At the age of 83, I now drive an EV (alas, a Tesla -- this is my last Tesla but not my last EV) and I've installed solar panels on my roof. I've tried to cut back on A/C although that's difficult during an NC summer. Climate change is real and we all have to do our part. The Bloated Yam will simply make climate change accelerate.
“Four years of encouraging carbon emissions and spreading misinformation, which is what Trump and Vance promise, could very well make the problem insoluble and the crisis irreversible. And this is a problem that will make all the other problems worse. It really is a matter of survival.”
We are in the last few days when doomsday predictions are permissible. Later in the week, if Trumpism wins, the question must become, “What is plan B?” Acceptance or Rebellion? If rebellion, what? Protest? Paying federal taxes to our states? Secession? Or? Speculation is one thing. Living under real tyranny quite another.
Ellen - You didn't clarify what sort of emergency you anticipate. The next emergency I expect is the result of this election. I don't favor secession under any circumstances, as there is greater strength and security for all in keeping the union strong. That said, I have some thoughts about the post-election period.
1) Between Election Day and Certification will be a time of ' 3W uncertainty (about who won what)'. I expect that will be the most dangerous time: if there is to be civil unrest, that is when I expect it. I assume that this idea has occurred to government at all levels as well, and that they have plans to quell any violent disturbances.
2) It Trump/Vance are elected, Anti-Trump voters will be in several camps. I expect:
a) The less-committed Anti-Trumpers will be depressed but generally docile
b) The 'institutionalists' , trusting in the strength of our democratic institutions, will leave it to Congress, the courts and the States to prevent or at least hinder any authoritarian, Project 2025 type mischief-making
c) the 'activists' will form protest groups and try to gum up the works, possibly by civil disobedience (refusing to pay taxes, 'occupying' government buildings, etc).
d) The 'outlaws' will undertake active measures to protest/sabotage Trump's policies from being carried out, similar to actions taken by the Weather Underground in the 60's and early 70's
e) The 'Resistance', if there is one, will organize large-scale disruptions.
If the Harris/Walz ticket is elected, see a thru e, only angrier and with more violence.
Extreme weather emergencies may actually modify people's reactions to the election. Survival is the priority when you are in the midst of a hurricane.
1) Let me clarify: I live in Berkeley. I am always prepared for an earthquake, since we don't get warnings for these, and we are way overdue. We are currently experiencing fire winds and will be through Thursday. My husband and son always keep their Go Bags in their cars. My stuff stays in the living room. The Bay Area is the 19th largest economy in the world. California is the fifth largest economy in the world. I imagine that our governor will make the right decision about anything we need to do.
2) When I was young Reagan mobilized the National Guard against the students (of whom I was one). I don't believe our governor will do this.
3) I don't believe there will be camps in California.
4) The "outlaws" (Anfifa???). Everyone laughs. Remember the Weather Underground only ever killed one civilian except themselves, and that was because he didn't get the warning. On the left, civilians are considered hands off.
I have full confidence in my county and state governments. As I said, I am always prepared for an emergency. Except for civil defense (fire) my city government is a joke. I've actually lived through police and National Guard violence and I have been prepared for it ever since 1969.
I don't know your background so I don't know what your experience is for any of your statements.
Glad you are so prepared, Ellen. Like you, I am a believer in having my go-bag at the ready. At the moment I think the most likely potential disasters are civil disturbances connected to the election, though I certainly hope that these will be minimal.
The importance of this reminder cannot be overestimated. While I understand why KH couldn’t achieve the unity she seeks while giving climate change the front seat it must have, the moment she goes to work on grocery prices the whole disaster will become front page. How many are left who remember the victory gardens, price controls, and rationing of WWII? I do, but recognizing that it was for the services was perhaps easier than thinking that the world must eat.
How many know that the European Union has already asked cattle farmers to reduce their herds and “grow more wheat because it feeds more people”?
May Jon Tester, our only farmer, be returned to the senate, and May we set out ASAP to appreciate our responsibility to understand, appreciate, and work for good food adequate to our situation in climate change.
I don't remember Victory Gardens personally, I'm a post war baby born in 1948. BUT I remember my Mom talking about our Victory Garden. My parents built their beautiful home in Long Island, NY in 1941. It has a HUGE backyard. I believe it was 200 or 250 feet deep! They planted at least 1/2 of it in all kinds of veggies. I think there was an apple tree too. My Mom's folks had a dairy farm in New Jersey & I remember her telling me how she would trade rationing stamps so that my folks could have enough gas to go to my grandparents' farm. Those were the days when people pulled together. My folks taught me about the importance of civility, empathy & sympathy. They stressed how important it was to promote goodness whenever possible. Where has that gone?
Do the really hard-core trump supporters really feel good after one of his rallies? Do they feel uplifted when they laugh at vulgar pantomimes of oral sex with a microphone? Does it do their "soul" good when they cheer about deporting people, shooting Liz Cheney, reporters? Are they really ok with that? If so, there will a lot of work to be done to undo the vile things that trump has glorified.
Let's elect joy! Let's elect hope! Let's elect Kamala for a chance for change for the better!
