Biden literally just cancelled oil and gas leases less than a week ago. I agree he hasn't done enough, but there is some validity to the old statement that perfection is often the enemy of good.
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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That's stopping something trump tried to do from happening...
It's good, but we need to do a hell of a lot more than just sometimes stop things from getting worse.
That's pretty much the entire reason people don't like moderates. Why wait decades to fix something instead of fixing stuff now?
The graph from OPs link shows a significant drop off under Obama, a steep rise under trump, and then another drop off under Biden. Kind of follows the Dem-Rep seesaw I've been experience for decades. It's depressing that the Dems can't do more, but the reality is they are also funded by the deep pockets of the fossil fuel industry, Dems can barely hold onto majorities as it is, and voters vote for these morally weak candidates over and over. I'm really at a fuck-this-place, and fuck-all-these-people stage. The only thing I really regret is bringing a kid into this world. Just very selfish and narcissistic on my behalf.
I’m really at a fuck-this-place, and fuck-all-these-people stage. The only thing I really regret is bringing a kid into this world. Just very selfish and narcissistic on my behalf.
Can't say I've ever related to a statement this hard for a while. It's all just a shitshow and we seem to be at the "fuck it, let's ramp this up to 11" stage of self-extermination.
It’s all just a shitshow and we seem to be at the “fuck it, let’s ramp this up to 11” stage of self-extermination.
meanwhile a third of the people are saying "oh we've got time, we just have to convince the people to come together and unify"
and another third that's saying "FUCK YOU I HAVE FIREARMS AND WILL ROLL COAL AS MUCH AS I WANT I WILL LITERALLY SPEW OIL! I AM ANGRY ALL THE TIME BECAUSE OF THE PAINT CHIPS AND LEADED FUEL EXPOSURE OF MY YOUTH AND ZERO HEALTHCARE INFRASTRUCTURE AND WILL PUNISH EACH AND EVERY OTHER HUMAN BEING WITH MY EFFLUENCE."
We're stuck between kumbaya unity types and petrofascists meanwhile the world is COOKING.
Meanwhile the Shell, Exxon & BP execs are just happy no one's coming after them yet.
and we seem to be at the “fuck it, let’s ramp this up to 11” stage of self-extermination.
We do?
Here in the United States the amount of electricity generated by coal burning has dropped by 50% in the last 20 years and in that same time frame renewable energy has more than doubled. Greenhouse Gas emissions per capita were lower in 2020 than they were in 2000 and we now generate more energy from renewables than we do from coal.
https://usafacts.org/topics/energy/
We can argue that the changeover to renewables isn't happening fast enough but "fuck it, let’s ramp this up to 11" isn't happening at all, it's actually quite the opposite.
one part of the population is trying desperately to change the course, the other is rolling coal, opening new wells, spewing gigatons of methane from their fracking operations and standing around with their thumbs up their asses wondering why it's so damned hot now that a dem is in office.
the people trying to change the course won't make a difference once the bus has gone off the cliffside mate.
Why wait decades to fix something instead of fixing stuff now?
The United States is not a Command Economy and The President is not a Dictator. The US via private enterprise is dumping ever larger sums into renewable energy production and is definitely making progress. It's not happening fast enough but it IS happening.
Moderates when something happens:
We did this!
Moderates when nothing happens:
Don't you know how the government works? We can't do anything
No one is demanding he succeed, we're just asking that they fucking try.
Bring stuff up for a vote and let people who see how their reps represent them.
The Republicans control the House of Representatives. Nothing can happen right now in the direction that we need as a result because zero of them will vote for it.
The Inflation Reduction Act barely passed with Vice President Kamala Harris as a tiebreaking vote in the Senate because it was structured to fit within the budget reconciliation rules and therefore not subject to filibuster.
It's going to take a lot more Democrats in both the House and Senate before a moderate President can pass climate legislation. Even then, it'll need to survive a court that's hostile to the idea.
That’s really the fundamental issue, isn’t it? There is absolutely no democratic processes on the federal level. We get to pull a lever once every two years, and that is supposed to be a meaningful democratic participatory process.
There's a lot you can do besides voting.
