The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Dear Diary. Are you feeling lucky today since it’s Friday the 13th? I’m not but am cautiously optimistic concerning our climate. What has me down was what I saw on Fox News last night, or what some people refer to as GOP (Grand Old Party) T.V. or even Trump T.V. Occasionally I will pop over to this news organization to see what Trump’s sycophants, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson, are saying during the evening. These non-journalists have very high ratings and an amazing but frightening amount of sway with a large segment of the American public. They are a trio of trouble.
All three still claim that Trump has not lost the election, bolstering Republicans to not give an inch towards Biden’s transition efforts. All three are really no more than little Goebbels of the 21st century, or propagandists now for Trump, hurting our democracy by not letting us have a smooth, peaceful transition from one presidential administration to another. All past Presidents who have lost peacefully handed over the reigns of power to the winner since the inception of the United States in the late 1700s. Will Trump and his cult followers? Let’s look at a little history to answer this question.
Over the last few years I’ve come to realize that Trump is a nascent authoritarian fascist, garnering many cult like followers just like prior dictators of the 20th century. What’s frightening is that these “Tea Party” types have been brainwashed by those at Fox News to not let go of “Trumpism” no matter what scientific evidence is presented on climate, covid, and economics. One only has to look at videos of past Trump and Hitler rallies to see twisted parallels. These easily malleable American people may soon be responsible for wrecking all efforts to mitigate carbon pollution, destroying our climate. From psychology we know that cultists are not reasonable people, with most following a “dear leader” until a bitter end.
Germany, of course, had a bigger problem in the 1930s with malleable people driving that country towards destruction. In one sense though, if these people are not politically defeated for the rest of this century the entire world will eventually end up like Germany in 1945, but without much of an opportunity to rebuild, getting a second chance from nature.
President Obama essentially only had two years to do good work after he was elected in 2008. He chose to spend his extensive political capital at the time on health care. His political enemies quickly dismantled the power he garnered from his 2008 election in 2010 by taking back the House of Representatives. These House of Representative Tea Partiers made sure that a carbon tax and many other initiatives could not move forward for the rest of his presidency. The Tea Party morphed into the Party of Trump in Republican circles from 2016 to this day.
Biden has far less political wiggle room after the 2020 election than Obama in 2008. The House led by Nancy Pelosi lost ten democratic seats, so there is barely about a ten seat majority in that governmental body to pass progressive initiatives. I will be doing my best to help Reverend Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff get elected as our next and last two democratic Senators this election cycle, but that prospect in my conservative state of Georgia is unlikely. So, the Senate should stay in Republican hands. Obama had vast majorities in both houses of Congress to start out his presidency.
Anything substantial that Biden does will get him labeled as a socialist on Fox, angering the Trumpists. Already some outlets like Politico are suggesting that the U.S. House will flip to the Republicans in 2022. Should these Trumpists get control of the House their will be endless mostly bogus investigations basically ending the Biden Presidency and probably our good climate.
On COVID-19, which unfortunately has become politicized in this country no thanks to the aforementioned trio of troubling T.V. personalities, I see that any rollout of a vaccine in 2021 could be bandied about just like mask wearing. Good science would say that all people taking a vaccine should show certificates proving that they are immune. Laura Ingraham last night sneered at that idea in the name of freedom. To this day I don’t know what drives these three climate change denying Fox hosts. Are they being paid to cause havoc? I’d love to know.
So, what can we do? It’s up to young conservative people to start changing the Republican Party from within to accept science. It’s up to the rest of us to make sure that all branches of government remain in democratic hands until eventually Trumpism dies out through peaceful means at the ballot box, while reforming the way we vote to make that process better and more transparent. This may take more than ten years. Are we up to that political challenge? I hope and pray so.
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Here is more climate and weather news from Friday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”