Stand up to the Republican suicide cult, join the Climate Strike

We’re fast approaching the global climate strike. While events around the world are going to run for an entire week, beginning on September 20, and running though the 27th, it looks as though most of the local activity, here in Southeast Michigan, will be on the first day of the campaign, which is this Friday. If you’d like to participate, it sounds as though people will be leaving their classes and places of work at 11:00 AM, and making their way to Ingalls Mall [915 East Washington Street] in Ann Arbor, were organizers are hoping some 20,0000 people will gather for a noon rally, attend workshops, etc. Additional information can be found on the Act On Climate website, but here’s the general overview.

[A complete list of regional events can be found at the Action Network website. Rally sites in southeast Michigan include, Grand Circus Park in Detroit, the Capital Building in Lansing, the Somerset Mall in Troy, Riverside Park in Auburn Hills, and the Brighton Chamber of Commerce.]

As I suspect that almost all of you appreciate how dire the situation is, having read the reports and witnessed the ever-worsening devastation wrought by extreme weather over the past decade, I won’t spend my time right now trying to make the case that decisive action is needed. Instead, I thought that we could discuss the following quotes and headlines, which collectively demonstrate, I think, the aggressively retrograde approach to climate change being pursued by our current administration.

1. Bloomberg: “EPA to Unveil Plan to Take Away California’s Authority on Car Emissions

The Trump administration, according to reporting by Bloomberg, plans to announce their plans tomorrow to rescind California’s authority to enact state laws intended to curb greenhouse gas emissions in autos. So, just two days before the above-mentioned Global Climate Strike, the Trump administration, assuming this Bloomberg report is accurate, will have the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) come out and say that California cannot set emissions standards that are more aggressive than those put forward by the Trump administration. So, just to sum up… the pro “states rights” Republicans, who, generally speaking, hate it when the federal government interferes in state business, will be stepping in to aggressively take action against the state of California, forcing them to roll back the emissions laws passed passed by their democratically elected legislature. And, not just that, but they’ll be using the EPA to do it… I have to give them credit. It never would have occurred to me to use the EPA to go after states that are stepping up to protect the environment. It’s so fucking Orwellian.

2. Wall Street Journal: “Justice Department Launches Antitrust Probe Into Four Auto Makers

Not only is the Trump administration going after California for imposing stricter fuel economy and emissions standards, but the Department of Justice, according to recent reimporting from the Wall Street Journal, is going after automakers who have agreed to conform to those emissions standards set by California. Senator Tom Carper of Delaware explains the action this way. “This investigation is nothing but an attempt by the Trump Administration to retaliate against these companies and stoke fear in others,” he said. So, not only do we have an administration using the EPA to go after California for attempting to confront the climate crisis in a serious way, but we have an administration going after those automakers who have agreed to take action, claiming that their discussions on the subject violate antitrust laws. In other words, the government is claiming that automakers are guilty of conspiring to address climate change, and forcing them to continue practices that we know are killing the earth.

3. Marcy Wheeler: “Trump’s going to go to war because MBS has promised to keep oil prices low thru the election.

Today, when asked about his comments earlier this week about how the U.S. was ready to go to war in Iran on behalf of Saudi Arabia if Jamal Khashoggi’s murderer, Mohammad bin Salman, gave the word, Donald Trump referenced gas prices and how the Saudis were in a position to “help us out”. So, it’s not difficult to see why Wheeler, whose analysis I respect, might get the idea that Trump’s willingness to come to the rescue of Mohammad bin Salman might have something to do with keeping oil prices down through the 2020 election. Personally, I think the fix was in for the Saudis a long time ago — let’s remember that almost every veto Trump has issued as president has been for the benefit of the House of Saud, who, it’s worth noting, have a suspiciously close relationship with the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner — but I don’t doubt for a minute that everything being done by the administration right now is being done primarily to keep our President from being forced from office and prosecuted for his numerous crimes.

I could go on… but I think you probably get the point. We’re living inside a climate death cult. The American Republican Party is the only party in the democratic world that denies the science of climate change, and, if we don’t stop them, they’re going to be the end of humanity. They didn’t just pull us out of the Paris Climate Accord, but they’re prosecuting companies that are trying to move the needle on climate change. They are in bed with big oil. They are completely dependent on fossil fuel money. And, if we don’t stop them, they’ll be the death of us all. We need to be in the streets, fighting for a Green New Deal, clean energy jobs, and an end to fossil fuel subsidies. If we want to remain on this planet, there’s really no alternative.