Climate change is one of the three existential threats that must be addressed after the Democrats sweep the election (the others are nuclear weapons and the global threat to democracy posed by Putin's war on Ukraine). I for one have paused my activism to prevent giving a false impression, but once the election is over I will be back in the streets and very vocal on these issues.
Please join us in pressuring the government for meaningful action on climate change, nuclear threat reduction and full support for Ukraine!
I voted and am trying to keep the stress down by reading Bob Woodward’s “War,” MSNBC on the side. I will be pleased to support you in any way I can in bringing climate change science into every consciousness in America. At 90 I haven’t money, but can write. Background: 2001-2011 on a small boat in canals of France, farming friends in Champagne, the Nièvre, and small town friends in l’Ain. Add to that farmers markets in Chicago, and gardening friends from one coast to another. You can reach me on Substack.
Presidential historian Allan Lichtman is standing by his September prediction that Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House. https://youtu.be/K5A_UKLe5uo
This (thoughts of the future of those who are young) motivated all my efforts to get Democrats elected up and down the ballot. Since January two babies were born into my family. I've left it all on the field for them, among all their siblings and cousins.
When I think of the climate I think of my granddaughter, she just turned 18, voted for the very first time, is now a freshman at the University of California at Davis, a premier college in veterinary sciences & agriculture. In reality it's a wonderful college for any discipline.
So I think about what she will have to endure as the climate disaster is unfolding around us. I've already had to evacuate my home in fear of a devastating fire. Fortunately my home was unscathed but I watch my state, California, drying up around me & watch so much of it succumb to flames. ( You'll recall trump's solution was to maintain the forest floor better! That's a solution that only a person raised in a big city would come up with. It even sported some funny videos from around Europe showing people heading into their forest with leaf blowers & vacuuma! Ah, yes, the Stable Genius at work again.)
It's already November & we haven't started our winter rainy season yet! The last 2 years gave us lots of rain which caused massive flooding in some areas & snowfall that literally snowed in houses where people died because power went out & they had no source of heat for days. The roads were so blocked that rescues were limited. It was wonderful to have the rain & the snow IF you weren't negatively affected by these once in a hundred years meteorological events, that happen way too often. But what will this year bring. I feel compelled to remind you that California has the 5th largest economy in the WORLD, not in the US in the world! Lots of that is the produce we grow here. The lettuce you eat, the fruits & nuts, the dairy products all require a climate that can be depended upon.
My family lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida. They were flooded out by Helene & were fortunate that the second hurricane that just says later came through didn't add to the damage. They live right on a river that empties into the Gulf about 1/4 to 1/2 mile away. So when trump comically claims that an increase in sea levels will provide MORE waterfront property you can see he hasn't got a clue how sea levels affects the land. And he lives in Florida, the state that literally has THE MOST to lose with threats of increasing sea levels! And Mar a Lago is just a few feet above sea level.
So, yes, I think about climate all the time~~~all the time. And I vote to protect it for my daughter & her husband & granddaughter AND for all mankind. If we think political unrest is bad now, just wait until there are even more climate refugees pressuring countries that offer some semblence of safety from climate & the whims of destruction that it will create.
Vote not only like your life depends on it but vote like the world depends on it because it does.
Do you subscribe to legal-planet.org from the law school at Berkeley? The top two articles today are on climate change. As someone in Berkeley, I'm completely with you. The Bay Area is also the 19th largest economy in the world. Yesterday I responded to Lucian Truscott's column on substack, and was called a Russian bot for my efforts calling out unnecessary driving. I told my son seven years ago, not to have children, because of my concern they would starve eventually. And this is me, who saved his baby clothes, and was already buying cute baby clothes. Well, I've stopped that. My son owns a Bolt, and we started leasing an Equinox this summer. Our solar fuels them and we love it (eight years and counting!) It's not just voting that counts, it's how we live that is so important too. Take care of yourself!
"Vote not only like your life depends on it but vote like the world depends on it because it does."
If we view this necessary and factual comment in an optimistic context choice and action, then each such vote provides and combines to inform the pubic, common point of view needed to produce workable policy and policy objectives that have multiple needed and mutually beneficial positive impacts.
I recall working on an Indonesian environmental development program in the 1980s. I'll never forget the Chief Scientist on the project saying to me...that we were beyond solutions like putting a brick the toilet to save water...we have to act quickly. At that time, we knew we had to change course. Yet now with the earth burning up and flooding it is still as hard an argument. We can't do this alone house by house. Corporations have to step up to plate and governments must do their job of saving the planet and ending suffering. Not causing it. VOTE
As a long-time member of Citizens' Climate Lobby, I am gratified by this post. I want to share it with other CCL members, but the Share link points to the post of November 1.
I imagine a world where the research departments of every university, college and community college and the government departments as well are funded well and work with but not for the private sector and with allied countries to move the world forward on technology, innovation to address climate change.
Fusion is mentioned several times in Dr Snyder’s On Freedom. We must choose to make our voices heard on climate change with the new administration and local and state government.
There is hope so let’s make this our issue to solve. Vote Blue!!!
