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'The Clock Is Ticking': 300,000+ Tell Biden to Act Boldly Ahead of Climate Summit

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#2

Here’s the ticking clock that I want programmed. As a model we have the U.S. Debt clock at ~usdebtclock .org

I’ve been looking at Mauna Loa data. Google and check this information and update the numbers periodically as Mr. Bolsonaro burns up the Amazon rain forest more than usual.

I have seasonally adjusted CO2 starting at 415.02 parts per million as of January 1, 2021 and rising at a steady 2.45 parts per million each year. Just calculate what fraction of the year has passed, to the second, and then compute and display the seasonally adjusted parts per million. It always goes up! (At least for the next five years it goes up.) It’s a fairly easy programming project. Climate job jar! Any takers? Hey! You! Coder!

Then add methane and NO2 rise in ppm. Then add long-term seasonally adjusted average world temperature rise in Celsius and in Fahrenheit. It’s a bit scary but the voting public needs to see it steadily going up. Think of it as a good protest sign that happens to reach a few more people, like one of those harder-to-build LED signs that people can see at night.

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#3

How old does a person have to be, in the year of Our Lord 2021, to truthfully & confidently assert that her/his life will not be cut short by anthropogenic ecocide/biocide? This is a serious question. 50? 60? What are the odds, today, that a woman in her 40s will live to be 80? What are the odds for a woman in her 30s? What are the odds for someone in her 20s? Are the odds getting worse every year, because of anthropogenic climate & biosphere disintegration? If the odds of living to be 80 are getting worse for us, shouldn’t we expect community leaders (national leaders, international leaders) to adopt urgent measures to reverse this trend?

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#4

Nice to see even one comment on this site on this topic that is not pure cynical do-nothing-ism.

Don’t fret about the Federal debt. The reason is complicated, but that is among the least of our problems. Modern Monetary Theory has finally shed the bad speculative philosophy of the not-so-enlightened-ment in favor of some pre-capitalist-industrial reason and common sense.

#5

Still looking to Joe Biden and his democrat neoliberal cadre to save you from neoliberalism…deep sigh.

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#6

My kids are fvcked. If I didn’t have them I’d just sit back and laugh. It’s game over.

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#7

3% of the natural world is untouched. We need to transition to a recyclable economy. all those electronic devices should be repairable and designed so that the rare earths are extraditable and recyclable. also the gold and copper. plastic items should be standardized and recycled. A plastic bag should cycle through many different grocery stores, a multitude of times. Otherwise the pressure of the developing world will simple overwhelm in swallow whats left of the natural world of this planet.

#8

We need to confront the political and economic power of the colonizing profiteering corporations, their investors / owners, and their executives / managers.

Asking Joe Biden for this kind of leadership is not where we should focus our hope.

We need to join, support, and strengthen mass movements that can confront the political and economic power of the colonizing profiteering corporations. And powerful movements will also have the best likelihood of moving tools like Joe Biden.

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#10

The myth of two evils was invented to cover up that government is one big evil with two faces and one set of policies.

#11

I agree Web, but there is no one else to ask right now, except perhaps the new movement as depicted in both “Planet of the Humans” and the new “Seaspiracy”

Now there is a third rung, a book (and film) vindicating “Planet of the Humans” and its central message, that greenwashing is what we are getting - and this is likely to make the situation worse, not better.

The new book is “Bright Green Lies” , with film of same name debuting today, Earth Day # 51, 22-April-2021

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210316005126/en/%E2%80%98Bright-Green-Lies%E2%80%99-Explosive-New-Documentary-Debuts-Exposing-the-Illusions-of-Green-Technology-in-Stark-Detail
@ReconFire

Message from Jeff Gibbs

https://mailchi.mp/e9ec44204ba1/an-incredible-year-for-planet-of-the-humans?e=557f995592

#12

I looked at the link, and though not surprised, “Planet of the Humans” brought some of this up, but besides exterminating people, or doing nothing to mitigate the climate problem, what’s to be done?
Possibly one start to a solution would be to keep the mitigation out of corporate hands and profit making, that would be about as easy as destroying the capitalism system. I’m not against that, but unsure we have time before the climate storm finishes us off.

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#13

On Earth Day #51 Recon - I do have a suggestion.

I think the President should have an FDR Fireside Chat - actually a series of chats, with the American People and with the World.

He would say simply that there is this Limits to Growth problem, and that documentaries such as Planet of the Humans and Seaspiracy and now “Bright Green Lies”, along with notable scientists such as Paul Ehrlich and James Hansen and Edward O. Wilson and many many others (hence the series of chats - ongoing), need to see the light of day politically, meaning everybody, and that these chats will continue until resolution.

The President would instruct the National Academy of the Sciences to review all of these matters, say the commercial nuclear proposals, wind and solar, the crashing Biodiversity, the Limits to Growth Curves and their on-trackness, the Carryinmg Capacity of the Planet under different scenarios as to Population Growth - is this sustainable or no - and these findings would be regularly included in the Fireside Chats.

The idea is Democracy - that given the best information available in a forthright and non-condescending manner - the People will decide their own fate - not a cabal of Special Interests.

That is my suggestion on this Earth Day, 2021 Recon.

