Headlines in the Guardian on July 4 read: “Washington DC’s Fourth of July Parade Canceled due to Soaring Temperatures.” There is bad news daily on the eco-front under Trump. Not just bad news, apocalyptic news.
This president calls climate change a “hoax” and has done everything in his power to pay back the fossil fuel magnates who finance his MAGA machine. While contributing mightily to killing the planet, they wallow in favors from the current MAGA administration.
Recall that presidential candidate Trump promised fossil fuel captains that if he received one or two billion dollars of campaign money from the fossil fuel industry, they would benefit. He did. And they have.
True to form, this weekend the polluter-in-chief pardoned eleven violators of the Clean Air Act. Bypassing emissions systems on diesel pickup trucks has resulted in the spewing of harmful oxides at levels up to 300 times the legal limits. This is equivalent to adding nine million diesel trucks to American roads. The poisonous air makes millions of children sick with asthma.
Contrary to everything that Pope Francis called for in his encyclical Laudato Sí, urging humanity to recognize the sacredness of the natural world and keep it healthy, the MAGA movement, including the Supreme Court and both houses of Congress, is busy doing all they can to shut down alternative energy solutions.
The recent heat records being set in Europe and America’s Midwest and East are evidence for all that climate change is here to stay. Reports of snowcaps and icebergs melting at the North and South poles are alarming scientists—but not apparently fat cat politicians feeding on money from fossil fuel industries.
In the midst of this moral wasteland, there is good news arising from current inventions both in China and America. Chinese engineers are giving birth to a revolution in converting salt water to fresh water that will prove cheaper even than bottling water. Here is the story in a nutshell.
A solar-powered device now tested for a year can absorb 90.2% of incoming sunlight and use it to evaporate seawater with 47.5% less energy than previous methods. This new method of water desalination will improve drinking water for economies around the world, especially in the most arid regions. And can provide cheaper irrigation for vegetables year-round.*
A second piece of good news comes from efforts to create solar panel-covered canals bringing water for crop irrigation in the American Southwest. This week, the state of California opened its first such experiment near Hickman, California. The canal there helps irrigate cotton, tomatoes, almonds and other crops in California’s Central Valley.
The panels will save 63.5 billion gallons of water from evaporation annually by shading the flowing water. For every megawatt of solar energy generated in days of average sunshine, the panels can replace 15-20 diesel generators currently pumping water along the canals.
“Why disturb land that has sacred value when we could just put the solar panels over a canal and generate more efficient power?” asks the director of a parallel project for the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix.
Since the water underneath keeps the panels’ undersides cooler, the panels’ lifespans will expand. These panels prevent evaporation, reduce land clearance for solar farms, and boost the state’s green energy output.**
These two examples of technological innovations demonstrate the role the Via Creativa plays in humanity’s survival. Climate Change is real, but we ought not count humanity out so long as imagination and technical skills are alive and well. And—above all—denial does not rule.
The Via Negativa—knowing the darkness facing us—is an important stepping stone to the Via Creativa after all. Necessity is the mother of invention once again.
*Andy Corbley, “New Solar Tech Makes Desalinating Seawater Cheaper Than Producing Bottled Water,” The Good News Network, July 2, 2026.
**Andy Corbley, “California’s First Solar Panel-Covered Canal Is Now Fully Online,” The Good News Network, July 2, 2026.
Banner Image: The Witsand Solar Desalination Plant, first facility of its kind in South Africa, opened in 2018. Wikimedia Commons.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you find hope in these new inventions to combat climate change? And in humanity’s powers of imagination? Do you agree that denial from politicians is a major obstacle to letting creativity flow?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society
5 thoughts on “Amidst MAGA’s Bad News, Some Good News on the Ecological Front!”
Welcome to the good news!
No, I have no hope that external inventions will save humanity from itself, with the possible exception of an invention that would trigger and haste a day of reckoning.
Discovering what we would call “unlimited free energy” would be like giving unlimited power to a president, unlimited money to an electoral campaign, or unlimited booze to a drunk: it would seal the fate of the garden planet we inherited from billions of years of evolution.
The only invention that can save mankind from itself is the reinvention of the human: Thomas Berry explains what he means by “Reinventing the Human” in chapter 14 of “The Great Work” in which he sums up in one sentence the challenge before us: “The historical mission of our times is to reinvent the human—at the species level, with critical reflection, within the community of life-systems, in a time-developmental context, by means of story and shared dream experiences.”
That reinvention has nothing in common with the current mutation of humans into organic machines holding in the palm of their hand a small rectangular device that slowly replaces their personal relationships with the community of the living world by prefab concepts and algorithmic guidance.
After inventing wireless TV and wireless phones, wireless remote-controlled humans are popping up like mushrooms.
Daniel, I appreciate your view that reforming people is the most urgent matter, but, in my view, people who would communicate good news of a transformative nature must use even technological means to spread the news. God is the prime mover, so our prayers for divine aid are basic. As an old joke has it, a man prayed to God that he might win the lottery. When he didn’t win, he complained to God, who replied, “First, you have to buy a ticket.”
With warm respect, George, when the secondary effect of a drug primes its main purpose and threatens the life of the patient, isn’t it wise to reconsider the prescription?
Please have a look: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/opinion/writing-creativity-ai.html?unlocked_article_code=1.wFA.0Odq.RVrv3BByuOj0&smid=url-share
I’m continuously reinvigorated by Matthew’s insightful meditations
The information about Turlock covering our canal with solar panels is so simple and resourceful and brilliant.
I frequently feel restored to hope and sanity by these writings
Thanks so very much to Matthew and the whole team!!