Climate Change? Nahhh ...

But how does gender binary play into this? Or does They/Them kill 10 trees every time we use it as a singular?

 

*blinks*

Ok.

EDIT: Still wondering what is “obvious” about supporting LGBTQ people in Portland and climate change…

OK, so the lawsuit is … different … but how is them being inclusive relate?

 

https://t.co/JQvd3d1YL9

 

Pretty good column in Sunday's Seattle Times looking at how the 2021 "cap and trade" emissions law which hit fuel producers and refineries hard has resulted in Washington state having the costliest gas prices across the lower 48 (averaging about $5/gallon). Those rules have added an estimated 50 cents per gallon to the cost of gas here.

On the road between ‘hogwash and baloney’ on WA’s high gas prices

Now that might not be a bad thing — the point is reduce the use of fossil fuels, and if you put more taxes on them, people will hopefully figure out ways to use less. But as columnist Danny Westneat points out, it was not sold that way by Gov. Jay Inslee, who said these new rules might add "pennies" to the cost of gas.

 

In the case of Washington’s new carbon rules, at one point they were supposed to be accompanied by a tax credit or something like that to mitigate the impact on working class families. But that part never happened.

 

And of course, there ideally would be additional public transit options to give people alternatives to paying high prices for gas. Unfortunately, unless you live in the Puget Sound region, public transportation in Washington state is basically nil.

 

From the column:

I have a cynical theory about all this. After watching voters in our liberal, green state torpedo one climate initiative after another, I’ve concluded it might be impossible to pass one without strategically misrepresenting it to the public.

That’s because climate fixes are upside-down from what typically wins. They offer immediate pain for speculative future benefit. Pay now, make life better later. That’s the opposite of our usual political formula, which either sells prompt perks or puts costs on a credit card (or both — see federal budget deficit.)

In the end, I’m OK with the 50 cents per gallon, if it starts a shift away from fossil fuels. Beyond the spin job, the biggest failures are that the state didn’t come up with much to make oil companies eat some of those costs or to aid working people who can’t afford it.

Switching from a dirty-fuel economy to a clean one is going to be the most disruptive conversion our society has attempted in my life. The truth is 50 cents a gallon is probably just the beginning.

Should top officials be more honest about all this? Absolutely they should.

But no hogwash or baloney: Would anything ever pass if they were?

By the end, the columnist kind of wants it both ways - castigating leaders while ultimately suggesting the ends justified the means.

But, he's honest in the bolded part. And progressive leaders do not generally want to be honest about it. It's hard to ask for a nationwide effort at sacrifice when we've spent untold decades awash in "nobody can tell me what to do" individualism on a variety of issues.

 

Even that wording is rosier than the truth.

"Make life better later" than we're predicting it will be.

But absolutely no better than what we have today, because we're not dealing with removing emissions, just adding them at a far lesser rate.

So at the most all you can promise is "a lot of pain now, and if we're lucky things won't get worse later."

Good luck to anyone selling that to the masses.