Only Three More Years

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that we must institute big changes in the next three years to keep the planet’s climate anything like what we’ve got now. They believe we can halve emissions by 2030.

I don’t write much about climate change for a number of reasons, but it is always nagging me, in the back of my head. We’re at a point where we must act now. Sadly, we’ve got a bunch of distractions. Big distractions.

This is the alien invasion. This is the global tragedy that should bring us all together. But we see how that worked with a global pandemic. Business as usual while people sickened and died. The sickness and death continues while too many want to ignore it. This is a solvable problem, if we would put much less funding into it than we do into war.

Climate change must be a priority. But instead we have

• A Republican Party gone Nazi trying to take over the country
• A despot determined to bring the wars of the twentieth century back to Europe
• That pandemic, upsetting everyone’s life

We’ve decided, as a country, to ignore that last, which, unfortunately, doesn’t mean we can ignore it in our private lives.

The United States Congress is almost completely prohibited from passing useful legislation by the Republicans, who are strangling the country. So we have to deal with them first. The Biden administration has managed to pass some legislation to mitigate global warming and has turned some regulations around. This, for example.

We need to remove the members of Congress who are subverting democracy, however, as quickly as possible, to preserve both democracy and the climate. And their minions in state government. So get to work.

January 6 Committee, HOLD YOUR HEARINGS!

We also have to support Ukraine in the war Russia has inflicted on it. And teach Russia a lesson never to do that again. We’re doing reasonably well with that.

Do what you can individually to reduce emissions, knowing that we need institutional action.

• Change how electrical power is generated and transmitted
• More public transportation
• Change industrial processes

What. Will. It. Take?

We see the pictures of the glaciers melting. We endure weather weirding. It’s been cold unusually long into the spring here in New Mexico for the past two years. It looks like I will lose one of my tree peonies this year. For the past two weeks, Facebook has shown me photos that I posted five years ago of lilacs and other flowers blooming. I will be lucky if the lilacs bloom next week.

It’s affecting all of us.

I keep wondering why there aren’t demonstrations in the states where Republicans are clamping down on individual freedoms rather than deal with real problems. But Wynn Bruce set himself on fire on the steps of the Supreme Court to protest our lack of action on global warming, and it got barely a nod.

I don’t know what it will take.

Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner