Global emissions of carbon dioxide have reached their highest levels ever. After two years of progress to the point where output actually leveled off, creating some hope that a downward trend was possible, 2017 saw global increases of 1.6 percent, with China, India and the US primarily responsible for the uptick. The sovereign nation-state, human kind’s preferred living arrangement, appears unable to secure its future as a going concern on this particular planet. In other words, it’s doubtful oceanfront property in Miami is a very good long-term investment.
At a critical point when the most we could possibly do probably still wouldn’t be enough, the globe’s major industrialized countries are actually going in the wrong direction. At a time when dauntless US leadership on Climate Change would still probably come up short to the perils we all face, we are instead fully retreating from the challenge, actually denying a problem even exists. This after historic fires in California, record breaking hurricanes in Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida, and a stark report from our own government detailing a bleak future without focused and decisive action.
It was lost on nobody at HW’s exquisite funeral yesterday that virtually every asset the former President’s eulogizers expounded was an effortless yet brutal rebuke of our current POTUS, tensed in the front row, arms crossed with his signature petulance. Brian Mulroney, a former conservative Prime Minister of our now increasingly estranged neighbor to the north, lanced our national boil most directly when, pointing to 41’s stewardship of initiatives on NAFTA, clean air, and protections for people with disabilities concluded:
“There is a word for this: it is called “leadership” — and let me tell you that when George Bush was President of the United States of America, every single head of government in the world knew they were dealing with a true gentlemen, a genuine leader – one who was distinguished, resolute and brave.”
At precisely the time we needed the US to galvanize the world on a crusade rooted in collective self-interest, we elected a pathological narcissist, whose campaign promised full retreat from anything other than the most craven “America first” priorities. And of course, as he has now mused several times, when the bill comes due “I won’t be around anymore.”
Back in the late 80s the Adirondack Mountain region faced unmitigated disaster from acid rain. Lakes were dying and the entire vacation industry, which defined the area’s economic prospects, was endangered. Aggressive reductions in sulfur and nitrogen emissions needed to happen yesterday, but were caught up in the politics embracing their details. The Bush Administration made the federal clean air package a priority and slow but steady progress took hold. Between 2000 and 2010 sulfur and nitrogen emissions from coal-fired power plants decreased 51 and 43 percent, and while the region still suffers some lasting environmental damage, the worst days are in the rearview mirror. Focused government action equaled the necessary results.
Much of the success behind efforts to reduce acid rain came as a result of regulations mandating “scrubbers” be installed in existing coal-fired power facilities. The technology is probably what Trump has in mind, however dimly, when he refers to “beautiful clean coal.” Of course, utilities opposed the mandate from the start, but faced a bipartisan commitment to solve a major environmental problem and were forced to swallow their medicine. No longer. Trump’s EPA has proposed dumping the rule, and allowing existing plants exemptions from retrofit obligations.
The wrecking ball this Administration has applied to whatever momentum existed behind collective efforts versus climate change is as indisputable as it was unnecessary. Nobody believes Trump reneged on the Paris Agreement for any purpose other than to pander to the Fox/AM narrative his wretched core slavishly adheres to. That he wears the decision as a badge of honor at his ugly rallies leaves little to the imagination as to his primary motivation. Make no mistake, his carefully tended bloc of supporters, who somehow find honor in such imbecility addles our Republic to its nucleus. Nihilists don’t do continuity or proactive action because that inhibits their guiding practice of simply blaming others. Every hour it becomes more clear just how harmful government by mindless opposition is to most anything constructive.
The way forward looks grim without quick and decisive action. There is nothing to suggest a Democratic House will enjoy any success realigning the US position toward any collective efforts on Climate Change, let alone the Paris Agreements. Right now individual states like California have been forced to pledge their best efforts absent of any federal guidance or assistance. Two more years of Trumpist idiocy on the matter seems an eternity, six more a ruinous impossibility.
60 Minutes had a gut wrenching and poignant piece on the destruction of Paradise, CA by unrestrained wildfires last month. It’s hard to imagine how one who barely escaped alive after harrowing hours only hell could replicate feels toward a President so unconcerned with climatic forces responsible for the disaster that he literally sneers at the conclusions his own government’s study embraces.
One UN official, commenting on various possibilities to address an increasingly dire planetary condition, averred “any action is better than no action.” He’s wrong and obviously hasn’t chatted with our inhibitor-in-chief, who would gladly expound on a menu of possibilities that promise only adding to the untenability of where we sit. Our “leader” pours gasoline on fires… nothing else. BC