Climate Change? Nahhh ...

So because China, Americans should do nothing or is this just a look over there move to take focus away from the fact American habits aren’t good for the environment?

 

Now you’re getting it.

The smartest conservatives don’t deny climate change. Like all government, they just declare it a lost cause and that we should all just give up. Just enjoy the bounty of capitalism and stop trying to solve the downsides.

When pressed on the possibility of the earth become uninhabitable, they stall by saying we as a species will just adjust or that God would never permit that to happen.

 

“Wear sunscreen, bitches.”

 

And what exactly do playing sports or air travel have to do with me specifically pointing out how much damage a large number of cows can do to a small area of land and the runoff going into the waterways?
Nothing.
Just because China won't do its part doesn't mean the US should throw in the towel.
Whatabout... Whatabout... Whatabout...

 

Not quite.

I think climate change is real. I don't know that I think the world is ending in 25 years unless very specific ideas - that simultaneously dovetail with things big city progressives don't care much about, like what cars they buy and windmills littered over half of a state - are enacted. That, to me, seems like the second-to-last pitch, which has since been discarded for "if you care about human justice, you will give us windmills and solar panels."

FWIW, I think it's possible we might have to make alterations to beef production. And global trade. And frequency of travel. And length of travel. And major trade tariffs on Chinese-made imported goods - like, say, phones - if China doesn't hit certain climate benchmarks. Lots of consumption-side things. Let's talk about all of that. And here's my hunch - just that, nothing more - my hunch is, once you start putting everything on the table, once conservative and progressives alike start cataloging the personal losses, then I think you'll see a "wait a minute" from progressives, because being human, losing stuff they like matters.

I'm not a conservative on this issue. I'm saying, OK, let's put every idea on the table. Let's think way outside the box - Americans can only have non-business travel to Europe over x number of months, for example. Then see how long the climate religion holds.

 

It is neither. It is, rather, an examination of how the United States repeatedly imagines itself as both a terrible nation full of an awful people and, simultaneously, responsible for putting the world on its shoulders and capable of doing so.

You can cut all the beef-eating you want; if China does nothing, the world isn't going to be saved from a damn thing in climate. Climate change efforts are not the top thing on a resume to get into the best college, it is, if you believe the strongest-minded among us, a last-ditch effort to save the planet. If that's what it really is - and not just some economic scheme using moral imperatives - everybody has to contribute in a big way.

 

Of course the world's not ending in 25 years. What is happening is a continuing upward curve in the release of pollutants that make the climate worse. If we don't get a grip on this, at some point in the not terribly distant future it's going to become a feedback loop that we can't control. We are now in the "can do something about it" stage, but edging toward the "could have done something about it". Fifteen years from now, maybe twenty, maybe less, I'm going to die. I won't be confronted with this. Its an obligation to those who come after. This is important, and kicking the can down the road on this will eventually be ruinous.

We can't make China do anything, but preaching at them while not we're really doing anything about it at home damn sure won't help.

 

Not really doing anything? C'mon.

But that's par for the prevailing mindset. The US hasn't done anything, but, simultaneously, is capable and responsible for leading the world in a last-ditch effort to save it.

 

If not us, who? Making an effort to save the world might not work, but not making an effort damn sure won't.

 

I feel safe stipulating that you don’t believe any of the Q-Anon crap, nor its ancestors like like the New World Order, the Trilateral Commission conspiracy, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, etc.

But you use that same basic scaffolding to construct your own overarching conspiracy theory. A nefarious group of Others, who don’t share your identical value set and thus must Hate America, are in conspiracy to end Our Way of Life.