To be clear: there’s a night-and-day difference between Biden and Trump, with the former having actually taking significant action, and being likely to take more if reelected. Trump will look to maximize both extraction and consumption of fossil fuels in a way that Biden simply didn’t and won’t.
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there’s a night-and-day difference between Biden and Trump, with the former having actually taking significant action
I would personally define the word “significant” in such a way that excludes actors who do not take action which meaningfully prevents or lowers the risks of the upcoming climate apocalypse. Biden has not done this IMO. He has done some things which are okay for the environment, but just as many that worsen the situation. At the end of the day, both candidates are content to make policy which does not stop the world from boiling. It is counterproductive to pretend otherwise.
No one government can do enough. He’s shifted the emissions trajectory of the US in a meaningful way. That’s enough to earn my vote when the alternative is so much worse
He’s shifted the emissions trajectory of the US in a meaningful way
That’s simply not true. Biden doesn’t give a shit. He’ll be dead before the climate apocalypse occurs, and everyone he works with is paid by big oil to not go “too far” with environmental regulations. Sure he makes it look like he’s making a difference, but the fossil fuel lobby has thus far been succesful in preventing any major countries from taking significant action on climate change.
Don’t believe me? Here’s how world governments are doing at regulating climate change:
You really think Biden, who is fundamentally the same ideology as previous Democrat presidents, is going to do anything different? It’s worth noting Biden was present at the Paris agreement and pushed for weaker language in the agreement to weasel out of the US needing to take any significant action.
To be clear, I think obviously people should vote for him given the alternative. But only because America is a profoundly broken country and that senile old coot is the best option available. I’m just deeply suspect of anyone who says that Biden is actually doing good on the climate, since it’s obvious to me that he really isn’t.
That graph is a highly misleading way to evaluate a single national leader because China sharply increased their coal burning at the same time the US and EU started to cut emissions.
All true. But the unfortunate political realities the Democrats are facing seem to be that voters just don’t care enough so it’s political suicide to take strong action against compare change.
If voters actually cared about climate change, then it would be a major part of the platform. But there’s a huge swath of the population that only cares insofar as it doesn’t inconvenience them, or who have been brainwashed into believing it’s a “Leftist Conspiracy” while completely missing that the QAnon memes they got their “facts” from is literally a conspiracy.
We’re fucked. Biden doesn’t have the political strength to take any political risks. We’re seeing the same in Canada, with Trudeau not having the political capital for anything that could lose ground to the Canadian Conservative Party (which is currently polling as over 99% likely to get a majority government if there’s no change in the next 1½ years).
I don’t know how we can de-radicalize the Christofascist Right, but we’re fucked until we figure it out.
My problem with the these lessor of two evils party liners is that they have no exit strategy or long term vision. It’s the same thing every two years as things steadily worsen overall. Certainly no room in their worldview to respond to climate change effectively or efficiently.
I hate reading articles like this. Sure we need to vote for the lesser of two evils. But we really need to get into more of an “emergency power dictatorship” mode. Maybe like making large parts of the economy planned economy under the rule of some radical technocrats. Massive wealth redistribution. But still maintain democracy for other areas.
And this would need to happen globally. Of course it won’t because the forces arrayed against it have far more money and have far better PR and institutional and ideological support.
But maybe we’ll somehow muddle through. Maybe we’ll somehow learn from all the death and destruction that we can’t afford to be this stupid on a global level.
If you think there is any comparison here in terms of magnitude, you should probably go have your head checked.
Agreed, but magnitude doesn’t matter when the climate crisis is a binary outcome. Either we stop it or we don’t. Neither candidate is willing to take the action needed to treat the climate crisis like the existential threat that it is.
The climate crisis is an ongoing gradient of “this is bad” to “humans are extinct” and every tenth of a degree we can prevent is worthwhile.
We don’t prevent degrees though. The temperature is steadily increasing. At best, we delay degrees.
Unless we actually stop increasing carbon emissions (which we aren’t doing right now), we’re fucked.
Marginal gains add up to the changes we need. All or nothing thinking will kill us all.