In the age of resilience, we have to do many things at once and we have to be truly inventive. Resilience means adaptation and adaption has always been invention and creativity. The challenge is to move beyond binary thinking toward analogical, wave-like thought as a tool of consciousness. Imagining new worlds, new values, and new forms of activism requires thinking in a virtual space outside of the cul-de-sac of the possible and the real and our various given binary forms.
' Do Trump and Harris have climate change plans? See where both candidates stand '
September 10, 2024 / 11:58 AM EDT / CBS News (excerpts) See link below
Donald Trump's stance on climate change
Trump says he'll roll back parts the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping set of proposals to expand clean energy passed under Biden. He has also taken aim at the Green New Deal, which he derides as the "Green New Scam."
The Green New Deal is a non-binding set of proposals to tackle climate change introduced in 2019 by progressive Democrats Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. The resolution has not passed, but even if it did, nothing in it would carry the force of law.
On the oil and gas front, Trump has vowed to unlock new lands for drilling, expedite drilling permits and speed up approval of natural gas pipelines, among other initiatives. He has also indicated that he will restart liquified natural gas, or LNG, exports on his first day back in office, according to reporting by Politico. President Biden paused LNG exports in January, a move that was later blocked by a federal judge.
As president, Trump opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling through a $1.5 trillion tax bill. Environmental groups decried his actions, pointing to the threat drilling poses to Indigenous communities and the land that's home to nearly 200 species.
While his public statements clearly indicate a preference for an economy powered by oil, gas and coal over renewable energy, Luke Bolar, chief external affairs officer of ClearPath Action, a right-learning clean energy group, said there were "a lot of wins for clean energy innovation," during Trump's first term citing the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, the Grid Storage Launchpad, expansions and extensions of the 45Q tax credit, and the Energy Act of 2020, a variety of initiatives intended to improve and expand electrification, carbon capture and nuclear energy.
If elected, Trump has promised to undo what he calls the "electric vehicle mandate" of the Biden administration on Day One in office, a move Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said "will save America's auto industry and cut costs to reduce inflation and get our economy booming again."
The Biden administration has not issued a mandate but has introduced incentives to spur EV adoption, including a tax credit for those who meet income and eligibility requirements of up to $7,500 for new EVs and $4,000 for used EVs, and set a target that half of all new vehicle sales be zero emissions by 2030.
Trump has also signaled that he would drain funding from climate-focused agencies if he's elected. In discussing budget cuts, he told Fox News, "One of the things that's so bad for us is environmental agencies. They make it impossible to do anything."
As president, Trump proposed a 26% budget cut to the EPA in 2020 and a 31% cut in 2019, both of which were ultimately rejected by the Democrat-led House Appropriations Committee.
Kamala Harris' stance on climate change
Harris regularly touts the Inflation Reduction Act, which she cast tie-breaking vote for. In her interview with CNN, she said she believes the climate crisis is an "urgent matter" and the nation should apply emissions metrics and adhere to specific deadlines.
"We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act," she said. "We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension, the globe around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as an example."
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration introduced tax credits in an effort to spur electric vehicle adoption. According to reporting by Axios, Harris has not made clear whether she supports her previous stance of making automakers build only electric or hydrogen vehicles by 2035. A spokesperson from her campaign told the news site that Harris "does not support an electric vehicle mandate." CBS News has asked the Harris campaign for more information and is awaiting a response.
Before taking on her role as vice president, Harris held big oil companies accountable through her position as California attorney general. In 2016, she launched an investigation into Exxon Mobil for allegedly misleading the public and shareholders about climate risks. That same year, she also pursued legal action against Plains All-American Pipeline regarding a 2015 oil spill.
However, she's not expected to completely pull the plug on America's oil and gas production if elected president.
As a candidate in the Democratic primaries four years ago, Harris said during a CNN town hall that she was in favor of banning fracking, the process that involves injecting a solution of water and chemicals into rock formations to extract oil and natural gas.
But during a CNN interview on Aug. 29, she said, "as president, I will not ban fracking," a statement industry executives have quickly latched onto. Still, they remain skeptical about what her other energy initiatives will entail.
Oil and gas production reached record highs under the Biden administration. Mr. Biden approved almost 50% more gas and oil leases during his time in office than his Republican predecessor did during his first three years in office, according to reporting by Politico.
President Biden canceled the oil and gas leases in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were set in motion during Trump's final days and instead proposed stronger protections for the 19-million-acre territory.
While she was a senator from California, Harris co-sponsored the Green New Deal, but in August, her campaign told CNN she no longer supports the package of policy proposals. (CBS NEWS) See link below.
Thank you, Dr. Snyder. I volunteer with Citizens' Climate Lobby here in the USA. I would like to encourage everyone to check it out. From our website: "Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy climate change organization focused on national policies to address the national and global climate crisis." This December, I will be lobbying my R Senator to encourage him to enact the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, just one piece of bipartisan legislation that will help get clean energy on the ground. Thanks! Best wishes to you and everyone.
Thank you, Prof Snyder, for these observations and recommendations.
