On the last Saturday before Donald Trump took office, in January 2017, I watched the controlled chaos of a hackathon unfold in a library at the University of Pennsylvania. Volunteer archivists, librarians, and computer scientists were trawling government websites, looking for data sets about climate change to duplicate for safekeeping. Groups like this were meeting across the country. Flowcharts on whiteboards laid out this particular room’s priorities: copy decades of ice-core statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; scrape the Environmental Protection Agency’s entire library of local air-monitoring results from the previous four years; find a way to preserve a zoomable map of the factories and power plants emitting the most greenhouse gases.
The fear was that the incoming administration would pull information like this from public view—and within a week, it did. By noon on Inauguration Day, the Trump administration had scrubbed mentions of climate change from the White House website. By May, officials had taken down the EPA’s page laying out climate science for the general public, as well as 108 pages associated with the Clean Power Plan, the landmark Obama policy meant to curb emissions from power plants—months before the Trump administration tried to repeal the policy altogether.
The administration’s goal was to bury the issue of climate change. Nothing was done to address it; the very mention of it was knocked from the national agenda—and, by extension, the international agenda. If Trump returns to office, he will surely double down on this strategy.
It’s not “ignore it”, it’s actively make it worse. Look at all of his coal bullshit. There’s no economic reason to continue supporting coal
Came here to say this. He actively sold off public lands that were held in reserve for the future - it was OURS, now it just managed to line HIS pockets. Remind me again btw why I am supposed to be afraid of “socialism”, but capitalism = perfection? :-(
I have no patience with people who “just cant find it in their heart to support Biden again”. There is too fucking much at stake to hold Biden to these impossible standards.
Exactly. They don’t seem to understand that the willful act of cutting of their own noses- spites every face in America.
But it’s never their fault.
especially when biden is one of the most progressive presidents in modern history
They’ll come around once presented with a choice. Lecturing people isn’t a good GOTV strategy. You’re better off listening and being friendly.
They already have a choice. And they’re not coming around. Fuck being friendly. They want their asses kissed for threatening to take the ball and go home?
Democracy is at state. You do what you have to to keep it alive, THEN fix things. Maybe this’ll teach them that you need to do more than just whine online about things that you barely ever understood to begin with and be an active part of democracy.
Becasue It takes a lot more than simply bitching online every election year.
Fuck being friendly.
Maybe this’ll teach them
You can decide for yourself, of course, whether being friendly and listening is more or less effective than lecturing, but it sounds like you’re choosing not to pick the best of bad options, but just let it burn, to show people who think differently from you how wrong they are. This could be described as:
threatening to take the ball and go home
They want their asses kisesd. Show me an example of when this has ever netted positive results?
They chose to hold democracy hostage over a single issue and you suggest we sit down and reason with them? I’ve tried. SO many times. They won’t listen.
They’re like Trump supporters at this point. Ridicule is what they deserve. The damage has already been done. Fuck them.
I get it. I’m frustrated, too. I’ve tried so many times, too. If you think that somebody can’t be swayed, then it’s probably best not to waste time on them at all, but think about the other people - the ones watching the conversation play out, who may never say a word - what will move them? Sometimes, I do think being confrontational and telling someone off can be the best option, because other people are watching, and it’s what they see that matters. Other times, for the same reason, it’s not a good choice. And sometimes I just get mad and I say what I say, even though it might be doing more harm than good. And still other times, I don’t say anything at all, because I don’t know how to say something useful. It sucks. Giving a shit really sucks sometimes.
I try to remember how Hillary Clinton said “basket of deplorables”, absolute political malpractice, that was. When you give someone a choice between thinking of themselves as being bad, and thinking of you as being wrong, they’ll always make the same decision.
Nope. Fuck them. Like Trump’s minions, They’re far too ignorant to be swayed. They don’t know what they’re doing and they’re too stubborn to listen.
So… they absolutely need to be ridiculed for willingly fucking over their own country.
Tell this to the “gEnOciDe jOe” bros. I’ll bet they still won’t lift a finger come November.
But remember, it won’t be their fault.
knowing how much steve bannon made has way up in wow chat, the likelihood that all those “leftists” screaming that are actually 45 year old white male conservatives.
I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. And in the event they’re not- then they’re mindless drones doing the work of 45 year old white male conservatives.
You know Joe pumped more oil and signed more land off for drilling than trump did, right? The climate cannot survive another term of America.
Lol
Yeah that’s usually the response I get from angy Americans when they realize no matter who they elect, next year there will be record oil production.
If only worthlessly whining about it online to a bunch of strangers would fix the world’s problems, people like you would lock up that Nobel Prize indefinitely.
Oh well, I guess the rest of us will have to keep doing the shit you don’t like until the day comes where everything is perfect- so that you can take credit for all the hard work.
I’m sorry that you’re angry that I said factual statements about the administration. You’re right, everyone shut up about the genocide and climate apocalypse!
Who’s angry? And what something factual you said? I must have missed that part.
You seem angry. If you’re not then you’re just a miserable person to communicate with.
This is obviously what I’m referring to.
You’re angry at the wrong people. If you’re not angry about this, then you should be.
This dude, in the same breath as claiming to be a dictator “on day one”, said his main priority is to drill, baby, drill. He, along with all of his voters, have openly opted to make the climate crisis worse. Simply put, republicans are Eco-terrorists. The world, not just the US, cannot afford to have Republicans in charge anymore.
Trump’s approach is to pour gasoline into the dumpster fire. Ignoring it is almost everyone else’s approach.
Yeah, the climate can’t afford another full 365 days of our current carbon output. Like, in reality, it can’t do one more day. It couldn’t have done about the last five decades. But it’s doing it because we won’t stop. It’s likely already too late. But the world does have insane healing properties. Maybe if we stopped, it could heal itself.
But this “slow down a little by 2050” bullshit is just poppycock.
#GuysCanWeLikeChillOutABitOnTheClimate
The presidency can’t afford another Trump presidency.
It couldnt afford the first one
Too bad do many American voters also ignore it.
*most
his approach isn’t to ignore it; it’s to actively make it worse
Because roughly 60% of likely voters think climate change is a “false religion” that has nothing to do with the climate.
Think about that. Why would a republican candidate that is only about themselves ever do anything about climate change? They poll better when they do the opposite.
We have to be careful here, because we’re getting dangerously close to denial about the popularity of climate change denial. We’re not winning, and even though it’s an existential crisis, “Well you’ll see I’m right when the world is on fire” actually makes people LESS likely to support efforts to fight climate change. Think about that too.
