Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Tab-Clearing

The speculation will be rampant on who is to blame for the outcome in the Virginia gubernatorial race. My take is as follows:
  1. Terry McAuliffe.  He was running to be governor again.  He didn't make the case that he was better than another GOP political neophyte.
  2. Joe Biden.  He's not exactly gotten people excited and he's not delivered on his big plans.
  3. Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema.  For their personal reasons, which border on megalomania, they've been happy to help sink Biden's agenda.  With friends like the Gang of Two, who needs enemies?  During a war, both of them would be on the Bayonet the Enemy Wounded detail, because nobody would trust them with a loaded firearm.
  4. Good old Lee Atwater Southern Strategy racism.  The whole crap about critical race theory is just that.  Critical race theory isn't being taught in elementary or high schools, but that doesn't stop Republicans from doing a Willie Horton on the Democrats.  
  5. The economy.  There's often not much a sitting president can do about that, but that's the way it goes.
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I'm not paying much attention to the arguments today in NYSRPA v. Bruen. The fact of the matter is that most states are now "shall issue", with more and more not requiring permits, and the fear of blood running in the streets that has been bruited about since Florida began the modern concealed-carry movement 30+ years ago has not happened. It won't be that big of a stretch to require that the handful of states still operating on "may issue" or "no issue" change.

But I expect that the Supremes will issue an order saying that the named plaintiffs will get their permits and then have some mealy-mouthed dicta about how it applies to the rest of us. Splitting the baby is what they do.

Besides that, if the justices take a hard-right turn on this issue, they will give lots of oxygen to the argument that they really are partisan hacks and that they need to be curbed. Expect that they're well aware of that risk.

The Court is going to do what it can to preserve their own power. Which is probably why the Texan abortion law will be struck down. The Supreme Court has had the final say over the law for over 200 years, they aren't going to let some pissants in Texas change that, regardless of how much they might like the underlying subject of the law.
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For all the ink, both virtual and real, being spilled on the climate summit, my belief is that humanity has missed that bus. The Chinese and the Russians have been having hissy fits because other countries aren't being nice to them, so skipping the climate summit was a case of "so there, nyaahh". China thinks that they can pollute more because reasons.

Here's the thing: They live on the same planet that we do. China's not going to be immune from the effects of climate change because Chairman Xi issues some sort of directive on it, or bans discussion of it. Mother Nature will not be denied or be ignored. The world has been lackadaisical, to say the least, at addressing climate change. This is not a new problem by any stretch of the imagination.

But the nations of the world have ignored it. Some of it has been a race to the bottom, as nobody wants to be the first one to have to spend the money to transform their economies away from emitting carbon and methane emissions while nobody else does. Some of it has been wishful thinking (see Trump; Donald) in that those people think that if they can pretend it's not happening, then it won't happen.

In the 1980s, corrcective action would have been painful, sure, but compared to where we are now, it would have been relatively easy. Now it won't be. If we're going to mitigate the effects of climate change, then brisk and radical action is necessary on a global scale.

But it's not going to happen.

Here is my prediction: For as long as humanity exists, those generations who were in power between 1980 and 2030 will be reviled. Conservatives and capitalists, in particular, will be blamed for being those who did what they could to ensure that nobody did anything meaningful to avoid the catastrophe. The planet will warm, the biosphere is being decimated and whether or not we as a species can survive is arguable.

We are well and truly screwed. If you have small children or grandchildren, you can comfort yourselves when you go to sleep with the knowledge that their lives are going to be far shittier and harder than ours have been. Because we could have done something and we didn't.

Sleep tight.

17 comments:

  1. Lots of things started (or stopped) in 1980 but not, I think, this one. It is not a matter of how much energy is consumed/wasted, but of the geopoliticization of energy. As such, it goes back to Winston Churchill's decision, in 1911, to convert the British Navy from coal to oil. Britain had had autarky in coal, but oil could only be got from the Middle East. Everything flows from that.

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  2. Bush v Gore pretty much doomed humanity.

    -Doug in Sugar Pine

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  3. "Climate Change".

    From what climate to what climate?

    You measurements have been falsified, there is no clean data..
    You folks used to call it "Global Warming" until the warming didn't happen and Mann's model was shown to be bogus.
    Wo, what "Change" are you referring to?

    None of your predictions have happened, not in over 40 years.

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  4. Keep lying to yourself about CRT. It is on the VA DOE website in both a Superintendent's memo and a briefing from 2015 when McAuliffe was governor and he was pushing it then.

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  5. Show me a curriculum, a lesson plan, something that CRT is being taught.

    Without that, your point fails.