While it would require considerable writing space and time to provide an intro to climate science discussed within the understanding of the living world that the sciences of natural ecology, these observations are sound and not at all over-stated. A nationally coordinated conscious effort to make changes to consumer behavior and to the industries and practices that support and rely on continuous, almost feverish consumerism is the kind of effort required to, over a minimum duration of 4 - 5 years, see tangible evidence of needed environmental changes.
This sort of time frame seems to many an arbitrary frame. What it does do is to make clear the changes in impacts that our industrial and consumption choices have on all other living things, impacts which when significantly and permanently made less in a programmatic way, provide us with evidence of our capacities to make doable changes while improving the living worlds' communities of living things to adapt, change and recover robust vital activities and reciprocal contributions to the integrity of the working relationships that make life possible and that impact the qualities of being alive.
Harris and Walz are markedly and vitally different from Trump and Vance and the conservative right communities in their understandings of these ecological imperatives for change.
Changes in human consumption patterns and specific activities will not 'crash' the economy and will not make living less comfortable and innovative. Quite the contrary, traditional lifestyle and production activities and understandings of risks-benefits are clearly understandable as a mix of unnecessarily exploitative practices and interests along with basically sound objectives for healthful and sustainable living.
Are there already practices that make this clear and convincing? Yeah, many.
For example, improved biological agricultural practices are a prime and important example of vitally necessary and practical changes in producing a necessary resource, food, that can improve ecological sustainability and improve nutrition from foods grown and used. That biological practices have taken forms that had to integrate into free market institutions means that, as small and privately operated operations in the US, both production resources and product pricing decisions were distorted by reductionist, competitive and market pricing constraints. We cannot do without biologically and ecologically sustainable, decentralized farming practice and operations, but we can see it as an important contribution to supporting efforts to expand it for its highly productive, ecological, and nutritional benefits while consciously amending the larger public expectations and norms for making it available to all consumers.
Other basic needs and reasonable needs-based production and distribution expectations and norms can, like wise, be understood and made into real practices. Community design alternatives that are novel in respect of intelligent decentralization and democratic management and that have very remarkable positive ecological impacts include familiar activities such as practical and accessible transportation choices, manufacturing-recycling-reuse-resourceconservation operations, local power sourcing and power conservation activities .... These are obvious examples.
Harris and Walz are eager to work with all Americans and ally with others throughout the world who are testing and doing ecologically sound and significant activities development and applications. We need this eagerness, future generations need this eagerness and need all of us to bring it into activities of our communities now.
Same. It has not really rained in TN since May. I had to use a lot of drip hoses to keep my garden alive, and I had big water bills. Haven’t worn a coat yet and I get hot on my walks. I have to sleep with a window fan going, in November. Most people here seem unconcerned, as they are not gardeners. Maybe they haven’t even really noticed, or at most, think that the weather is unusually “nice,” unless of course they live in NC, which I just visited. My grandparents’ town is mostly cleaned up now, but the huge trees on the ground and the wrecked houses are evidence of the power of bad weather. Everybody I talked to there is acutely aware of the reality we now face.
I wonder why people in TN are so blasé about the fact that the summer was so dry and the fall is now so warm. I suspect that most people have really not noticed. It would have been all anybody could talk about 100 years ago. But these days, people spend most of their time inside. They come out a little, to see if it's a "nice day." This neighborhood used to be a neighborhood of farmers and gardeners. There are about twelve households and thirty people here, but now, only three people try to grow any food, even a tomato plant. Yet this is a rural area, formerly mostly dairy farms, that is now "farmettes," or small farms of about 15 acres. There is plenty of room on every farmette for a big garden, but most people just have no interest in growing anything. Some people have a few chickens. So when a serious drought strikes, they don't even know.
The creek that runs through this neighborhood is as low as I've ever seen it. Again, my neighbors, who sometimes take their kids down there to throw rocks at the water, have not commented on that, but they haven't lived here for forty years like I have.
Or maybe people are too terrified to talk about it? People in WNC sure do talk about it. They have been through a terrifying "horror," as they put it. They can't look away. They are still shaken by the events of a month ago, although Asheville and some of the surrounding towns look sort of ok. It took a very long time to get there from TN, though, because of the disastrous destruction of I-40. All the traffic is now on two-lane roads, which means that huge tractor-trailers are driving right toward you in the opposite lane at 55 mph. It's scary.
Trump and Vance and their climate denying cohort are a bit reminiscent of the Southern slave aristocracy who managed the Gag Rule, forbidding even a conversation about slavery in Congress. And then there’s always the NRA who managed to squash any governmental discussion of the medical concerns surrounding gun violence in this country.
At the age of 83, I now drive an EV (alas, a Tesla -- this is my last Tesla but not my last EV) and I've installed solar panels on my roof. I've tried to cut back on A/C although that's difficult during an NC summer. Climate change is real and we all have to do our part. The Bloated Yam will simply make climate change accelerate.
“Four years of encouraging carbon emissions and spreading misinformation, which is what Trump and Vance promise, could very well make the problem insoluble and the crisis irreversible. And this is a problem that will make all the other problems worse. It really is a matter of survival.”
