Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/08/306-billion-in-2018.html
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With time running out to avert hundreds of millions of deaths and global migration, food, disease, and water chaos, with 73% of US voters believing in climate change (albeit with a mere 57%
I think you need to finish this sentence, Cory.
I can see some logic to this, in the polarized world we are in. In blue states, it is not really a question. There were probably no questions about gravity either. Similarly, in red states it is such a third rail issue neither candidate would willingly touch it. This is what happens when science, facts and knowledge become politicized. And it SUCKS!!
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The Democratic challenger to Peter Roskam is trying to make it an issue in Illinois’ 6th district. https://castenforcongress.com/
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Even if those questions were on the agenda, Know-Nothing GOP candidates would continue to wallow in denialism and continue debating settled science. A country willing to confront this issue as a priority is a country where the conservative duopoly party would have kicked out people like this long ago:
Or about the theory of evolution, which Blackburn (a U.S. Rep. since 2003) also rejects.
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“started to cool 13 years ago?”. WTF!! That is a level of stupid that should set off seismometers!
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The way the issue is being framed, it is somebody else’s problem. “Theres still time to avert the worst effects!” - fine, that means we can kick it down the line for another generation to deal with. “The window to avert the problem has passed” - well, nothing to be done, might as well buy an SUV.
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You want to see real stupid…?
Key graf:
But the administration did not offer this dire forecast, premised on the idea that the world will fail to cut its greenhouse gas emissions, as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet’s fate is already sealed.
The draft statement, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was written to justify President Drumpf’s decision to freeze federal fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020. While the proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, the impact statement says, that policy would add just a very small drop to a very big, hot bucket.
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Holy f’ing shit… We are doomed
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And of course, there is the “co2 is plant food, so it’s all good” crowd too.
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Climate change is the most important issue facing the world, but . . .
Well . . . I’ll just post my tweet of this morning:
Feeling kind of swell-headed because of who gave me that Like.
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What’s sickening is, the more Democrats bring it up, the more it becomes a “Democrat” issue, the more easy it becomes for tribalistic and self-interested Republicans to tune it out. At this point, it’s almost like Republicans don’t want be seen as “giving in” on climate change. They’d have to admit “we’re wrong/you’re right.” They’d have to admit that Democrats are not wrong in every situation, on every issue, every time. (We can thank Newt Gingrich for setting this all up in the early '90s.)
Somehow, Republicans have to be convinced or organically “realize” this is a problem. Or, some dominant, capable Republican has to stand on two legs and raise this is as an issue for all Americans. And/or there has to be some replication of the process where Republicans “learned” to hate fascism in 1941. The problem is there is no attitude-changing “Pearl Harbor” moment regarding climate change. (Well, there probably will be, but by then it will be far, far too late.)
But, how can a virtuous, intelligent person arise from the muck that is the Republican party? If such a person existed, how could s/he survive the onslaught from the GOP organs of propaganda like Fox, Breitbart, Infowars, Newsmax, Hoover Institution?
Conclusion: we’re doomed, unless we get Democratic victories/majorities in POTUS/House/Senate. And, then, with a 6-3 GOP majority in the SCOTUS, who will tribalistically reverse anything that is not Republican-branded, we’re probably still doomed.
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I’m increasingly convinced they think it’s the end times, so grab as much as you can so you can party hard until the end. And the conservative “Christians” are on board because end times = JC is back.
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ZPG (Zero Population Growth) is also a non-topic. Sad.
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Not enough white Americans have died in a hurricane, flooding or catastrophic heatwave for it to register in the GOP heartland.
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Lighten up. We can always counteract global warming with nuclear winter, right?
Human attention span is a finite resource. I’m actually pretty okay with that, since it’s not going to change. One of the things that kept coming up in the early days of the Trump administration was the conversation about “distraction.” Namely that “Trump Doing X Terrible Thing is Just a Distraction from Y Terrible Thing He is About to Do.” I think some people still do this, but it seems to have died down since, mercifully.
The reality is that the GOP being in control of literally every branch of government has raised a lot of seperate issues, and it’s no surprise that we’re having trouble getting to them all. The Climate will wait another two years, while we untangle the rest of this mess. Climate change is a big deal, but so are a lot of other things, and debates are timed. They’re also not the only form of political activity that matters.
Also this n is small, if anyone cares. The methodology focused on close races is a little weird with not a lot of data points to construct a trend or a sense of significance. We have no governor’s race or senate race this year, and our district race hasn’t seen a debate yet. This is because the candidate with an R after their name is either too chicken, or has read the polling data to mean that debate only increases the Dem’s profile. We weren’t included in this assessment and neither were a lot of other races happening around the country, and both the candidates in this race have positions on the issue, with the Republican having actually publicly met with grassroots climate-change activist groups and making some positive noises with his mouth (it’s a given that the Democrat did).
Actually if anything this is part of a slightly broader and unfortunate trend for left-leaning organizations to focus heavily on big races (fair enough) at the expense of smaller ones (this part’s the problem.)
My point with all this, is that all things considered, I’m not sure that there’s a significant conclusion to be drawn from all of this.
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