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  6. B, bullshit. The glaciers are melting, that’s beyond dispute. The ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica are melting, that’s beyond dispute. The Arctic ocean ice cap is melting to the point that ships can transit the Arctic. That’s beyond dispute. The seas are slowly acidifying. That’s beyond dispute.

    You think that we should have to wait until the climate falls off and then you’ll say “oh, gee. Maybe I was wrong.” At which point, it’ll be far too late to fix the problem.

    Please put your name out there so that history can properly curse your memory.

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  7. Joe Manchin wants to be re-elected. WV won't re-elect him if he votes in favor of Biden's giant pile of crap. Sinema had other reasons, but the way she has been treated has not proved persuasive, has it?

    CRT is promoted on the VA DoE website. Search for it; I'm reluctant to post links here.
    Christopher Rufo has posted screenshots on Twitter. It definitely influences the teaching, and parents are seeing what is being taught via remote learning.

    Climate- I'm not sure blaming conservatives and capitalists works. EVERYONE burns fossil fuels. You even mention the biggest emitter. And if the USA cut emissions in half tomorrow, it wouldn't do much worldwide.
    I've said it before here- whether climate change is believed or not, the world will extract every bit of fossil fuel it can access. What should be a no-brainer is to recognize the supply is finite, and we need to make it last as long as possible. A side effect would be reducing the rate of CO2 and hydrocarbon emissions.

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  8. B has spoken...the (mis)informed voice of (in)sanity.

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  9. I say again: Show me where CRT is being taught in Virginia.

    I understand the argument of the Indians and the Chinese, that they had little in the making of the causes of climate change. It was the western nations who have been burning fossil fuels for two centuries. I understand why they feel resentful at not having the same freedom to burn coal for a century or more. It's not fair.

    But Nature isn't concerned with what's fair.

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  10. Comrade Misfit: How about on the Virginia Department of Education page for starters:

    http://www.virginiaisforlearners.virginia.gov/anti-racism-in-education/

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  11. I most definitely agree with your five points. The little bit that I have read is that CRT is only taught in advanced college classes, not grade school. The people that are squawking about it probably have no idea what's in the course. They go into denial that there could have been anything in America's past that doesn't support American Exceptionalism. Intellectual curiosity is not their strong point. They have already rejected critical thinking.

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  12. Aaron, is CRT being taught in Virginia's schools?

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  13. The fact that CRT isn't taught in public school pretty much validates CRT.

    -Doug in Sugar Pine

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  14. Still getting your data from the headline.....you aren't bothering to look at actual numbers, are you?
    Sea Ice is up, and has been over the last 20 years. It was down in the 80's and early 90's, but not that much nor at record (if you look at 100 year data, not 30 years data to "hide the decline") lows.... It has been much worse, over time...even before we as a species began burning great amounts of fossil fuels.
    Iceland and Greenland have been both lower and higher in ice coverage in the past few hundred years. Again, look at the data, not the skeery headlines.
    Data, not fearmongering. Seriously.
    Folks are getting rich telling you how bad it is, but the temp data has to be "adjusted" every year...and always upwards. if you look at raw data, there is no discernable warming...only after the "adjustments" are made.

    Try using Goggle to look for sources that don't agree with what they told you to think. You might be surprised to find that they have been lying to you....if you can be bothered to look. You decry those who are swallowed by religion and just believe and follow what the preachers tell them, yet you fall into the same trap on "Climate Change". You believe without skepticism. Even worse, you still drive cars and heat your homes with fossil fuels and use coal powered electricity. If you really Believed you'd live differently and so would those who tell you how bad it is...but they don't and you don't.

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  15. When astronomers tell and the me that the Earth orbits the Sun and that the solar system is in the Milky Way galaxy and orbits the galactic center, I feel no need to set up an observatory and verify any of that. I feel no need to raise plants and verify that genetics work.

    So it is here. There are curmudgeons who don't believe in evolution, genetics, or astronomy. If the vast weight of climate science says that the glove is warming because of a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide or that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is causing a slow acidification of the oceans, I see no reason to doubt that.

    You guys on the Right seem to think that science has a political slant. In that, you are firmly in the camp of Donald Trump, Josef Stalin and some former Austrian corporal of minor historical note.

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  16. Nice, So you won't bother to look at the data.

    As Galileo said long ago: "And Yet It Moves".
    We are in a simpar situation here, You and your types insist that the earth is warming, despite observations...real data, that says otherwise. You point to cherry-picked, incomplete and manipulated data rather than complete and unaltered observations, and demand that others believe lies. You are an intelligent woman...why won't you look at the real data rather than hide from it?

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  17. Actually, B, it's the other way around. Your side is cherry-picking data to justify doing nothing. Your side is relying on scientific prostitutes, who are operating in the well-worn track first blazed by Thomas Midgely, Jr.

    But this has become pointless.

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