We are in the last few days when doomsday predictions are permissible. Later in the week, if Trumpism wins, the question must become, “What is plan B?” Acceptance or Rebellion? If rebellion, what? Protest? Paying federal taxes to our states? Secession? Or? Speculation is one thing. Living under real tyranny quite another.
He won’t win, so, you won’t need alternate plans.
You should always be prepared for an emergency. I live in California, I favor secession for us if it becomes necessary.
Ellen - You didn't clarify what sort of emergency you anticipate. The next emergency I expect is the result of this election. I don't favor secession under any circumstances, as there is greater strength and security for all in keeping the union strong. That said, I have some thoughts about the post-election period.
1) Between Election Day and Certification will be a time of ' 3W uncertainty (about who won what)'. I expect that will be the most dangerous time: if there is to be civil unrest, that is when I expect it. I assume that this idea has occurred to government at all levels as well, and that they have plans to quell any violent disturbances.
2) It Trump/Vance are elected, Anti-Trump voters will be in several camps. I expect:
a) The less-committed Anti-Trumpers will be depressed but generally docile
b) The 'institutionalists' , trusting in the strength of our democratic institutions, will leave it to Congress, the courts and the States to prevent or at least hinder any authoritarian, Project 2025 type mischief-making
c) the 'activists' will form protest groups and try to gum up the works, possibly by civil disobedience (refusing to pay taxes, 'occupying' government buildings, etc).
d) The 'outlaws' will undertake active measures to protest/sabotage Trump's policies from being carried out, similar to actions taken by the Weather Underground in the 60's and early 70's
e) The 'Resistance', if there is one, will organize large-scale disruptions.
If the Harris/Walz ticket is elected, see a thru e, only angrier and with more violence.
Extreme weather emergencies may actually modify people's reactions to the election. Survival is the priority when you are in the midst of a hurricane.
1) Let me clarify: I live in Berkeley. I am always prepared for an earthquake, since we don't get warnings for these, and we are way overdue. We are currently experiencing fire winds and will be through Thursday. My husband and son always keep their Go Bags in their cars. My stuff stays in the living room. The Bay Area is the 19th largest economy in the world. California is the fifth largest economy in the world. I imagine that our governor will make the right decision about anything we need to do.
2) When I was young Reagan mobilized the National Guard against the students (of whom I was one). I don't believe our governor will do this.
3) I don't believe there will be camps in California.
4) The "outlaws" (Anfifa???). Everyone laughs. Remember the Weather Underground only ever killed one civilian except themselves, and that was because he didn't get the warning. On the left, civilians are considered hands off.
I have full confidence in my county and state governments. As I said, I am always prepared for an emergency. Except for civil defense (fire) my city government is a joke. I've actually lived through police and National Guard violence and I have been prepared for it ever since 1969.
I don't know your background so I don't know what your experience is for any of your statements.
Glad you are so prepared, Ellen. Like you, I am a believer in having my go-bag at the ready. At the moment I think the most likely potential disasters are civil disturbances connected to the election, though I certainly hope that these will be minimal.
The importance of this reminder cannot be overestimated. While I understand why KH couldn’t achieve the unity she seeks while giving climate change the front seat it must have, the moment she goes to work on grocery prices the whole disaster will become front page. How many are left who remember the victory gardens, price controls, and rationing of WWII? I do, but recognizing that it was for the services was perhaps easier than thinking that the world must eat.
How many know that the European Union has already asked cattle farmers to reduce their herds and “grow more wheat because it feeds more people”?
May Jon Tester, our only farmer, be returned to the senate, and May we set out ASAP to appreciate our responsibility to understand, appreciate, and work for good food adequate to our situation in climate change.
I don't remember Victory Gardens personally, I'm a post war baby born in 1948. BUT I remember my Mom talking about our Victory Garden. My parents built their beautiful home in Long Island, NY in 1941. It has a HUGE backyard. I believe it was 200 or 250 feet deep! They planted at least 1/2 of it in all kinds of veggies. I think there was an apple tree too. My Mom's folks had a dairy farm in New Jersey & I remember her telling me how she would trade rationing stamps so that my folks could have enough gas to go to my grandparents' farm. Those were the days when people pulled together. My folks taught me about the importance of civility, empathy & sympathy. They stressed how important it was to promote goodness whenever possible. Where has that gone?
Do the really hard-core trump supporters really feel good after one of his rallies? Do they feel uplifted when they laugh at vulgar pantomimes of oral sex with a microphone? Does it do their "soul" good when they cheer about deporting people, shooting Liz Cheney, reporters? Are they really ok with that? If so, there will a lot of work to be done to undo the vile things that trump has glorified.
Let's elect joy! Let's elect hope! Let's elect Kamala for a chance for change for the better!
Climate change is one of the three existential threats that must be addressed after the Democrats sweep the election (the others are nuclear weapons and the global threat to democracy posed by Putin's war on Ukraine). I for one have paused my activism to prevent giving a false impression, but once the election is over I will be back in the streets and very vocal on these issues.
