"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

can't be serious when Bernie or AOC or Markey

AOC is especially good at messaging on this: making it clear that the leadership is completely backwards BUT that continuing to push until they fix their hearts change their minds or die is the only practical option right now.

I don’t agree with your ahistorical nihilism, I don’t think Ill belabor it further.

Saying something doesn't make it so, bro. "The President leads and sets the agenda" is... the opposite of 'ahistorical' and has nothing to do with nihilism.

Rural isn’t the half of it. To get from one city to another you need jet fuel. To do any kind of construction work more serious than home remodeling you need diesel. Energy independence has been a pillar of national security policy going back to 1973. But let’s ignore all that because context is for nerds and centrist melts.

Saying something doesn't make it so, bro. "The President leads and sets the agenda" is... the opposite of 'ahistorical' and has nothing to do with nihilism.

... Nixon proposed the very existence of the EPA, he wasn't browbeaten into signing it.

Like, I know some people started trying to convince themselves in the primaries that the President isn't actually that important, Joe Biden has no beliefs and no ideology and that in a complete reverse of the way American politics has worked for our entire lives he'll never be heard from except to sign bills... but that's not the way it works.

It’s completely unsurprising to me that you’re the type who reads the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article and stops

Energy independence has been a pillar of national security policy going back to 1973.

If we'd started switching to renewables from, say, 1983, when it became apparent that not doing so would destroy human life p quickly - would that not have made nations more secure?

great question sic let’s all think about that

To get from one city to another you need jet fuel. To do any kind of construction work... etc.

That's why building the infrastructure to support a carbon-neutral economy is absolutely the critical step that pulls everything else along. It's a bootstrapping kind of problem and to make it happen with any speed it must be part of a national blueprint, kind of like the Interstate highway system or rural electrification.

You can't wave a wand and say "fossil fuels are an awful way to run our economy, so we are outlawing them tomorrow". Or (for the literalists among us) you absolutely could do that, but the price would be near instantaneous social collapse.

It’s completely unsurprising to me that you’re the type who reads the first paragraph of a Wikipedia article and stops

Lol okay buddy. Tell us next about the Senate forcing Medicare on LBJ!

You do realize that moving the goalposts doesn’t mean you win the argument about historical facts?

Jfc

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/10/us/politics/dianne-feinstein-supreme-court-judiciary-committee.html

hey, milo, we've all seen you ride your favorite hobby horses about Biden and Harris enough times to know them down to the nth degree. you're getting stale. how about educating all of us about how bad Senator Feinstein is, you know, just for a change of pace?

Ah, the historical fact of the passive, retiring Presidency.

No, the historical fact of the President being pliable to the interests of the Legislature.

I’m not gonna read that NYT piece. Is it more “Dems in disarray” murc’s law nonsense?

great question sic let’s all think about that

okay!

Ms. Feinstein’s decline is far from the worst the Senate has seen in recent years.

oh good

xp no, it's serious concerns about gerontocracy

historically speaking, popular presidents have a much easier time selling new national policies than individual senators or representatives do. but whenever a president tries to sell a policy that is very unpopular in a senator's home state or a representative's home district, those senators or representatives become quite recalcitrant for some strange reason, regardless of which party they or the president belong to.

Aimless, of course you're right, but the problem is that those with the most power won't even pay lip-service to the smallest of changes to the way energy is produced and consumed in the US. As the situation becomes more and more dire, so do the demands, and the blame for that is solely on the same people who have been rejecting reality on such issues for decades. This is a perfect example of how and why many people on the left don't trust the centrist line of incrementalism and reform-- because it leads to situations that could have been addressed generations ago, but weren't.

Also, assuming all rural Pennsylvania loves fracking is ridiculous...many of the people who live in the areas where most of it happens actually hate it.

I’m not gonna read that NYT piece. Is it more “Dems in disarray” murc’s law nonsense?

A narrow majority of Pennsylvanians seem to oppose fracking. Biden isn't playing 12D electoral chess.

Based on my experience with old people and the early stages of dementia, Feinstein could gum up the works by telling incredibly long, involved stories with no resolution.

So... she should post on ILE?

If biden wins and feinstein stays on the current trajectory then gavin newsom gets to appoint two CA senators.

would be happy for Newsom to appoint even one senator.

I thought Western Pennsylvania overall was really for fracking, and assumed that Biden was calibrating his message to appeal to them.

