Manchin and the right-wing destroyed all of Democrat's climate agenda!???

[Hardkill]

Manchin just killed Biden's last chance to pass any significant climate bill because of his "worry" on inflation after the June CPI report just came out. Many top economists already mentioned that the report was not up to date at all and that most of the inflation in our America has in actuality been going down a lot. He kept saying that for months and months that climate legislation was definitely "one thing that can we all definitely agree on" and that we must pass it in some way. 

Not to mention, I am also really disgusted and angry over the fact that Manchin decided to no longer support any taxes on the rich and corporation, even after he promised and committed to reversing at least some amount of the Trump. He now said that it's because he's "worry" that raising any taxes on our precious corporations and wealthy fat bastards could now cause layoffs given how much worse inflation has gotten. He fucking strung the Dems and libs along the whole time!

To make matter even worse, the Supreme Court recently stopped the Environmental Protection Agency from broadly regulating carbon emissions from existing power plants. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/15/climate/biden-inflation-climate-manchin.html

Biden pledged that the U.S. would reduce by at least half its emissions from a 2005 baseline by 2030. Now, experts say that will be virtually impossible to happen. 

Climate activists, environmentalists, and others like me feel so devastated and so let down by all this. We now may never have another opportunity to pass any kind of climate legislation of any kind of until about a decade or so. Environmental experts have been constantly sounding alarm on this matter for years and yet enough not people in power give a shit about it! 

I think the progressives were right about Manchin all along. I also agree with them now about how Biden should've threatened Manchin and his family be investigated by Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ for all of the crimes he and his family have committed if he didn't go along with many of the popular provisions that were in that bill.

I am really scared about what's going to happen to the environment of our country and rest of the world especially when or if someone like Trump or DeSantis becomes president in 2024, the Republicans take back the Senate and House by that year, and with even more conservatives in the federal courts! How are we and future generations of Americans going to be able to live with all this for the next 1 to 2 to 3 decades?!

Edited July 16, 2022 by Hardkill

[abundance]

Our situation isn't looking good at all. At this point I think its going to take something catastrophic for America to get its act together. With a radically conservative SCOTUS and Republicans possibly taking congress and eventually the presidency we may have to accept that climate legislation in America is dead for the foreseeable future. It will be disastrous for our world and ultimately an unfathomable crime against humanity (and life on Earth in general). 

Ultimately it may take a country like China to lead the charge when it comes to combatting climate change. 

[Hardkill]

9 minutes ago, abundance said:

Our situation isn't looking good at all. At this point I think its going to take something catastrophic for America to get its act together. With a radically conservative SCOTUS and Republicans possibly taking congress and eventually the presidency we may have to accept that climate legislation in America is dead for the foreseeable future. It will be disastrous for our world and ultimately an unfathomable crime against humanity (and life on Earth in general). 

Ultimately it may take a country like China to lead the charge when it comes to combatting climate change. 

On what alternate reality would China ever lead the world in fighting climate change?

They are about 50 years behind in overall societal development and for several years it has produce the largest amounts of pollution in the world. You think Xi Jinping or anyone will care at all within the next few decades about combating climate change?

[Leo Gura]

Climate change will not be prevented, it will have to be fixed in the future with new techology.

[whatishappeningtome]

It's so frustrating that one American senator can fuck up legislation which affects all of us around the world. In Australia's centre-left party (currently in government), if you cross-the floor and don't vote with the party you receive serious consequences. 

[Hardkill]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Climate change will not be prevented, it will have to be fixed in the future with new technology.

Of course it can't be prevented. It's already been here for many decades.

But what hope is there that we will be even have enough political will to develop the kind of new technology and infrastructure we would need to be able to prevent the catastrophic levels of environmental disaster that experts have been sounding the alarm on?

Also, how are we going to live through the next decades of much worse environmental conditions? Will the US become a much more hazardous country to live?

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by Hardkill

[Joel3102]

39 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Climate change will not be prevented, it will have to be fixed in the future with new techology.

Here’s a great article I ready today actually, that focuses on the need for technology.

https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/climate-change-isnt-that-hard

 

[Girzo]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Climate change will not be prevented, it will have to be fixed in the future with new techology.

What will sustain the new technology though? It can't be fossil fuels they are running out, human and animal labor also isn't it. It's either hit or miss if we find some viable energy source before the whole infrastructure and global supply chains crumbles.

[LSD-Rumi]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Climate change will not be prevented, it will have to be fixed in the future with new techology.

Leo, your political views sometimes are quite submissive. You cannot just postpone today's problem to the future. There will be a lot of damage from climate change and we are already experiencing it.

[BlueOak]

5 hours ago, abundance said:

Our situation isn't looking good at all. At this point I think its going to take something catastrophic for America to get its act together.

