthy who would need to bankroll most of the necessary interventions. In Robinson’s novel it is indeed the world’s central banks that band together to incentivize carbon mitigation across the planet. As nice as it sounds, the idea seems exceedingly optimistic.

Scientists working for the International Anthropocene Working Group (IAWG) believe, well, that “the Anthropocene epoch” is really a thing. In other words, the newest epoch signifies a geological break with the Holocene after which human technological impact on the planet is irreversible. And now the group claims to be very close to proving that we have entered the Anthropocene epoch.

The research group claims to have found human imprints (e.g., plutonium) in the rock strata, most notably around Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada, dating to about 1950. Far be it for me to question expert geologists, so I won’t even go into the remarkably precise resolution needed to distinguish a half-century layer of rock against many millions of years. They must know something that I do not.

What exasperates me is the ongoing insistence in the mainstream media on the relevance of “scientific proof.” Just as common sense would dictate that humans have profoundly altered the global climate over the past 50-75 years, we do not need scientists to convince us that we are seriously contaminating planet Earth. It matters because the precious time squandered in waiting for “proof” is time that could be utilized combatting the problem.

It is in this way that what today passes for “science” is subterfuge for status quo preservation (at least for a little longer).

The catastrophic flooding in the state of Vermont is only the latest evidence of a vastly changed climate. What is truly remarkable is that in this instance most of the affected areas are not even near a river or a coastline. So what is going on?

The floods in Vermont are likely a result of greater atmospheric retention of water, itself a consequence of higher temperatures. So now when it rains, it really does pour. Just a day earlier there was a similar event further South in the Hudson Valley in New York State. And I suppose that at least some of you last summer read about a massive “atmospheric river” awaiting California. I don’t think I need to continue reciting other recent flood events around the country to convince you that something is not right.

Yet when it comes to helping us understand increasingly frequent climate change events (did I mention the wildfires raging through Canada?), economics remains far behind the curve. Despite the increasingly obvious environmental consequences of a growth-at-all-costs economy, challenging GDP growth continues to be verboten in policy circles. Fortunately, more and more people have been wisening up to the need to shift our national priorities. Time does not favor us; when change does come, it will not be gradual.

Oh boy. Now the Supreme Court ruled against President Biden’s plan to forgive about $400 billion of college debt outstanding. This is a huge problem. Consider that millions of borrowers have gone deeper into debt since Biden last year announced his plan.

You might say that that was foolish or irresponsible. But it would ignore the reality that debt has increasingly become a way of life for struggling households. Given this, it seems almost realistic that consumers would shoulder new debt under the expectation that their responsibility for existing student loans will disappear.

Of course, now that the student loan burden has not vanished, we have a potential disaster in the making. I do not even want to imagine the combined impact of at least hundreds of thousands if not millions of households having to declare bankruptcy.

In my view, some bipartisan corrective measure must be taken. As much as I prefer universal to means-tested programs, I buy the frequent argument that many households slated for forgiveness do not really need the help. If Biden instead targeted loan forgiveness just to households in financial dire straits, his program would probably cost less than half of the original price.

Agreeing on qualifying criteria would not be easy. But the alternative is much worse. And we can always hope that a successful resolution to this problem could serve as a benchmark for other debt challenges. Like, for example, the developing country debt crisis.