DEAR READERS: While the mainstream media are pointing to the rise of authoritarianism in the democratic republic of the United States of America, where the Constitution and rule of law are being usurped, some are documenting how the rich are becoming even richer. This is the underbelly of mammonism, not authoritarianism.

Mammon is the deification of the accumulation of wealth. One’s life becomes a quest to accumulate more and more wealth and property until it becomes a religious practice supplanting all other things, and wealth becomes an object of worship. For more insights, go to earthandaltarmag.com/posts/what-is-mammon.

I see this as an ethical and spiritual crisis of these times where there is deepening engagement in the blatantly mammonist, energy-consuming cryptocurrency industry and little evidence of the executive branch of the U.S. government caring for the poor and needy at home and abroad. For many Americans, caring for an animal companion, of significant emotional benefit for millions, is too costly, and animal shelters are now filling up across the country. For desperate immigrants, all now declared “criminals” for entering the U.S. without visas, there is no justice, due process or compassion.

Many Americans who are not poor and are aware of their carbon footprints are buying and traveling less. Others struggle to pay for medical insurance and costly medications or to be free from addictive purchasing in a culture of hyperconsumption, living beyond their means and going into debt.

Following the template of Project 2025 to dismantle federal agencies and public health standards, including vital environmental protection and biodiversity restoration, the ill-advised Trump administration is limiting investments in safer, alternative, “green” energy sources, and promoting more oil, gas and coal extraction and deforestation of public lands. This is a stolen future for generations to come, whose quality of life under increasingly extreme climate change perturbations we are already experiencing.

I am struck by the irony of the climate change-associated, post-drought torrential rains and flood tragedy in central Texas that took so many lives on July 4, when Trump signed his Big Beautiful Bill that ignores climate change, reference to which he has had deleted from federal websites.

We should take this tragedy in Texas as a warning, without blame, shame or climate change denial. Crimes against humanity and crimes against nature are coins of the same currency.

On a related note, I would propose renaming Columbus Day, which is an insult to Native Americans. I propose going further than Indigenous Peoples Day, which has already replaced Columbus Day in many locales, to declare an Interdependence Day in honor of all our relations -- human and nonhuman alike.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this topic next week.

MAKING SENSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

The increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, from burning fossil fuels -- coal, gas and oil -- along with devastating forest fires, causes our atmosphere to absorb and retain solar radiation, preventing it from escaping into space and causing global temperatures to rise. With the Arctic warming three times faster than the average for rest of the world, the temperature difference between north and south decreases, and so does the speed of the jet stream’s westerly winds. As these winds slow down, its waves typically grow bigger and extend farther to the north and the south. Larger jet-stream waves move eastward more slowly, affecting weather patterns across North America to Central Europe and Asia.

“The big swings of the jet stream tend to be very persistent and to stay in the same place for a long time,” explains Dr. Jennifer Francis, senior atmospheric scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center. "As each wave brings either warm or cold air to a region, this slow movement can cause extreme weather patterns, such as heat waves, floods, cold spells, storms and droughts -- and we are seeing these wavey patterns happen more frequently." For more details, go to arctic-council.org/news/shifting-winds-how-a-wavier-polar-jet-stream-causes-extreme-weather-events/#: See also: e360.yale.edu/digest/jet-stream-climate-change-heat-wave.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR READERS: A recently published study adds to the growing stack of reasons to be wary of cellphone use, especially by children.

Researchers at Cornell, Columbia and the University of California-Berkeley studied 4,285 U.S. adolescents over a four-year period, tracking their cellphone use and certain mental health symptoms and indicators. The results link "addictive screen use" to an increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors. According to the authors, the results indicate that the key element driving the risk of suicidal behavior is not the total time spent in front of screens, but rather the addictive nature of social media and some video games.

“This is the first study to identify that addictive use is important, and is actually the root cause, instead of time,” said lead author Yunyu Xiao, assistant professor of psychiatry and population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. (See the full study: “Addictive Screen Use Trajectories and Suicidal Behaviors, Suicidal Ideation, and Mental Health in U.S. Youths” by Yunyu Xiao et al., published in JAMA, June 18, 2025.)

The Netherlands recently issued guidelines recommending that children under the age of 15 not have access to social media. France, Spain and Greece have all recently pressed for an EU-wide age verification system setting a minimum age of 15 for social media access. Such measures should be standard everywhere.

The limited scope of life experiences bouncing around the echo chambers of social media should concern all parents and educators. Also concerning are the impacts of meaningless mass entertainment, which can foster shallow sentimentalism, and violent games, which can trigger nihilistic violence. (It should be noted that there are some interactive games that are highly educational, such as WolfQuest, which I recommend due to its scientific accuracy about wolf behavior and ecology.)