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9 Comments

  1. iRobert
    Posted September 18, 2019 at 5:40 am | Permalink

    Even for people who haven’t been convinced of the climate change problem, it’s got to be clear that our environment is becoming a soup of toxins and we must reverse that trend for our own self interest.

  2. Anonymous
    Posted September 18, 2019 at 9:59 am | Permalink

    https://twitter.com/brhodes/status/1174336291993001984?s=21

  3. Garry Kasparov by proxy
    Posted September 18, 2019 at 2:33 pm | Permalink

    Putin cannot leave power in Russia because he knows what happens to mafia bosses who try to retire. Trump is in a similar position, afraid to lose presidential immunity. Two desperate men with great power. Watch out.

  4. Jean Henry
    Posted September 18, 2019 at 4:38 pm | Permalink

    Pay no attention!

    Trump is busy demanding the fed prop up the stock market with a zero percent interest rate and calling chairman Powell an ’enemy of the state’ (which is the name of an alt right twitter feed), killing CA emissions against even the wishes of the car companies (but not big oil) and Saber rattling at Iran.

    What climate strike?

    Also how to dominate a news cycle.

    And now Powell has reduced rates…There are no independent branches of government anymore. Totalitarian creep.

  5. John Brown
    Posted September 19, 2019 at 7:48 am | Permalink

    “Death Cult” is more accurate as it includes outright murder. Over on Armslist there’s a 2013 Colt AR15 with quality optics and 1700 rounds of ammo all for $2000 with NO BACKGROUND CHECK. Any crazy mofo with 20 hundred dollar bills can meet the current owner in a Walmart parking lot and viola, a militia of one. Armslist and the lawlessness that allow it must be shut down. In the meantime why don’t one of you progressives out there with a few extra bucks go get this thing outta the hand of the trumpee that bought it back when mean ole Obama was President. (You can probably talk them down at least a couple hundred)
    http://www.armslist.com/posts/10502843/ann-arbor-michigan-rifles-for-sale–colt-le6920-m4a1-socom-

  6. dogmatic dolt
    Posted September 19, 2019 at 9:49 am | Permalink

    Aloha, 70,000 people made homeless climate refugees. Thousands still missing, most probably swept out to sea. Next year Miami (maybe later this year). We have all signed up for a universal suicide pact as near as I can tell. It was only a year ago that I was attempting to persuade the epitome of liberalism on this site (at least from my perspective JH) on how we needed to stop fracking now. Anything that grows the carbon footprint of the planet is another nail in our coffins. So what is the “liberal media” doing? Cheer leading for another war over oil.
    Don’t worry be happy. Us in Michigan don’t have too much to worry about for another couple of years. Maybe the elite have figured out that our only way forward is a small nuclear winter to cool down the planet (they have modeled this solution to global warming–seems extreme to me, and how do you stop setting off nukes once you start–but hey we can only stick our heads into the sand for so long). It must have been like this on Easter Island after they cut down the last trees.

  7. John Brown
    Posted September 19, 2019 at 10:49 am | Permalink

    Easter Island aint the worst analogy. Recent study said that under +6-7C change the Earths carrying capacity would fall to 1 billion.

    The Christchurch and EL PAso shooters both expressed eco terrorism as part of the motivation. If there’s less room for people with climate change the nazis are going to get really aggressive about protecting their white morphology.

  8. dogmatic dolt
    Posted September 19, 2019 at 11:24 am | Permalink

    Aloha JB, don’t know what study you read that believes there will still be a billion humans with 6-7 C rise. At around that increase, most all living things will be toast. Saw yesterday how the average temperature of the Arctic Ocean is now 1C over pre-industrialization and hearing up fast–no more albedo effect and we get even more abrupt climate change. I was thinking more about how the Easter Islanders did not realize they were a dead civilization for years after they cut down the last trees. Takes a while for the realization to sink in.

  9. John Brown
    Posted September 19, 2019 at 2:07 pm | Permalink

    It was some Euros (of course), I’ll do a lit search and see if i can find it. Mass extinction event is already in progress, but research has shown that rates of evolution can accelerate greatly under extreme environmental stress such as the “island effect”. So life itself will continue. And ironically for the nazis and GOPers, humans of the future overheated world are likely to be diminutive and brown, and greatly reduced in number. Societies on the other hand are not nearly as resilient as biology. So don’t bet on there being the capacity for geoengineering to save the day.

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  1. […] the kids, inspired by people like Greta Thunberg, and emboldened by the Climate Strike, will begin forcing culture to give them what they want. Or, better yet, maybe folks will begin […]

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