Candidates need volunteers and money. There is organizing to do. Papers which need letters to the editor, and state and federal officials who need to hear from you.
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Our left wing party is still opening new coal and gas mines so be thankful for whatever progress you get I say.
Seriously he couldn't pass the Build Back Better plan but then the Inflation Reduction Act provides a potentially unlimited amount of incentives/subsidies for green energy.
Painting him as "just a moderate" on this issue is some centrist level bullshit, OP. He's clearly giving oil, gas, and military convenient wins so they don't ruin the world before the next US election. Yes, the oil barons have more political power than a sifnificant amount of voters.
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We just have to learn the hard way don’t we?
As an elementary school teacher, “the hard way” is the overwhelming choice of kids. I don’t think it changes that much when they grow into adults.
Or we can work to stop things that are existential crises.
The sun is a nuclear furnace. Climate change IS nuclear war!
(we should nuke the sun)
Gotta nuke something
If it's good enough for Superman, it's good enough for me.
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Of course. Climate change is happening, and will keep getting worse until all the biggest countries agree to do and actually go through with doing something substantial about it (or to fully isolate the economies of those that refuse). Nuclear war is just an idea.
It's doubtful curbing CO2 output will put a stop to it now. We're already seeing the beginnings of feedback loops kicking in, and with them runaway climate collapse.
We've got pretty clear evidence that getting emissions to zero is enough to stop the increase in average surface temperature.
Right, we need net zero emissions, no further destruction of nature, and then we can start doing something to undo what we've already done.
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I've got some bad news... We're already there.
Not exactly. Most references to 1.5C are about the long term average hitting that level, not an individual year.
Given the trend, it's a pretty strong indicator we're there. What is long-term in the context of a change over 10-20 years, that's reaching a breakaway point?
You understand that when things are steadily moving in one direction, we'd need to overshoot the difference between the start of the reference period and the 1.5 degree figure by 100%(incorrectly assuming linear change - the reality is more exponential - far worse by the time it shows up)
For example - for a 1.5C change over 6 years, starting at 0C:
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Year 0 - real temp 0, average 0
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Year 3 - real temp 1.5, average 0.75
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Year 6 - real temp 3, average 1.5
The year to year variation is much larger than the underlying increase. We could easily see several years with the anomaly under 1.5C before
Then finally start making the companies that make a win out of it pay more taxes!! Like, CO² taxes, import/export taxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_oil_and_gas_companies_by_revenue
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The next 10 or 20 years? I just read an article that hit it already and will likely do it consistently over the next several years. The next 10-20 will likely few closer to a 3.6°F (2°C) rise.
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Putin might save us all when he orders some confused kid to turn those keys.
May I remind you global thermonuclear war is bad for the environment?
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Didn’t we just hit 1.5C today?
We're still some years from hitting an ongoing sustained average of 1.5°C above what it was in the late 1800s. That's what people mostly talking about when they say 1.5°C
This year will be above 1.5°C. Which means we did reach that.
What you're talking about is the average of yearly average temperatures. But it's not what we're looking at. We've never seen earth average temperature above +1.5. And averages don't move much. I don't care if next year will "only" be +1.49...
Ive seen fuck all investment in solar where I'm at. Id really like to contribute labor to it, but there's nothing.
A lot has been happening in the southwest US, including Texas.
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Unfortunately, Russia (and SA) complicate the matter. Russia earns based on the price of oil and if the US stops producing it that price goes up along with it. The world still will buy Oil and Europe especially relies on US Oil at the moment as they ween themselves off Russia’s. Oil is the main economic driver of Russia, and you can’t combat that without producing MORE. SA’s also in the mix as they have no real other (major) economic sectors to support their country and they know Oil is going away. All of this plus Climate change leave no good options on the board to choose from at this moment except to promote and support green infrastructure…which Biden has done. It all sucks.
Nobody is suggesting that the US suddenly and instantly stop extracting, but that it be phased out in conjunction with getting rid of the need for oil in the first place.
The Saudi royal family has an alternative at this point, which is to live off their sovereign wealth fund, which owns stocks and bonds outside the country. They are also sitting on several million barrels/day in reserve extraction capacity, and could pretty easily crash oil prices if they felt like it.
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