So much of the online world is interwoven with advertising -- the lures of consumerism -- and the delusions of autonomy, meaning and purpose. But a truly meaningful life is one of purpose, especially in service to others. Such a life is based on core values and virtues that shape one's character, improve the quality of one's life experiences and benefit one's health -- mental, physical, social and economic.

COPING WITH ALLERGIC REACTIONS TO DOGS AND CATS

An estimated 10% to 20% of people worldwide are allergic to proteins in animal skin cells, saliva or urine, reports HealthDay, and dog and cat allergens are present in nearly every U.S. home -- even those without pets.

People who have pets as young children may have lower risks for allergies and asthma, but exposure to pets as an older child or adult does not appear to have the same effect. Additionally, there’s no such thing as a "hypoallergenic" animal. Instead of seeking such a thing, people with allergies can take steps to minimize their exposure to allergens and manage their symptoms. (Full story: HealthDay.com, June 25)

On rare occasions, dogs have been found to be allergic to their human companions!

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)

DEAR READERS: As a veterinarian and syndicated columnist for over 60 years, I have seen cycles of pet abandonment in the U.S. and in Europe. But I have not seen any as extensive and severe as the current cycle, in which animal shelters are full to capacity across the country.

A recent article by Lincoln Roch in the Minnesota Star Tribune, "Rising costs force sad pet decisions," affirmed my observations. For more on how we got to this point, see this September post from a shelter in Texas: hlcr.org/post/a-perfect-storm-america-s-animal-shelter-crisis.

From a One Health perspective, the well-being of companion animals is coupled to the well-being of their human caregivers. But more and more people cannot afford the costs of caring for their animals, nor can they find rental housing that will accept them.

This is a loss for all involved. Companion animals provide mental and physical health benefits to millions of people, and educational experiences for children, along with improving their compassion and immune systems.

Clearly, caring for animals is one of the responsibilities of a civil society. This crisis must be addressed at every government level, from municipal offices to the executive branch (even though Mr. Trump does not appear to like animals). A viable society is based not only on economic justice and the rule of law, but also on compassion and the golden rule.

On a related note, more support is needed for the care of retired police and military working dogs, as well as those providing comfort for former soldiers suffering from PTSD. It would be wonderful to see an executive order from the White House to help these dogs, who have served our nation in search and rescue, mine detection, personal protection, and apprehension in law enforcement. One nonprofit organization, Paws of Honor, is filling that deficit to some degree, raising funds to cover veterinary care for retired military and police working dogs. For more details, go to pawsofhonor.org.

IN HONOR OF THE 90TH BIRTHDAY OF THE DALAI LAMA

His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama, is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism; he also recently celebrated his 90th birthday. He has famously stated: “We share the earth not only with our fellow human beings, but with all the other creatures. ... Because we all share this planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature. This is not just a dream, but a necessity.”

He once wrote a message in support of the work of my late wife, Deanna Krantz, in India (where he now lives in exile). I wrote about that exchange in my recently published book of poetry, “For All Our Relations.”

Earlier this summer, I wrote the poem below to honor his life and work.

RENUNCIATION

Where have all the insects gone?

So few the singing birds,

Dragonfly and butterfly so rare.

Many of us see and care

Too late. Their fate

We all will share

Unless we heal, restore

The wild and every child

Of all our earth-relations:

Not just our own invasive

Consumptive kind, half-blind,

Destroying nature’s creations.

Before redemption, renunciation

Of inhumanity, recovering empathic sanity,

To live the Golden Rule of harmony

And peaceful co-existence.

A LANDMARK WIN FOR NATURE PROTECTION

Please see this June 26 news release from the Center for Biological Diversity (biologicaldiversity.org):

"A long and fierce campaign to protect the Okefenokee Swamp from mining has finally paid off. For years, the Center for Biological Diversity and allies have held the line against a proposed mine abutting Georgia’s Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge -- and late last week, a nonprofit called the Conservation Fund announced that it’s buying the mine site.

"The Twin Pines mine would’ve been a disaster for the Okefenokee, one of the world’s largest intact freshwater ecosystems and home to countless species -- including wood storks, eastern indigo snakes, and gopher tortoises. The nearly 8,000-acre purchase protects the area from mining and includes acquisition of the underlying mineral rights."

In neighboring Florida, however, the environmental impact of Trump’s so-called Alligator Alcatraz prison camp is only one of its many sins. The facility's destructive and costly construction encroaches on sacred lands of Indigenous peoples, just to house immigrants under the most inhumane conditions. It is further evidence of the empathy deficit disorder of the current executive branch of U.S. governance.

(Send all mail to animaldocfox@gmail.com or to Dr. Michael Fox in care of Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106. The volume of mail received prohibits personal replies, but questions and comments of general interest will be discussed in future columns.

Visit Dr. Fox’s website at DrFoxOneHealth.com.)