Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Thirty years ago today, when I was 28½, I recorded my resting heart rate. It was 64. I've been recording it every other week since, with no letup. As of today, my average resting heart rate for the past 30 years is 50.25 (in 764 readings). The lowest I've seen is 42 (on nine occasions, most recently two years ago). It was 45 this morning. I consider the resting heart rate the best indicator of fitness. I've been bicycling since August 1981 (more than 34 years ago) and was a competitive runner from 1996 to about 2013. (I completed 11 marathons, winning a medal in one of them.) I may go back to running some day, but right now I'm devoted to cycling. I ride at least 102 miles per week, all year 'round. My heart thanks me for it. Are you being good to your heart? Remember: It's a muscle. It needs regular, vigorous workouts.

Jacques Marquette (1637-1675) and friend, on Mackinac Island. Click to enlarge.

This man doesn't understand that politics is performance art. I, for one, am enjoying the show.

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Trump ascendant.

To the Editor:

Steven E. Koonin paints a grimly accurate picture of the largely ineffective course of global climate negotiations. For many reasons, as he notes, it is unlikely that international legal structures will produce the reductions needed to stabilize global climate.

However, Mr. Koonin’s conclusion, that we had basically better get used to it, neglects the catastrophic effects that a grossly altered global climatic system will produce: impacts that may destabilize entire regions of the world and produce human suffering, particularly in less wealthy nations, at unimaginable levels.

It is time to take a hard look at geoengineering technologies, which offer a third choice alongside unlikely emissions reductions and defeatist adaptation. For the last 125 years, humanity has been running an uncontrolled experiment on the global atmosphere. International scientific and diplomatic efforts are needed to formally explore promising technologies, like iron fertilization, that may provide a pragmatic solution.

REBECCA PINCUS

Barre, Vt.

Note from KBJ: How stupid and vain do you have to be to think that in just 125 years, human beings have changed the planet's climate?

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