That's not how climate change works sadly. Its a very slowly increasing gradient of severity, that people adapt to and thus ignore. If it were something that was a huge event relative to normal life that happened over the most polluting areas, it would be difficult to ignore, but its usually nothing like that.

This is a large shadow in the human species, and their adaptability for once hurts them and their planet in the long term. I mean half of Australia was on fire, and they barely shifted their policy an inch. I occasionally watch Australian news coverage, and they still refer to climate policy as a climate cult, because you know everything that isn't status quo is a cult LOL.  I don't mean to bash Australia here, it's just a good example of the collective, and the dismissal of anything inconvenient to the individual.

For decades so many species are near extinction or have gone extinct globally that it's a joke, so other species suffering is of little collective concern to the human race otherwise that would be more important.

People complaining about immigration from warmer countries, resource wars (always called something else) and food prices, but they haven't seen anything yet. Food price is perhaps the one saving grace people will acknowledge in their daily lives, but even that adaption is just as likely, and the blame can forever be put elsewhere. 

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Climate change will not be prevented, it will have to be fixed in the future with new techology.

I tend to agree. When adaptability wins out over morality, inconvenience or suffering, I don't see that happening for a good long while. I even would ask why would technology be developed. What would be the financial return, given that most populations are still thinking in terms of zero-sum survival and purely individual value judgments. 

The only thing that comes to mind is, someone could sell technology as life-changing for the people buying it, and how it would bring some immediate benefit to their lives, for example, in lowering food prices for the collective.

Maybe we are holding out for the collective jump to green, where things beyond personal value judgments are of paramount concern, rather than a luxury, but I don't see collective thinking yet in regards to the environment.

Edited July 16, 2022 by BlueOak

[BlueOak]

1 hour ago, LSD-Rumi said:

Leo, your political views sometimes are quite submissive. You cannot just postpone today's problem to the future. There will be a lot of damage from climate change and we are already experiencing it.

I agree we have to push for it, but he's also being realistic. Without the fight, the reasoning or the argument, things will be worse than they are otherwise. Technology might save the species, it might not, but unless there are people holding people's feet to the fire to get it done, it will come more slowly than it would otherwise.

[Leo Gura]

Suffering is an important part of how mankind learns its lessons.

[Yarco]

I feel for you GenZ'ers. It's clear from the frantic and desperate talk here that you really believe the world is going to end in 5 or 10 years if we don't do anything. I'd ask you to open your mind to the possibility that maybe you've been fed propaganda and things aren't as bad as they seem.

When me and Leo were kids, the environmental problems of the day were the Ozone layer and acid rain. We literally had a giant growing hole in our atmosphere over the North Pole and it was raining down acid. We basically just stopped using one type of ingredient in cans of hairspray and it went away.

The Earth is a lot more resilient than you give it credit for. Something that was pushed on us a lot more as kids was the idea of Gaia / Mother Earth. I don't know if the Earth is literally alive, but its systems are complex enough that it kind of acts like it. If humans really give the Earth more than it can take, don't worry, it'll swiftly throw us off like a bunch of fleas. If humans went away, plant roots would start ripping up sidewalks and roads and cities would be forests again in a couple hundred years. Even with modern pollution it's hard to mess things up in ways that can't be reversed in a couple of generations.

We can double our emissions for the next several generations and it'll be fine. What would climate change look like in the short term for most of Northern US and Europe? Slightly warmer climates and longer growing seasons for farmers, better productivity, more food and ability to reduce global famine.

We've been told the world was ending since An Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006. There was a point of no return, we passed it. There was peak oil, for some reason we keep discovering more and it's not going to run out in our lifetime or our grandkid's lifetime. The deadlines keep coming, we keep missing them, and nothing much happens. There's simply more important stuff for us to worry about right now when inflation is 9% month over month. We can wait 5 years to make sure most of the country doesn't go homeless first. Up to 150 species go extinct every day, it's just a part of life, been that way since the dinosaurs.

 They will always make it into a crisis and say "this is your last chance". They need your votes and money to keep the grift constantly going. If you had been alive for another decade like me, you'd see this cycle just keeps playing out over and over no matter what is done. There's always more needed to save the environment and it'll never be enough.

What meaningful change would we get if the bill Manchin shot down had passed? Corrupt US officials would get kickbacks from all the Chinese companies like solar panel and windmill manufacturers they're invested in. A bunch of it would get embezzled and disappear to corruption. Americans in the oil and gas sector would lose their jobs and people overseas would get worse paying jobs with worse conditions. Less strict environmental controls in countries overseas so toxic sludge would just get dumped into rivers or chemicals into the air without the EPA to oversee, and at least keep it below certain levels. American homeowners would get penalized. There's more important things to pay for in the middle of a recession than CO2 emission studies.