Please join us in pressuring the government for meaningful action on climate change, nuclear threat reduction and full support for Ukraine!
But first, VOTE!
I voted and am trying to keep the stress down by reading Bob Woodward’s “War,” MSNBC on the side. I will be pleased to support you in any way I can in bringing climate change science into every consciousness in America. At 90 I haven’t money, but can write. Background: 2001-2011 on a small boat in canals of France, farming friends in Champagne, the Nièvre, and small town friends in l’Ain. Add to that farmers markets in Chicago, and gardening friends from one coast to another. You can reach me on Substack.
Hope promotes optimism and commands positive outcomes - everybody is a winner.
Despair promotes pessimism and commands negative outcomes - a few winners and many losers.
Gratitude fuels hope and sustains optimism.
Be grateful for democracy; Be hopeful for the future; Be forward-looking; Be optimistic; Be joyous!
Your voice and your vote matter! Don't be bamboozled.
VOTE PRO-DEMOCRACY 🇺🇸💙🗳💜🗽
Presidential historian Allan Lichtman is standing by his September prediction that Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House. https://youtu.be/K5A_UKLe5uo
#TrustWomen 🗽
Or if you’re old vote for the future of those who are young.
This (thoughts of the future of those who are young) motivated all my efforts to get Democrats elected up and down the ballot. Since January two babies were born into my family. I've left it all on the field for them, among all their siblings and cousins.
When I think of the climate I think of my granddaughter, she just turned 18, voted for the very first time, is now a freshman at the University of California at Davis, a premier college in veterinary sciences & agriculture. In reality it's a wonderful college for any discipline.
So I think about what she will have to endure as the climate disaster is unfolding around us. I've already had to evacuate my home in fear of a devastating fire. Fortunately my home was unscathed but I watch my state, California, drying up around me & watch so much of it succumb to flames. ( You'll recall trump's solution was to maintain the forest floor better! That's a solution that only a person raised in a big city would come up with. It even sported some funny videos from around Europe showing people heading into their forest with leaf blowers & vacuuma! Ah, yes, the Stable Genius at work again.)
It's already November & we haven't started our winter rainy season yet! The last 2 years gave us lots of rain which caused massive flooding in some areas & snowfall that literally snowed in houses where people died because power went out & they had no source of heat for days. The roads were so blocked that rescues were limited. It was wonderful to have the rain & the snow IF you weren't negatively affected by these once in a hundred years meteorological events, that happen way too often. But what will this year bring. I feel compelled to remind you that California has the 5th largest economy in the WORLD, not in the US in the world! Lots of that is the produce we grow here. The lettuce you eat, the fruits & nuts, the dairy products all require a climate that can be depended upon.
My family lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida. They were flooded out by Helene & were fortunate that the second hurricane that just says later came through didn't add to the damage. They live right on a river that empties into the Gulf about 1/4 to 1/2 mile away. So when trump comically claims that an increase in sea levels will provide MORE waterfront property you can see he hasn't got a clue how sea levels affects the land. And he lives in Florida, the state that literally has THE MOST to lose with threats of increasing sea levels! And Mar a Lago is just a few feet above sea level.
So, yes, I think about climate all the time~~~all the time. And I vote to protect it for my daughter & her husband & granddaughter AND for all mankind. If we think political unrest is bad now, just wait until there are even more climate refugees pressuring countries that offer some semblence of safety from climate & the whims of destruction that it will create.
Vote not only like your life depends on it but vote like the world depends on it because it does.
Do you subscribe to legal-planet.org from the law school at Berkeley? The top two articles today are on climate change. As someone in Berkeley, I'm completely with you. The Bay Area is also the 19th largest economy in the world. Yesterday I responded to Lucian Truscott's column on substack, and was called a Russian bot for my efforts calling out unnecessary driving. I told my son seven years ago, not to have children, because of my concern they would starve eventually. And this is me, who saved his baby clothes, and was already buying cute baby clothes. Well, I've stopped that. My son owns a Bolt, and we started leasing an Equinox this summer. Our solar fuels them and we love it (eight years and counting!) It's not just voting that counts, it's how we live that is so important too. Take care of yourself!
Thank you for these observations.
"Vote not only like your life depends on it but vote like the world depends on it because it does."
If we view this necessary and factual comment in an optimistic context choice and action, then each such vote provides and combines to inform the pubic, common point of view needed to produce workable policy and policy objectives that have multiple needed and mutually beneficial positive impacts.
I recall working on an Indonesian environmental development program in the 1980s. I'll never forget the Chief Scientist on the project saying to me...that we were beyond solutions like putting a brick the toilet to save water...we have to act quickly. At that time, we knew we had to change course. Yet now with the earth burning up and flooding it is still as hard an argument. We can't do this alone house by house. Corporations have to step up to plate and governments must do their job of saving the planet and ending suffering. Not causing it. VOTE
As a long-time member of Citizens' Climate Lobby, I am gratified by this post. I want to share it with other CCL members, but the Share link points to the post of November 1.
