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The Full Autopsy

Office of Forensic Policy Pathology — Autopsy Report

By Yuki Tanabe— February 25, 2026

Feature image for article: Office of Forensic Policy Pathology — Autopsy Report

The body arrived at this office on February 18, 2026, accompanied by a 436-page final rule and five fact sheets. It had been pronounced six days earlier at the White House. The decedent was a federal regulatory finding, aged sixteen. External surfaces presented multiple rationales for death, each designated as independently sufficient.

Internal examination revealed a structural discontinuity between what was proposed and what was finalized. Toxicology identified an agent a federal court had ruled unlawful thirteen days before death. The scientific substrate was intact. Evidence of prior injury spanning seventeen years showed repeated trauma. None had succeeded.

The Full Autopsy

Office of Forensic Policy Pathology — Autopsy Report

The body arrived at this office on February 18, 2026, accompanied by a 436-page final rule and five fact sheets. It had been pronounced six days earlier at the White House. The decedent was a federal regulatory finding, aged sixteen. External surfaces presented multiple rationales for death, each designated as independently sufficient.

Internal examination revealed a structural discontinuity between what was proposed and what was finalized. Toxicology identified an agent a federal court had ruled unlawful thirteen days before death. The scientific substrate was intact. Evidence of prior injury spanning seventeen years showed repeated trauma. None had succeeded.

Yuki Tanabe

Japanese speculative fiction writer who transforms climate change into visceral bodily experience through precise, sensation-first prose. Makes readers feel futures in their own bodies while refusing to aestheticize catastrophe or manufacture hope.

One Life's Ledger

Regulatory Impact Analysis: Projected Health Outcomes for Subject A, 2026–2082

By David Kern— February 25, 2026

Feature image for article: Regulatory Impact Analysis: Projected Health Outcomes for Subject A, 2026–2082

The EPA uses a standard formula to decide how much a future health benefit is worth today. At a 7% discount rate, a dollar of benefit thirty years from now is worth seventeen cents. Forty-six years out, three cents.

A parent in zip code 93307, Bakersfield, California, took that formula and applied it to one child. Bakersfield ranks first among 216 U.S. metro areas for particulate air quality. The child is four. She uses a rescue inhaler three to four times a week. The parent filled out the government's own cost-benefit framework, line by line.

One Life's Ledger

Regulatory Impact Analysis: Projected Health Outcomes for Subject A, 2026–2082

By David Kern— February 25, 2026

The EPA uses a standard formula to decide how much a future health benefit is worth today. At a 7% discount rate, a dollar of benefit thirty years from now is worth seventeen cents. Forty-six years out, three cents.

A parent in zip code 93307, Bakersfield, California, took that formula and applied it to one child. Bakersfield ranks first among 216 U.S. metro areas for particulate air quality. The child is four. She uses a rescue inhaler three to four times a week. The parent filled out the government's own cost-benefit framework, line by line.

Expert Testimony

Exhibit A, the Lungs of Children

Expert Testimony

Exhibit A, the Lungs of Children

Death Certificate

Certificate of Death: Earth's Radiative Equilibrium

DECEDENT: Earth's Radiative Equilibrium (Planetary Energy Balance). Age: Approximately 10,000 years, stable since termination of last glacial period. PLACE OF DEATH: Top of atmosphere, global. DATE OF DEATH: December 2025, upon recording of +2.57 W/m² monthly energy imbalance. IMMEDIATE CAUSE: Ocean heat absorption of 23 zettajoules in calendar year 2025, equivalent to 37 years of total global energy production. Ninth consecutive annual record. UNDERLYING CAUSE: Planetary energy imbalance more than doubled in two decades, exceeding projections. CONTRIBUTING: Reduced albedo from ice loss, diminished cloud reflectivity. MANNER OF DEATH: Pending.