Fracking map of PA is here: http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/drilling/

I'd say you're probably right about Western PA being more pro-fracking, but judging from local articles and news, the northern and northeastern sections of the state have grown increasingly anti-fracking as the enterprise has continued. The ban in neighboring states helps that equation too, obviously.

_Energy independence has been a pillar of national security policy going back to 1973._

If we'd started switching to renewables from, say, 19*8*3, when it became apparent that not doing so would destroy human life p quickly - would that not have made nations more secure?

The scientific debate about climate change was settled by then, too.

Climate change didn’t really become a public issue until 1988.

The Montreal Protocol was signed in 1987, and it took Australia's National Science Minister concerted efforts from 1984 to 1989 to manage to get a zero-emissions policy taken up*, but yeah I was just going for the rhyme of the two years.

*the next PM ditched it after an internal coup in 1991

morale is down in the thread again, trump needs to croak

xp montreal protocol was about the hole in the ozone layer - relevant to climate change because CFCs and HCFCs are horrific ghg multipliers, but not the main purpose.

1988 is a benchmark date in the U.S. because that's when james hansen testified in front of congress, prompting a bunch of media coverage and the first general audience book about climate change, The End of Nature by bill mckibben.

Based on my experience with old people and the early stages of dementia, Feinstein could gum up the works by telling incredibly long, involved stories with no resolution.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Saturday, October 10, 2020 8:32 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

So... she should post on ILE?

― rb (soda), Saturday, October 10, 2020 8:34 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I hear short, facile and boringly repetitive political opinions are currently en vogue.

kinda curious about this book:

https://www.mcdbooks.com/books/losing-earth

By 1979, we knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change—including how to stop it. Over the next decade, a handful of scientists, politicians, and strategists, led by two unlikely heroes, risked their careers in a desperate, escalating campaign to convince the world to act before it was too late. Losing Earth is their story, and ours.

I recall it came up in one of the climate change threads?

probably, I see now it’s like an expanded version of an NYT article series

Meantime.

A nurse who spoke at the Republican National Convention has been charged with shooting another woman in the abdomen https://t.co/8DVH9BV4qc

— Blake News (@blakehounshell) October 11, 2020

relevant to climate change because CFCs and HCFCs are horrific ghg multipliers,

GLENN: well, yeah. the criterion was "public issue," not "sole stated international policy motivator" :)

(having spent decades under the ozone hole and then also been unclad on beaches, and generally outdoors, on other continents, I promise you I'm aware of it)

Looking hale and hearty. pic.twitter.com/mLiWNiTkCS

— Schooley (@Rschooley) October 11, 2020

1988 is a benchmark date in the U.S. because that's when james hansen testified in front of congress, prompting a bunch of media coverage and the first general audience book about climate change, The End of Nature by bill mckibben.

― president of my cat (Karl Malone), Saturday, October 10, 2020 9:56 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also! https://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1989/1101890102_400.jpg

CBS: The Taliban on Trump: We hope he will win the election and withdraw U.S. troops

A senior Taliban member told CBS News, "Trump might be ridiculous for the rest of the world, but he is sane and wise man for the Taliban."

i've been saying

There's a ton of rural people who think the idea of giving up fossil fuel is utter craziness and their lives without gasoline/diesel fuel would be crazy hard. They have a point.

Almost all rural locales depend on agriculture or resource extraction to survive and in the 20th century these livelihoods became thoroughly entwined with mechanization from top to bottom. On top of needing fuel for work, many of them must drive long distances just to shop for necessities. They will fight like wildcats for fossil fuels until they can see how to live without them.

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless), Saturday, 10 October 2020 bookmarkflaglink

You've just ignored polling data showing a more complicated picture of a public that will embrace it once they are shown that they will be talked around with a plan.

Tomboto's winning the senate is just laughable in a country where the Presidency is so much of the focus.

Climate change didn’t really become a public issue until 1988.

Back To The Future came out in 1985

Tombot's running for Senate?

«... a public that will embrace it once they are shown that they will be talked around with a plan»

Haven’t seen the underlying data, but gotta say this doesn’t seem all too likely in rural USA

so glad to hear that t is no longer contagious.
Hope he goes around not infecting further people who should ideally be able to trust his word.

Hope the sanity prevails in a few weeks time and he doesn't spend his last 2 months in the house having a hammer party.

I don't believe a word of it.

nah nor do I.

BUt wouldn't put the hammer party idea past him, he's no longer going to need the premises and the garden's already been wrecked of historic ties.