Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/08/27/as-amazon-burns-trump-wants-t.html
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“I’m an environmentalist. A lot of people don’t understand that. I think I know more about the environment than most people.”
Unfortunately I’ve lost the capacity to laugh at Trump’s idiocy. Now I just want it all to stop.
Forests do not grow back. Trees grow back, but if too much of a forest is removed it will never grow back
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When Noam Chomsky said that the GOP‘s mission was the eradication of humankind, I used to think he was being a bit hyperbolic.
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well of course he does. why would anyone expect anything different?
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He also wants to lower car emission standards even though manufacturers are actually fine with the laws we have now. If we had any reason to think he was capable of reason maybe we could tell him that more forest = more carbon we can get away with dumping into the atmosphere.
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trump wanting to do something insane, cruel and/or destructive is not surprising in the least of course
however the old-school republicans in the senate just sitting back and letting him say/do whatever is completely terrifying, and they aren’t going away even if/when he does
imagine the nightmare for the next several decades if RBG doesn’t make it
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The economics of Trump’s proposal make no sense whatsoever. It costs about $2 in Federal funds for road building, transportation, etc. for every $1 in revenues received by the government. In other words, the taxpayers subsidize the loggers. Welfare for the poor is a no-no in conservative circles, but welfare for businesses is “good policy”.
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I have a feeling when trump first heard Amazon was on fire, he went to Amazon.com to see the flames.
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This plan is also mostly despised in Alaska, where fishing and tourism are far more important than logging, economically. Logging Tongass would have an immediate and irreparable harm to the salmon industry, which is renewable on much shorter time scales than timber production.
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I know, if ya’ll get all uppity about coal power plants, we’ll just use those trees that are siting around on the surface and burn them for power. Green energy, homies! Your welcome.
There has been a “tipping point” mentioned in the news recently about the deforestation in the Amazon, whereby once a certain percentage of it is gone, the rest will not survive. I have recently noted a “tipping point” of my own in response to the flood of terrifying environmental stories in the news, a tipping point that is no less alarming (because I imagine it scaling up to entire portions of the world’s population): the tipping point is that I just can’t read stories about the ongoing massively successful onslaught on the natural world anymore. I’ve been hyper-well-informed since I was a teenager on environmental and biodiversity issues, always considered them among the very most important factors in my own political leanings, and now: I just can’t deal with the sleeplessness at nights if I’m struck by a stray thought of Bolsanaro’s ignorance, or the accelerated Artcic melts, or the 80% loss of insects in certain biomes etc. etc. I can’t click on those stories anymore, I just can’t deal with the helplessness and the sense of loss, and with a family of my own and all the stresses and problems within my own little sphere, I realise I’m never going to “use my anger to help bulid a movement”, I can’t deal with this much anger and stress and I’m just not clicking on any more of those stories. I post this here by way of a [useless] apology for not doing anything about things.
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Of course he fucking does.
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Hell, if anything many car manufacturers seem to want them more stringent.
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You’re not alone.
There’s also an (ultimately self-published) academic paper about the greatly reduced prospects for humanity from a sustainabilty viewpoint that’s been making the rounds and leaving its readers depressed. I read it, but you should probably avoid it.
Obligatory note that there are resources available if you or anyone else is feeling despair to the point of considering self-harm.There are people, neutral parties, willing to listen – in the U.S. the National Suicide Hotline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). We need thoughtful and informed people like you to stick around and help us do what we can.
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Well, in the legal above the board way yes… But how much does each dollar spent generate in donations to re-election superpacs, in bookings at Mar a ShitHole, and unoccupied condos leased in tRump tower?
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No Donald, you’re supposed to rake the forests. Rake, with a “k”.
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Uh, yeah? Of course he wants to cut the Alaskan forests down. If the Amazon shows us anything at all, it’s that these forests are a giant damn fire hazard.
ETA: The last thing we need is another environmental disaster, especially with FEMA running low on funds these days…
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My pet conspiracy theory for the last couple years has been: Trump is a Russian asset, his mission has two goals: The weakening or dismantling of the Western liberal order, and the acceleration of climate change, rendering Russian real estate more productive, more valuable, more lucrative.
The news has stubbornly been refusing to give me any reason to doubt this.
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