I imagine a world where the research departments of every university, college and community college and the government departments as well are funded well and work with but not for the private sector and with allied countries to move the world forward on technology, innovation to address climate change.
Fusion is mentioned several times in Dr Snyder’s On Freedom. We must choose to make our voices heard on climate change with the new administration and local and state government.
There is hope so let’s make this our issue to solve. Vote Blue!!!
In the age of resilience, we have to do many things at once and we have to be truly inventive. Resilience means adaptation and adaption has always been invention and creativity. The challenge is to move beyond binary thinking toward analogical, wave-like thought as a tool of consciousness. Imagining new worlds, new values, and new forms of activism requires thinking in a virtual space outside of the cul-de-sac of the possible and the real and our various given binary forms.
' Do Trump and Harris have climate change plans? See where both candidates stand '
September 10, 2024 / 11:58 AM EDT / CBS News (excerpts) See link below
Donald Trump's stance on climate change
Trump says he'll roll back parts the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping set of proposals to expand clean energy passed under Biden. He has also taken aim at the Green New Deal, which he derides as the "Green New Scam."
The Green New Deal is a non-binding set of proposals to tackle climate change introduced in 2019 by progressive Democrats Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. The resolution has not passed, but even if it did, nothing in it would carry the force of law.
On the oil and gas front, Trump has vowed to unlock new lands for drilling, expedite drilling permits and speed up approval of natural gas pipelines, among other initiatives. He has also indicated that he will restart liquified natural gas, or LNG, exports on his first day back in office, according to reporting by Politico. President Biden paused LNG exports in January, a move that was later blocked by a federal judge.
As president, Trump opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling through a $1.5 trillion tax bill. Environmental groups decried his actions, pointing to the threat drilling poses to Indigenous communities and the land that's home to nearly 200 species.
While his public statements clearly indicate a preference for an economy powered by oil, gas and coal over renewable energy, Luke Bolar, chief external affairs officer of ClearPath Action, a right-learning clean energy group, said there were "a lot of wins for clean energy innovation," during Trump's first term citing the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, the Grid Storage Launchpad, expansions and extensions of the 45Q tax credit, and the Energy Act of 2020, a variety of initiatives intended to improve and expand electrification, carbon capture and nuclear energy.
If elected, Trump has promised to undo what he calls the "electric vehicle mandate" of the Biden administration on Day One in office, a move Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said "will save America's auto industry and cut costs to reduce inflation and get our economy booming again."
The Biden administration has not issued a mandate but has introduced incentives to spur EV adoption, including a tax credit for those who meet income and eligibility requirements of up to $7,500 for new EVs and $4,000 for used EVs, and set a target that half of all new vehicle sales be zero emissions by 2030.
Trump has also signaled that he would drain funding from climate-focused agencies if he's elected. In discussing budget cuts, he told Fox News, "One of the things that's so bad for us is environmental agencies. They make it impossible to do anything."
As president, Trump proposed a 26% budget cut to the EPA in 2020 and a 31% cut in 2019, both of which were ultimately rejected by the Democrat-led House Appropriations Committee.
Kamala Harris' stance on climate change
Harris regularly touts the Inflation Reduction Act, which she cast tie-breaking vote for. In her interview with CNN, she said she believes the climate crisis is an "urgent matter" and the nation should apply emissions metrics and adhere to specific deadlines.
"We did that with the Inflation Reduction Act," she said. "We have set goals for the United States of America and by extension, the globe around when we should meet certain standards for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions as an example."
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration introduced tax credits in an effort to spur electric vehicle adoption. According to reporting by Axios, Harris has not made clear whether she supports her previous stance of making automakers build only electric or hydrogen vehicles by 2035. A spokesperson from her campaign told the news site that Harris "does not support an electric vehicle mandate." CBS News has asked the Harris campaign for more information and is awaiting a response.
Before taking on her role as vice president, Harris held big oil companies accountable through her position as California attorney general. In 2016, she launched an investigation into Exxon Mobil for allegedly misleading the public and shareholders about climate risks. That same year, she also pursued legal action against Plains All-American Pipeline regarding a 2015 oil spill.
However, she's not expected to completely pull the plug on America's oil and gas production if elected president.
As a candidate in the Democratic primaries four years ago, Harris said during a CNN town hall that she was in favor of banning fracking, the process that involves injecting a solution of water and chemicals into rock formations to extract oil and natural gas.
But during a CNN interview on Aug. 29, she said, "as president, I will not ban fracking," a statement industry executives have quickly latched onto. Still, they remain skeptical about what her other energy initiatives will entail.
Oil and gas production reached record highs under the Biden administration. Mr. Biden approved almost 50% more gas and oil leases during his time in office than his Republican predecessor did during his first three years in office, according to reporting by Politico.
President Biden canceled the oil and gas leases in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were set in motion during Trump's final days and instead proposed stronger protections for the 19-million-acre territory.