[BlueOak]

@Yarco

Because of human adaptability without over sensationalizing the severity nobody ever does anything or pays attention to how things have changed one decade to the next. I can physically see very little snow compared to when I was a kid, and much hotter temperatures. Further the biosphere will survive long after we are dead. It is no exaggeration to say people will not be able to feed themselves as easily in the coming years. Threads like this and media coverage to kick people up the behind to keep on advancing agricultural technology or climate policy, are very much required. There will be a point when a % of a population dies of heatstroke for example, that will happen at some point. You need your body temperature to be above 40c for an extended period to experience heatstroke.

This week in the UK we hit for the first time ever 40c. Ten years from now what will we hit 45? 10 years after that 50? The time period isn't important so much as the fact it will happen, by that point what temperature will places like spain be at? It's the extremes that will cause death so they are worth highlighting. Eventually, when 40c become the norm for a summer nobody will care, because we'll adapt.

I remember for the longest time farming and food was never talked about. It is also not an exaggeration to say some areas of the planet will become uninhabitable more as the years go on either through flooding, changing weather patterns, or these extreme temperatures making living there increasingly difficult. They already are, which is why resource wars have been happening for decades, and as food/fuel often underpins the strength of an economy its why emigration happens gradually out of these areas.

For people who don't need to be told look here is an impending disaster, let's do something about it in headline. As I say its been a gradual change for the worse across my entire lifetime. Certainly not a gen z :D, but I appreciate the compliment. It's not even consistent, it's just a graph over a long period of extinction, rising temperature, rising sea levels etc. Its a clear pattern that is not being reversed because its not given priority. 

Now you add two huge economies like India and China, well the problem will accelerate, as all the 2nd world in Asia, for example, become first world nations, and all the 3rd world fully industrializes.

Edited July 16, 2022 by BlueOak

[abundance]

9 hours ago, Hardkill said:

On what alternate reality would China ever lead the world in fighting climate change?

They are about 50 years behind in overall societal development and for several years it has produce the largest amounts of pollution in the world. You think Xi Jinping or anyone will care at all within the next few decades about combating climate change?

It isn't too hard to imagine China taking the lead. It has to become a severe enough problem for them first. Look at the draconian steps they took to curtail the spread of covid. China isn't held back by the back and forth bickering of Congress and can take immediate drastic steps at the stroke of a pen. Sadly at this point I think its going to take an authoritarian government to do what's necessary to mitigate climate change and it may involve taking some actions that turn our stomachs here in the West. 

Our Democracy isn't suited to deal with an issue as encompassing as climate change. Our populace is too ignorant and can barely vote in politicians who acknkwledge its even a real issue 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2022 by abundance

[Girzo]

3 hours ago, Yarco said:

There was a point of no return, we passed it.

Yes, and irreversible mass extinction of insects and wild animals has started. That's not a good thing.

3 hours ago, Yarco said:

There was peak oil, for some reason we keep discovering more and it's not going to run out in our lifetime or our grandkid's lifetime.

That's naive point of view, the oil is in fact getting worse and worse in quality, you need more and more of energy to extract the same amount of energy. Temporary bail-out is not a solution to a problem. What luckily hasn't happened in 2008 might come now in 2022 and upcoming years. The gas prices are nearing the after housing crisis levels amd that has been a time of dire finanancial situation for many.

It won't be the end of the USA but it might be like the end of the world for 10 million of Americans, and that sucks.

[Hardkill]

So guys, since Biden first took office, what exactly have the progressives and climate activists achieved?

Should every progressive and climate activist out there just give up on their efforts altogether for fighting climate change given the fact that they totally failed to pressure Washington to do anything about it? 

Or should they perhaps fight back in another decade or so? 

[BuddhistLover]

World will be here for a long time, the question is, will you? How is your life working out so far? Hope it's all going on track. 

[DocWatts]

The United States needs to be a functioning democracy before it has any realistic chance of addressing Climate Change, or any other systemic issue for that matter. 

Which means that democratization politics needs to be prioritized before any other issues facing the country can realistically be addressed.

Which in actionable terms means restoring the Voting Rights Act, ending gerrymandering, major overhauls to how the Supreme Court functions, abolishing the Electoral College, publicly funded elections, removing corporate personhood, Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico, and disrupting the right wing radicalization pipeline which is fueling the mainstreaming of fascism.

Of course all of this is easier said than done, and won't happen without widespread political engagement. My fear is that this won't happen until conditions imposed by a far right reactionary regime become so bad that life becomes unbearable for a large portion of the country.

Edited July 18, 2022 by DocWatts

[Leo Gura]

On 7/16/2022 at 3:38 PM, Hardkill said:

Should every progressive and climate activist out there just give up on their efforts altogether for fighting climate change given the fact that they totally failed to pressure Washington to do anything about it?

Your thinking on how progress happens is too black and white and simplistic. That's why you're getting hung up on this stuff.

Progress isn't some battle you win or lose once. It's a neverending evolutionary process that started billions of years ago and will continue for billions more. See yourself as just in the middle of that and be at peace.