Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Over the past several weeks, I’ve included clips on the efforts of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to bring House Republicans in from the cold on climate change. McCarthy’s change of heart is likely attributable to polling numbers that clearly indicate Republicans are vulnerable on this issue with young suburban voters. The suburbs are showing themselves as fertile Democratic fields because of changing demographics.
The Trump administration has gone to great pains to purge Obama-era science advisers from federal advisory boards and replace them with their own. Trump’s scientists seem to have the integrity many of his administrative appointees, e.g., EPA Administrator Wheeler lack.
Impeachment continues to dominate the news in Washington. The Senate is in session and is currently debating the rules of engagement in the trial phase of Trump’s impeachment. It will be a while yet before the actual trial begins.
Impeachment and the pending Senate trial are understandably sucking most of the oxygen out of Capital City. Senate committee chairs are still deciding if hearings are feasible once the trial starts. Rules are that Senators must sit in their seats for the entire time.
Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have released a detailed “memo” as a prequel to climate legislation they will be introducing under the torturous title of The Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for our Nation’s Future Act (CLEAN Future Act or Act).
Feeding off of a failed UN Summit late in 2019, the almost daily release of reports updating and confirming climate science studies, student strikes, a continent on fire, and the already prominent place of climate in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, 2020 looms as a watershed political year for national climate policy.
2020 is already promising to be a watershed political year for national climate change policy. A failed UN summit in Madrid, new reports updating and confirming climate science studies, student strikes, a continent on fire, and the prominence of climate in the presidential race will all be in evidence throughout the year. The confluence of so many reminders that climate change is both real and already upon us means there will never be a better opportunity to put the nation on a sustainable path forward.
But there is another way to live, which involves re-localizing goods and services. Please bear in mind we will have to do this either way. We can quit oil on our own now in a graceful way that our children will be proud of, or we can keep going and be forced to quit when we are not ready. Now is the time to start working together to be free from this addiction.
Telling young Asian leaders that they’re basically on their own when it comes to defending against climate change because old people are not going to worry about this as much is not the message you should be sending.
Now is the time when the generations need to feed off each other’s strengths.
As The New York Times recently reported, “votes for the pro-Brexit Conservatives had 10 times the effective power of votes for the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats” as a result of the electoral system known as “first past the post.”’ And as Phil and I discuss, a voter in Wyoming has 3.6 times the electoral influence as one in California.
Phil and I discuss some of the biggest structural problems with our elections and Constitution, as well as some of his ideas for solving them.
Diné (Navajo) land and water protector and poet Lyla June Johnston suggests that the struggle of resistance against Trump and fossil fuels shouldn’t be one of hate-driven revenge against but, rather, a movement for life in all its sacred beauty. It’s not about winning, Johnston said in an interview with the podcast “For the Wild,” it’s about sustaining, diversifying, protecting and, above all, loving life.
The big news of the week—kind of—was Trump’s starting the paperwork for getting the US out of the Paris Climate Accord (Accord). Although Trump announced his intentions in June 2017, the rules of the Accord prohibited any formal action before a few days ago. The US won’t actually be off the Accord until November 4, 2020—a day after the next presidential election.
