The macArthur Foundation Folks sure Aren't Geniuses – they Totally ignored Climate change

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On Tuesday, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced its annual list of winners of its annual “genius grant.” This year, there were 22 recipients, each of whom get a no-strings-attached $800,000 over five years to spend as they like.

Twenty years ago, long after we broke up, it was an ex-girlfriend of this writer who got the coveted call. Yes, maybe because of her brilliance, she was intelligent enough to move on from me.

The award is a great honor (as well as a great amount of money), but a look at this year’s list proves troubling. There’s two children’s and young adult authors, a former U.S. poet laureate, two evolutionary biologists, an astronomer who uplifts underrepresented students and a pioneering alternative cabaret star.

And, among others, there’s a “transdisciplinary scholar and writer,” a couple of historians, an oceanographer and a multimedia artist.

Geniuses all, no doubt. And then, on the foundation’s website, the MacArthur Fellows’ director, one Marlies Carruth, writes that this year’s winners include a person who fills “critical gaps in the knowledge of cycles that sustain life on Earth,” a reference, presumably, to the work of Benjamin Van Mooy, an oceanographer.

But that’s the nearest the roster gets to including anyone who is attempting to tackle what is, almost without doubt, the greatest threat to humanity facing humankind. Yes, climate change.

Instead, the winners include, as noted by The New York Times, a Vanderbilt University astrophysics and astronomy professor, Keivan G. Stassum, “who is Mexican and Iranian and also the father of an autistic son,” who was awarded, in part at least, for “expanding opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math fields for underrepresented populations.”

Yes, all well and good. But where is the true genius whose research could guide and impel the world to tackle global warming in a meaningful and concerted way? Or even a semi-genius who could bring a major advancement in curing climate change? (Maybe they could get $400,000?)

Instead, in addition to the above-mentioned, we get “a star of alternative cabaret,” a disability justice activist, a dancer and choreographer, a “frequent chronicler of Mexican American communities” and more in the same vein.

But what is the use of having these fine, if politically correct, people around – and winning prizes such as this – if their fellow human beings are killed by the hundreds and thousands by climate change-driven disasters such as Hurricane Helene? No amount of diversity, equity and inclusion is going to save them is they are struck by the flooding caused by the storm.

In short, the MacArthur jury surely should look at itself and identify what is REALLY IMPORTANT in the world and focus on the people who could make a true difference.

Maybe it’s time for those who realize the threat of global warming to join the “pool of anonymous nominators” or the “independent selection committee” and truly make a global difference. Super-clever climate change scientists must be out there. Somewhere.

Yes, my ex-galpal was very gifted – and her prize for “combining two professions [medicine and filmmaking] to highlight for lay audiences and for doctors-in-training how affliction creates physical and social barriers that usually pass unnoticed” – was no doubt important. But it pales in comparison with the threat of catastrophe that the world faces.

C’mon, MacArthur mavens – it’s time to think out of the DEI box.

(A native of England, veteran journalist Matthew Diebel has worked at Callaway Climate Insights, NBC News, Time, USA Today and News Corp., among other organizations. Having spent much of his childhood next to one of the world’s fastest bodies of water, he is particularly interested in tidal energy.)