Acceleration
There's still time, but things are grim.
“Overwhelming scientific consensus in favor of such policies doesn’t help—if anything, it hurts, because the modern G.O.P. is hostile to science and scientists.”
“And that hostility, rather than the personal quirks of one small-state senator, is the fundamental reason we appear set to do nothing while the planet burns.”
“So the GOP is—at this point—an anti-science death cult. That sounds outrageous, but that’s the reality that we’re living in—just look at the facts.”
“So things are accelerating ominously—Washington can’t respond to the acceleration when the GOP is ‘unified in their opposition to any action to limit global warming’. That’s our reality—that’s our world.”
Things are—regarding global heating—way worse in 2022 than people expected things to be at this point. And the rapid acceleration makes you worry about what things will look like in 2050 or 2060 or 2070…or 2100.
I took the following notes on an 18 July 2022 NYT piece:
“Joe Manchin just pulled the plug on what may have been the Biden administration’s last chance to do something—anything—meaningful about climate change”
“my guess is that his Lucy-with-the-football act has as much to do with vanity as with money”—his “act has, after all, kept him in the political limelight month after month”
none of Manchin’s behavior “would have mattered if Republicans weren’t unified in their opposition to any action to limit global warming”
“This opposition has only grown more entrenched as the evidence for looming catastrophe has grown—and the likely financial cost of effective action has declined.”
there’s been “spectacular technological progress in renewable energy”—you can frame climate action “not as sacrifice but as opportunity, a way to create new jobs wrapped up in a broader program of much-needed public investment”
the idea was that “there would be at least a few Republican politicians willing to sign on to policies that promised concrete rewards for workers, contractors and so on, without imposing new burdens on their constituents”—this didn’t turn out to be the case
regarding Covid, “vaccination seemed to offer a win-win solution, letting Americans protect themselves as well as others”—“much of the G.O.P.” objected to vaccination regardless
vaccination “became and remains an intensely partisan issue, with deadly consequences”—death “rates since vaccines became widely available have been far higher in strongly Republican areas than in Democratic areas”
“one of America’s two major political parties appears to be viscerally opposed to any policy that seems to serve the public good”
“Overwhelming scientific consensus in favor of such policies doesn’t help—if anything, it hurts, because the modern G.O.P. is hostile to science and scientists.”
“And that hostility, rather than the personal quirks of one small-state senator, is the fundamental reason we appear set to do nothing while the planet burns.”
So the GOP is—at this point—an anti-science death cult. That sounds outrageous, but that’s the reality that we’re living in—just look at the facts.
The facts are shocking—it seems superfluous to cite information about this, since there are new headlines every day, but see the following pieces:
“Australian fires had bigger impact on climate than covid-19 lockdowns in 2020” (27 July 2021)
“Hidden Toll of the Northwest Heat Wave: Hundreds of Extra Deaths” (11 August 2021)
“Over 22,000 acres burned in Florida as wildfires rage” (6 May 2022)
“Facing a sizzling summer, large parts of the U.S. risk blackouts, government agency warns” (20 May 2022)
“If climate change is making heat waves 100 times more likely in India, this is who will suffer most” (20 May 2022)
“With food prices climbing, the U.N. is warning of crippling global shortages” (23 May 2022)
“Bushfire royal commission hears that Black Summer smoke killed nearly 450 people” (25 May 2020)
“Drought in northern Mexico threatening livelihoods” (17 July 2022)
“Extreme Heat Continues Its March Across Western Europe” (17 July 2022)
“Europeans shocked by ‘heat apocalypse’ as temperature records fall” (18 July 2022)
“France braces for record temperatures as wildfires rage across Europe” (18 July 2022)
“U.N. chief warns that humanity faces ‘collective suicide’ over climate crisis.” (18 July 2022)
So things are accelerating ominously—Washington can’t respond to the acceleration when the GOP is “unified in their opposition to any action to limit global warming”. That’s our reality—that’s our world.
It is quite a conundrum as they say.