While she was a senator from California, Harris co-sponsored the Green New Deal, but in August, her campaign told CNN she no longer supports the package of policy proposals. (CBS NEWS) See link below.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-harris-climate-change-2024/
Thank you, Dr. Snyder. I volunteer with Citizens' Climate Lobby here in the USA. I would like to encourage everyone to check it out. From our website: "Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy climate change organization focused on national policies to address the national and global climate crisis." This December, I will be lobbying my R Senator to encourage him to enact the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024, just one piece of bipartisan legislation that will help get clean energy on the ground. Thanks! Best wishes to you and everyone.
Thank you, Prof Snyder, for these observations and recommendations.
While it would require considerable writing space and time to provide an intro to climate science discussed within the understanding of the living world that the sciences of natural ecology, these observations are sound and not at all over-stated. A nationally coordinated conscious effort to make changes to consumer behavior and to the industries and practices that support and rely on continuous, almost feverish consumerism is the kind of effort required to, over a minimum duration of 4 - 5 years, see tangible evidence of needed environmental changes.
This sort of time frame seems to many an arbitrary frame. What it does do is to make clear the changes in impacts that our industrial and consumption choices have on all other living things, impacts which when significantly and permanently made less in a programmatic way, provide us with evidence of our capacities to make doable changes while improving the living worlds' communities of living things to adapt, change and recover robust vital activities and reciprocal contributions to the integrity of the working relationships that make life possible and that impact the qualities of being alive.
Harris and Walz are markedly and vitally different from Trump and Vance and the conservative right communities in their understandings of these ecological imperatives for change.
Changes in human consumption patterns and specific activities will not 'crash' the economy and will not make living less comfortable and innovative. Quite the contrary, traditional lifestyle and production activities and understandings of risks-benefits are clearly understandable as a mix of unnecessarily exploitative practices and interests along with basically sound objectives for healthful and sustainable living.
Are there already practices that make this clear and convincing? Yeah, many.
For example, improved biological agricultural practices are a prime and important example of vitally necessary and practical changes in producing a necessary resource, food, that can improve ecological sustainability and improve nutrition from foods grown and used. That biological practices have taken forms that had to integrate into free market institutions means that, as small and privately operated operations in the US, both production resources and product pricing decisions were distorted by reductionist, competitive and market pricing constraints. We cannot do without biologically and ecologically sustainable, decentralized farming practice and operations, but we can see it as an important contribution to supporting efforts to expand it for its highly productive, ecological, and nutritional benefits while consciously amending the larger public expectations and norms for making it available to all consumers.
Other basic needs and reasonable needs-based production and distribution expectations and norms can, like wise, be understood and made into real practices. Community design alternatives that are novel in respect of intelligent decentralization and democratic management and that have very remarkable positive ecological impacts include familiar activities such as practical and accessible transportation choices, manufacturing-recycling-reuse-resourceconservation operations, local power sourcing and power conservation activities .... These are obvious examples.
Harris and Walz are eager to work with all Americans and ally with others throughout the world who are testing and doing ecologically sound and significant activities development and applications. We need this eagerness, future generations need this eagerness and need all of us to bring it into activities of our communities now.
Same. It has not really rained in TN since May. I had to use a lot of drip hoses to keep my garden alive, and I had big water bills. Haven’t worn a coat yet and I get hot on my walks. I have to sleep with a window fan going, in November. Most people here seem unconcerned, as they are not gardeners. Maybe they haven’t even really noticed, or at most, think that the weather is unusually “nice,” unless of course they live in NC, which I just visited. My grandparents’ town is mostly cleaned up now, but the huge trees on the ground and the wrecked houses are evidence of the power of bad weather. Everybody I talked to there is acutely aware of the reality we now face.
I wonder why people in TN are so blasé about the fact that the summer was so dry and the fall is now so warm. I suspect that most people have really not noticed. It would have been all anybody could talk about 100 years ago. But these days, people spend most of their time inside. They come out a little, to see if it's a "nice day." This neighborhood used to be a neighborhood of farmers and gardeners. There are about twelve households and thirty people here, but now, only three people try to grow any food, even a tomato plant. Yet this is a rural area, formerly mostly dairy farms, that is now "farmettes," or small farms of about 15 acres. There is plenty of room on every farmette for a big garden, but most people just have no interest in growing anything. Some people have a few chickens. So when a serious drought strikes, they don't even know.
The creek that runs through this neighborhood is as low as I've ever seen it. Again, my neighbors, who sometimes take their kids down there to throw rocks at the water, have not commented on that, but they haven't lived here for forty years like I have.
Or maybe people are too terrified to talk about it? People in WNC sure do talk about it. They have been through a terrifying "horror," as they put it. They can't look away. They are still shaken by the events of a month ago, although Asheville and some of the surrounding towns look sort of ok. It took a very long time to get there from TN, though, because of the disastrous destruction of I-40. All the traffic is now on two-lane roads, which means that huge tractor-trailers are driving right toward you in the opposite lane at 55 mph. It's scary.
Trump and Vance and their climate denying cohort are a bit reminiscent of the Southern slave aristocracy who managed the Gag Rule, forbidding even a conversation about slavery in Congress. And then there’s always the NRA who managed to squash any governmental discussion of the medical concerns surrounding gun violence in this country.
Plus ca change; plus c’est la meme chose.