The Global Warming Thread

[Moliere]

The last point is over the top though, I'll grant you that.

How about this one?

"guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States;"

Do we really want the government guaranteeing jobs? Are these jobs going to be pulled out of thin air? Or is Cool Hand Luke jobs of half the people digging a ditch and the other half filling it up? Yay! Full employment!

[Defiant]

McConnell's is apparently going to put it to a vote. Either to show a division in the party, or to tie all those Democrats as agreeing to every single aspect of the resolution, especially those that, if you're charitable, are only tangentially related to the environment.

Hopefully the Democrats react intelligently to this move, like demanding, you know, actual hearings before rushing a vote.

[Kraken]

The last point is over the top though, I'll grant you that.

How about this one?

"guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States;"

Do we really want the government guaranteeing jobs? Are these jobs going to be pulled out of thin air? Or is Cool Hand Luke jobs of half the people digging a ditch and the other half filling it up? Yay! Full employment!

One could read that as guaranteeing that everyone who has a job gets those benefits, rather than that everyone gets a job. But yeah, that's also way beyond a climate proposal. If you're going to legislate utopia, how about one where only people who want jobs need to have one? I have seen that future, and it is on Star Trek.

[Grifman]

It should be focused on addressing climate change. Adding an unnecessary Democratic wishlist into it muddies it's goals and will limit it's support.

Yep, you need to focus on the main issue - anything else just muddies the waters and makes a deal harder. If you think you're going to have a hard enough time getting agreement on this, throwing in other stuff is just going to make it hard. I think it is part of the naivete of the main backers.

[Defiant]

Lisa Murkowski sees 'Green New Deal' as opportunity to push stalled energy bill

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said Wednesday the push for a "Green New Deal" could provide an opportunity for her to revive a comprehensive energy bill she co-authored that would be the first update to the country’s energy policies from Congress in a decade.

A version of a comprehensive energy bill she co-authored with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., passed out of the Senate in 2016 by a 85-12 vote but failed to advance in the House. The legislation would boost energy efficiency and improve land management, infrastructure, and cybersecurity of the energy system.

It aimed to increase U.S. shale gas exports by speeding up the permitting process for liquefied natural gas export facilities, invest in research for industrial-scale batteries, and improve the efficiency of commercial buildings and homes.

Murkowski also said Congress could reach a compromise on promoting clean energy research, development, and deployment of technologies such as advanced nuclear reactors, carbon capture, and long-duration battery storage.

[Kurth]

The GND makes me want to throw up. It’s chock full of exactly the kind of extreme progressive crap that could go a long way to getting Trump re-elected. It gives him and his Fox mouthpieces so much ammunition.

It’s also so sad to see AOC falling to expectations, especially after all the shitty character attacks sent her way by the right.

Our politics is such a swamp. So much pandering. So little foresight.

[LawBeefaroni]

Universal Basic Income and a lot of the other stuff is necessary but this isn't the way to go about it. Holding moderate climate gains hostage for trying to save the world in one go is short sighted. Too short sighted if you ask me so I think this is more an attempt to get those items into the discussion than to pass any sort of climate legislation.

[Kurth]

Front page headline on CNN this morning: Dianne Feinstein's climate change talk with a group of kids gets heated

This is a terrible look for Feinstein. At the same time, this is exactly the bad position AOC and the Green New Dealers are putting Democrats like Feintstein. It really pisses me off. It also makes me very, very worried about the upcoming election.

[Pyperkub]

Feinstein is effectively a conservative Democrat.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

If climate change is as dire a threat as predicted (narrator: it is), we can’t take the Feinstein approach of only supporting half measures that have a chance to get passed by the current Congress. The discussion of the threat needs to be reframed so that the conservative plan of doing little is considered the fringe. The GND isn’t perfect, of course, but at least there are some people in Congress now starting to propose the sort of measures that will be needed if we have any hope of mitigating the worst effects of climate change.