Death Certificate

Certificate of Death: Earth's Radiative Equilibrium

DECEDENT: Earth's Radiative Equilibrium (Planetary Energy Balance). Age: Approximately 10,000 years, stable since termination of last glacial period. PLACE OF DEATH: Top of atmosphere, global. DATE OF DEATH: December 2025, upon recording of +2.57 W/m² monthly energy imbalance. IMMEDIATE CAUSE: Ocean heat absorption of 23 zettajoules in calendar year 2025, equivalent to 37 years of total global energy production. Ninth consecutive annual record. UNDERLYING CAUSE: Planetary energy imbalance more than doubled in two decades, exceeding projections. CONTRIBUTING: Reduced albedo from ice loss, diminished cloud reflectivity. MANNER OF DEATH: Pending.

TAKE NOTE

Acceleration noted: Ocean heat accumulation rate doubled, from 0.14 to 0.32 W/m² per decade, between the 1960–2025 and 2005–2025 measurement periods.

Secondary findings: Southern Indian Ocean high-salinity surface water shrank 30% over 60 years. Fastest freshening signal in the Southern Hemisphere. Thermohaline circulation implications noted.

Year-over-year: 23 zettajoules absorbed in 2025 represents a 44% increase over 2024. No plateau observed at any point in the record.

Prognosis note: Successful intervention would present first as a peak in energy imbalance, then gradual decline. No peak has been observed.

Certifier's note: Decedent's deterioration was documented for decades. Diagnostic assessments were issued repeatedly. Treatment was available and affordable. Treatment was not administered.

Morgue Intake

We keep a weekly log. What the planet lost, what got taken, what wandered off and never came back. Six entries this week. Each one gets a card with the same fields: name, time, cause, manner, disposition.

The manner line is where you should look. That's the field where the system that killed the thing accidentally describes itself. Neglect looks nothing like homicide. Homicide looks nothing like what gets classified accidental. And when the climate itself is the killer, the manner reads "natural causes." Both words doing exactly as much work as you think.

Morgue Intake

We keep a weekly log. What the planet lost, what got taken, what wandered off and never came back. Six entries this week. Each one gets a card with the same fields: name, time, cause, manner, disposition.

The manner line is where you should look. That's the field where the system that killed the thing accidentally describes itself. Neglect looks nothing like homicide. Homicide looks nothing like what gets classified accidental. And when the climate itself is the killer, the manner reads "natural causes." Both words doing exactly as much work as you think.

Regulatory Death

EPA Endangerment Finding Dead at Seventeen Years

Date of death: February 12, 2026. Cause: EPA final rule revoking authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Science uncontested. Agency declared itself powerless to act on it. Manner: Neglect. Status: Lawsuits filed by public health, scientific, and environmental organizations.

Planetary Body

Earth's Energy Balance Breaks Records for Ninth Year

Date of death: Ongoing. Cause: Anthropogenic forcing exceeding planetary heat-dissipation capacity. Oceans absorbed 16 zettajoules in 2025. Energy imbalance reached +2.57 W/m² in December. Ninth consecutive record year for ocean heat content. Manner: Homicide. Status: No intervention planned.

Treaty Exit

U.S. Climate Treaty Participation Dead at Thirty-Four

Date of death: January 2026. Cause: Executive withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, ratified under George H.W. Bush in 1992. The United States is now the only nation on Earth not participating. Manner: Abandonment. Status: 194 nations reaffirming or raising targets.

Press Corps

Fourteen Climate Positions at the Washington Post

Date of death: February 2026. Cause: Three-hundred-person layoff under Jeff Bezos's ownership. Climate team built to 30 in 2022, functionally zeroed. Manner: Accidental. That's what the paperwork will say. Status: Coverage gaps widening while the story it covered accelerates.

Flood Displaced

140,000 Moroccan Homes Lost to Overfilled Dams

Date of displacement: Late January 2026, ongoing. Cause: Seven drought years broken by rainfall four times annual norms. Dams overfilled to 156% capacity, forced releases into communities below. Manner: Misadventure. Infrastructure performing exactly as designed for a climate that no longer exists. Status: Displaced.

Season Lost

"Winter" in the American West, Date Uncertain

Date of death: Ongoing. Salt Lake City: 0.1 inches of snow, lowest since 1874. Oregon snowpack: 30% below previous record low. Precipitation fell as rain. Manner: Natural causes. The two darkest words on this card. Status: 2034 Winter Olympics still scheduled for Salt Lake City.