It’s not even fun anymore. Since we last landed humans on the Moon in December, 1972, nine US presidents have announced plans to return. Only Barack Obama didn’t make that declaration.  During the most recent such speech on the Fourth of July in 2019, with TV cameras rolling, Donald Trump grandly told the celebrated Apollo flight director Gene Kranz, “I want you to know that we’re going back to the Moon very soon – and someday soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars.”

Coming up soon is April 15, the traditional date taxpayers join astronomers in being obsessed with numbers.

The Earth’s carbon dioxide level was 326 parts per million when I moved to Woodstock in 1972. By 1989, when my daughter was born, it had reached 352 ppm. Now this week in March 2021, it stands at 416 ppm. What’s worse, it used to rise by one ppm per year. It currently increases by three ppm annually.