[Defiant]

The video that was released was edited to make Feinstein look bad. Although she doesn't come off perfect in the unedited video, she doesn't look nearly as bad - she engages with the children, she says she's on the fence with the GND, she explains one of the issues she has with it, she gives them copies of the bill she sponsored and asks them to give her feedback on it, and she even offers one of them an internship. Feinstein also has a solid track record on the environment.

It was edited to make anyone who doesn't have doesn't support the GND 110% look as if they are out-of-touch, rude, "establishment" Democrats.

Climate Change is a serious issue that deserves honest and serious discussion. That will require conflict and debate, solutions and criticisms of those solutions. What's not needed is stunts like this that distract and prevent that.

[Defiant]

If climate change is as dire a threat as predicted (narrator: it is), we can’t take the Feinstein approach of only supporting half measures that have a chance to get passed by the current Congress. The discussion of the threat needs to be reframed so that the conservative plan of doing little is considered the fringe. The GND isn’t perfect, of course, but at least there are some people in Congress now starting to propose the sort of measures that will be needed if we have any hope of mitigating the worst effects of climate change.

What we don't need are solutions that try to do a million and one things, half of which have nothing to do with the problem.

If you want to address a problem, focus on that one problem, don't try to do a million things at once and end up doing nothing.

I'd be all for a plan that was ambitious and aggressive, if it focused only on addressing the problem.

[Zaxxon]

If climate change is as dire a threat as predicted (narrator: it is), we can’t take the Feinstein approach of only supporting half measures that have a chance to get passed by the current Congress. The discussion of the threat needs to be reframed so that the conservative plan of doing little is considered the fringe. The GND isn’t perfect, of course, but at least there are some people in Congress now starting to propose the sort of measures that will be needed if we have any hope of mitigating the worst effects of climate change.

This. I'm not necessarily a fan of the GND, but doing something less than ideal is far superior to any more time doing effectively nothing. Time is far more valuable than the money we spend on the problem even if we spend inefficiently.

[Defiant]

Feinstein is effectively a conservative Democrat.

She's not, although she is less left-wing than you would expect from someone from California.

[Dogstar]

If climate change is as dire a threat as predicted (narrator: it is), we can’t take the Feinstein approach of only supporting half measures that have a chance to get passed by the current Congress. The discussion of the threat needs to be reframed so that the conservative plan of doing little is considered the fringe. The GND isn’t perfect, of course, but at least there are some people in Congress now starting to propose the sort of measures that will be needed if we have any hope of mitigating the worst effects of climate change.

This. I'm not necessarily a fan of the GND, but doing something less than ideal is far superior to any more time doing effectively nothing. Time is far more valuable than the money we spend on the problem even if we spend inefficiently.

I'm with Kurth, and I'm with Zaxxon. We have to do something, but subjecting Democrats to some sort of ideological purity test on the Green New Deal (as well as other progressive policies -- which is a bit surreal given that Republicans seem to be doing the same thing in terms of either being for or against Trump) isn't a way to win elections. And if the Democrats don't win elections, not just for the Presidency, but for Congress too, nothing gets done. If nothing gets done, we have a vastly harder time even mitigating things, let alone heading them off.

The Green New Deal is full of idealism, and that's a good thing. However, the electorate isn't going to be instantly reconciled to all those ideas tomorrow, or even in two years (barring some unfortunate massive devastating event). The Democrats have to be practical as well.

[Jaymann]

I would vote for it.

[Kraken]

So would I. But I don't think the GND is meant to pass as written so much as to throw down a gauntlet. It will lead to serious legislation after it leads to a (D) president -- and hopefully Senate, too. It's a statement of principles. Not even the leftiest of leftists can think it would pass in the current government.

[Zaxxon]

Agreed.

[Zaxxon]

This piece does a much better job than I could putting words to how I feel about the GND and the general state of things.

The short version: this is a fucking emergency.

"The crucial decisions that will shape our species’ future will take place over the next decade. Dramatic change is the only hope of avoiding the worst."

