Matt Davies for September 30, 2021

“Pay no attention to the party behind the curtain! … "

GQP: We must be responsible stewards of our country’s future since a democrat is in the White House. Besides, our legacy could use some tweaking.

GQP: “This is fine.”

Your problem with politicians is really a separate problem from global warming. Global warming is real, and is not a scare tactic. I know of no politician on either side who really qualifies as a climate scientist. And it is a rare politician who leaves Washington with less wealth than he/she arrived with.

Your point about Zoom meetings is good, but you are dealing with people who have always been “pressing the flesh” and using personal charm (or the opposite) to do business. They get more feedback (vocal and nonvocal) from the personal meetings. Also, shutting down a “nuisance” speaker (how ever you might define that) is easy with Zoom, not so much in person. Lots of those people do not like that aspect.

If you want a well reasoned discussion of what needs to be done, I suggest reading Bill Gates’ book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” It really is a good discussion of the problems associated with meeting a “zero carbon” goal. He’s not a politician saying, “Trust me! I am looking out for your interests, really!” (and lying and not discussing problems that will be encountered, etc etc etc.) His numbers are real, and generally a bit conservative, not outrageous. Gates gives you what costs are now, and what they are likely to be, and what they need to be if we are to cut emissions.

I should say that for a few decades, I pretty much despised Gates for his cut-throat way of doing business, and foisting upon the world a crappy operating system. (I worked briefly for a competitor in the 80s.) When the Gates Foundation started showing not only good intentions but excellent results, I became more neutral. That is why I even looked at the book in the first place.

Now Gates is supporting work for potentially breakthrough technologies with regard to energy, so he does have reasons to support green programs. Nevertheless, he is honest about what exists now, what may exist relatively soon, and what is further downstream.

RebuliCONs are happy with burning the whole thing down as long as the oil industry continues to fund there election campaigns

Without stabilizing the USA government, there will be no hope for combating climate change.

Of course if Americas financial dealings collapse so will virtually all of our efforts to combat climate change will also collapse with the “cheaper” short term option of going back to fossil fuels surging forward, sending the planet of the tipping point we really already passed over a decade ago.

Will it let the Rs stop thinking about failing in the last election? Stop thinking about their mob trying to overthrow the government? Give them a false outrage talking point? They’re all over that.

We can apply the debt ceiling logic to the climate. Legislate a temperature ceiling. Problem solved.

A balanced budget won’t save the planet, there is no plan B. We either fix it while we can or mother nature will fix us.

It is time to focus on understanding and correcting the debt. AND time to focus on climate change. AND time to focus on voting rights. AND time to focus on gender equality. AND time to focus on women’s rights. AND …

And we CAN focus on all those things. At the very same time. Because there are millions of us and hundreds of federal politicians with thousands of staff to help ’em. What we cannot do, quite apparently, is work together to prioritize. Because just about half of the politicians are unwilling to do anything that “hurts” the obscenely rich, and the other half are unwilling to do anything that hurts individuals in large numbers.

So far, lately, the obscenely rich are winning.

The average person cares little about climate change, they have house payments and other things to worry about.

As has been pointed out . . . $3.5 trillion over ten years is just 1.2 percent of projected GDP.

No, this is great. This way, we all die rich.