"You tell a pilot the condition of his craft" ( Alan Shepard, “The Right Stuff” )

And having said that - I am re-watching Planet for the umpteenth time. All you have to do is listen to Jeff Gibbs voice as another human being - and decide if you believe he is a decent man - then call in the National Academy of the Sciences - and find out in that way.

With my background in Science Recon - surrounded by all of these books, and all of the information which it has been my good fortune to see and hear - I have already made my decision. Planet was the Watershed - the straw that broke the camel’s back.

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#14

Largely depends on our future access, and our ability to pay for quality healthcare.

Get your 3d printed heart, lung, and liver when ever you need one.

#15

Hmm, perhaps we would not have a recycling program if there was no profit in it.

Survey: How many of us have no fossil fuel burning engines, or energy produced by fossil fuels.
I have two vehicles, a lawn mower, snowblower, furnace that burns natural gas, and energy produced by a natural gas fired power plant about ten miles away.
My heart and back won’t allow me to shovel the snow in winter. I know of no electric trucks with plow, etc.

#16

Yeah “the President should have an FDR Fireside Chat”, but the problem with that is Biden would have to have a little FDR in him. When he signaled to his corporate donors nothing would change, he proved he has no intention of acting Boldly on the climate disaster. Every campaign promise was a lie except the one above.

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#17

There’s very little money in recycling, in fact much that we are told is being recycled, is not, because it’s too expensive to do so.
Electric trucks are coming, though no telling how expensive they’ll be. I’ve been seeing ads for electric tractors in a few magazines I receive.

~https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/17/plastic-recycling-myth-what-really-happens-to-your-rubbish

~https://www.treehugger.com/new-report-confirms-recycling-is-bs-5077719

Check out all of the links on the subject at the end of this story (above)

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#18

I gave a bit of a rundown on Social Security and FDR the other day. Wish more people actually read about the New Deal instead of fantasized about it. From my comment:

If you read about the New Deal, the last time this country had a Court this conservative, the Roosevelt administration had to twist programs around to avoid Court challenges. One reason it centered Social Security as a property right, not a humanitarian one, is some feared the Court would see it as a “federal insurance scheme to provide annuities for the elderly” (quoting Thomas Eliot). A contributory and regressive payroll tax, which Francis Perkins initially opposed, was the result. But both politics (mostly politics) and legal concerns dictated that outcome, unfortunately. Quoting Perkins: “the thing had been chiseled down to the conservative pattern.”

Progressives—they mostly didn’t call themselves that—in the administration watched Roosevelt trim out healthcare and push a regressive payroll tax, which they opposed. He did not want it deficit financed. He also agreed to drop agricultural workers and others from the bill to save money. So far, Biden is well within Roosevelt’s tradition of pushing left, but watching over his right shoulder.

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#19

Look, FDR receives much credit for the policies that pulled people out of abject poverty during the depression, but the fact is, FDR wasn’t a progressive (todays term), he was a capitalist. His first VP, Henry Wallace was what we would call progressive today, and is exactly why the dem party dropped him from the ticket, and replaced him with Truman. Truman was malleable to the party bosses, and the bosses suspected FDR wouldn’t finish out his term due to his declining health. There were others in the administration who were also progressive, and some of the things you brought up angered them to no end. FDR had an opportunity to shift us to a better system, but instead chose to protect capitalism from itself.
We will have to agree to disagree that Biden’s policies are anywhere near FDR’s. FDR fought tooth and nail inside the party and outside the party to achieve the legislation he signed into law, Biden has used lame excuses to deny passing any progressive legislation at all, need I bring up the parliamentarian ruling over the $15 min. wage? I don’t see Biden “pushing” left at all.

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#20

Biden is not functioning with near the majorities FDR had, not even close. He can’t lose a single vote in the Senate and as little as five votes in the House are the difference between a bill passing and one failing. And even Roosevelt, with his majorities, couldn’t change the makeup of the Supreme Court or pass a universal healthcare program. Hell, he didn’t even propose the latter to Congress. I just don’t understand the pretense that Biden is functioning with some massive congressional majorities or has some huge mandate. The expectations don’t match the composure of Congress. We are going to be lucky if the Courts get a little more balance in them and an infrastructure bill is passed.

#21

I understand that, the difference KC, is the amount of effort put into passing the legislation. I wouldn’t fault Biden if he fought like hell to pass progressive legislation and lost, but that’s not what’s happening. They’re just giving up easily, or not trying at all.

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#22

Don’t mistake performative media bluster and online blather by “progressive” performance artists looking for donations with policy success. Covid relief expanded healthcare for millions, provided continuous monthly childcare payments, massively expanded free vaccinations in a way our country has not seen since polio (even larger), saved retirement accounts for union workers, and did a whole lot more.

On that Union retirement point alone, think about mining unions coming out in support of climate efforts last week as part of infrastructure. We don’t know the full story behind that yet, but I bet there was some quiet negotiation behind it. That 80 billion in retirement support nobody talks about played a role, I’ll bet. Biden is trying to get stuff done with a 50-50 Senate, not fight losing battles. I’m impressed so far. FDR didn’t face Biden’s hurdles until 1938, when he lost seats in the House and Senate. That was largely the end of the New Deal, but it’s Biden’s starting point.

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