The longer version:

If you are an American living a life that is relatively comfortable--that is, you're not living paycheck to paycheck, neither you nor any close relatives have serious health issues, etc--and climate change is anything less than the biggest concern you spend your time working to address, you are the problem.

We've got 10-20 years left to radically transform the global economy as drastically as has ever happened before in human history, or else the impacts will be beyond anything human civilization has ever endured, by extremely wide margins. Literally no other issues--political or otherwise--matter relative to addressing climate change.

The GND is at least trying to take a shot at describing how we address this crisis. Of course the GOP has no interest at all in even trying. The Democrat establishment would like to help but is not thinking nearly big enough.

Basically it's worth taking the GND seriously because there has been no other serious, sufficient option presented. Other comers are welcome. If they come now. Where are they?

Not making drastic changes, and doing so now, is unacceptable.

Really, I've butchered this. Just read the article.

[Holman]

I keep thinking about how the present and the future would differ if we'd elected Gore rather than Bush in 2000.

[Kraken]

We did elect Gore, by half a million votes. And sure, the world would *probably* have been better off with no Iraq war and early action on climate change, whatever other changes that what-if scenario would have wrought. But the majority of American voters keep trying to make the responsible choices. Our system just overrides them. So at a time when we need to be moving full speed ahead, we are instead reversing engines so the oligarchs can loot while the looting is good.

[hitbyambulance]

why didn't Obama's proto-GND initiatives take off?

[Defiant]

The Editorial Board of the Washington Post puts forward their own Green New Deal.

[Zaxxon]

The Editorial Board of the Washington Post puts forward their own Green New Deal.

If a universal carbon tax is on the table, sign me up as a supporter.

[Defiant]

The Green New Deal—a brainchild of progressive Democrats, particularly Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.)—has been controversial since it was released earlier this month. Several Democratic presidential candidates endorsed it, while others have noted that it's not realistic and would be fiscally impossible.

How much would it cost? At least $50 trillion and possibly in excess of $90 trillion, according to a report released today by the American Action Forum (AAF).

link

[The Meal]

Sounds like a National Emergency to me.

[Zaxxon]

I see what you did there.

[stessier]

The clouds may be our best friends.

A scary thought but at least it seems like it might be preventable.

[Zaxxon]

I've been reading David Wallace-Wells' new book that hit last week. In it, he summarizes the latest research into what effects we'll see at various warming levels. It's... Sobering. Definitely a recommended read. The optimistic scenarios are devastating.


I think you might like this book – "The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming" by David Wallace-Wells.

Start reading it for free: http://a.co/9gEW3HF

[Jaymann]

This is a Great Filter that no one has mentioned.

[Holman]

This is a Great Filter that no one has mentioned.

Hold our beer.

[Isgrimnur]

This is a Great Filter that no one has mentioned.

Hold our beer.

There's a hazy IPA joke here somewhere, but I can't find it.

[noxiousdog]

This is a Great Filter that no one has mentioned.

It gets mentioned a lot. It's just been ignored.

[Jaymann]

This is a Great Filter that no one has mentioned.

It gets mentioned a lot. It's just been ignored.

I stand corrected. I just haven't heard it.

[Holman]

I assume it gets filed under "technological species destroys itself" alongside nuclear and biological warfare.

[Defiant]

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1099126500924760064

Pretty arrogant of her to dismiss criticism, IMO, since there have been a number of serious proposals to address climate change through the years - with more substance than her resolution of goals, many of which have nothing to do with climate change. Why, here's one, right here

The Editorial Board of the Washington Post puts forward their own Green New Deal.

[Zaxxon]

Yeah, that one came out after the tweet.

[GreenGoo]

I kind of despise "we're in charge" mentality. You're in charge, for now. That can and does always change, so let's not pretend it means you're right or justified. It means what it means. You've temporarily got the power to ignore criticism.

[Isgrimnur]

It's pandering to the base at its finest.

[Zaxxon]

I don't like it either, and I don't like some of the non-AGW pieces of the proposed deal. But the larger point of that tweet resonates--what other on-scale proposals by politicians in power have you seen? Please share them.