Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
Too bad all the people I'd like to say "told you so" to I've already purged from my life
Oh hey I know that guy. He won a presidential election, but then Fox News said “nuh-uh!” and for some reason everyone just sort of went along with it and handed the reigns to a war criminal instead.
I believe it was the Florida supreme court that said 'nuh uh' after several recount stalls and mismanagements. Florida govenor at the time in charge of directing recounts? Jeb Bush, George Bush's brother.
Then the conservative-led Supreme Court said 'we agree with said 'nuh uh'.' and quoted Florida's decision in their ruling. Which ruffled a lot of legal experts.
But hopefully it's a once-off horrible event that won't affect future legal decisions. Lemme check the names of the lawyers involved here.. Hmm John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. OK you guys are screwed.
But hopefully it's a once-off horrible event t
Lol. If only Americans actually had the right to vote. Oh I mean, if only their votes weren't complete pretend, because unlike pretty much the rest of the developed world, there's no direct presidential elections.
Note: Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 but won the Electoral College.
You're not wrong but I think Fox news calling the race for Bush emboldened some others to do it, and that swayed public opinion, which matters in theory at least.
Yep, Fox led the charge in manufacturing consent for the ensuing legal “justifications” outlined in the comment above.
It is a rather incredible cast of characters considering current events, to say the least.
And Americans will still act surprised about their democracy being undemocratic
A lot of them still won't even admit it tbh
Every time Al Gore comes up, I think about how different things might be if Bush Jr. didn't steal that election.
seriously. no 911 (clinton administration had alkaida on their radar and begged bush/cheney to take them seriously and they properly did their role of being the central point of information without the patriot act) and the us being a leader in environmental concerns. imagine the milenium opening with continued peace and a decade concentrating on renewables and efficiency. Would not be surprised if it had been somewhat of an infrastructure type thing like biden and you know another stab would have been taken at healthcare. I could see bernie influencing him during his time. Its funny because I was someone plugged into environment things but until his movie I was really not plugged into gloal warming. As myself and other like minded doomers like to mention even if global warming were entirely fixed we still have all sorts of environmental disasters on our hand with poisoning of earth, air, and water.
That's optimistic. People only learn from failure. Jingoists would have framed Gore as weak (like Carter) for letting 911 happen and not replying with a rampage, later to have gone on stupid wars anyway. People only remember the failures, not what was done right and managed right in the background for them.
Imagine if instead of all the money spent on the Iraq war had instead been invested in green infrastructure here in the US. Doubly so if 9/11 had been prevented and Afghanistan hadn't happened either.
If 9/11 didn't happen, there's no Patriot Act, no Homeland Security Act, no ICE, etc.
I can't even fathom how different this country might have been without those defining events.
During the last two years of Clinton's presidency, we had an actual fucking budget surplus. We could have been debt-free as a nation now, instead of sitting on nearly $40 trillion owed.
Imagine if the 2008 recession hadn't occurred...
Al Gore being President would not have stopped 9/11... that was a ball set in motion long before the 2000 election.
The response to 9/11 might have been different since the Clinton / Gore administration had tended to deal with international terror attacks on the US as criminal matters rather than acts of war... but up until then none of the terror attacks had been anywhere near as successful at 9/11, so it is entirely possible that Gore would have had a similar response as Bush in Afghanistan. And the Patriot Act and Homeland Security came from Congress, which would have been the same makeup no matter who the President was.
What would have been different is we very likely would not have gone to war with Iraq, and we possibly could have ended up breaking ties with Saudi Arabia, if not going to war with them, over 9/11. The loss of Saudi Arabia as an 'ally' would have been a huge benefit for green infrastructure in the US.
I could be wrong since it's mostly a vague memory at this point, but I recall reading at some point that Bush brushed off some reports in the handoff from the Clinton admin about Islamic terrorism.
So maybe 9/11 would have happened anyways and we just would have seen a different response, or maybe Gore could have acted on those reports and caught the perpetrators before 3000+ people were killed.
Bin Laden was #1 on the FBI's most wanted list for years. Everyone knew he was a threat. And 9/11 wasn't the first time that al qaeda trained militants attacked the World Trade Center... it was bombed during the Clinton / Gore administration. Years later they attacked US Embassies, and instead of sending troops in to try to get Bin Laden, instead they launched missiles at an al qaeda training camp. Then all qaeda attacked the USS Cole, and again the US government under both Clinton / Gore and Bush did little to nothing as a response. Clinton/ Gore had 8 years to go after all qaeda and did very little... Bush had 8 months.
The issue wasn't that the US government (under either administration) didn't take it seriously, the issue was that the FBI, NSA and CIA weren't communicating the information they had... and that's what the Department of Homeland Security was supposed to help resolve. The mission of DHS was good... the (lack of) guardrails, was not.
Its also possible they would indeed stop 9/11 but that doesnt stop them from trying again later and maybe they blow up a sports stadium full of people instead.
Stopping one thing by no means means stopping future things.
Edit: just to be very clear here, stopping 9/11 short of taking out Bin Laden and the leadership would have just resulted in them planning something else amd trying again. They weren't ever going to stop trying. We might have had intel about 9/11 but that doesnt mean we'd have Intel on the next thing.
the clinton administration was well aware of al kaida as a threat and desperately tried during transition for the bush adminstration to see that. In addition they understood the role of the presidency in connecting the dots between different agencies intelligence reports. I like its very very likely they would have identified and stopped it before they got to the planes.
That's what I mean. Virtually everything would be different.
People say Clinton's win solidified the corpo-facist bipartisan agenda. I'm not sure. I thinks Gore's loss did. I think we would have seen a lot fewer mergers and less consolidation, in addition to what you mentioned.
For All Mankind did a "what if" and had him win in their alternative timeline.
And there is my reason to watch it, thanks
Its not as relevant as you'd think, it was more like an Easter egg.
The real changes are all because the Soviets landed a person on the moon first, not the US and the ripples that causes.
Things are already very different by the time they mention Gore winning.
Its a great show.
That's not a good thing...