Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track global 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).😉
Main Topic: Can One Person Derail Build Back Better And Our Climate Efforts?
Dear Diary. Many times in history the world has had an outcome based on the talents and decisions of just one or two individuals. Militarily, if Napoleon had been less greedy trying to expand his empire into Russia, Europe may have had a very different history. If Hitler had been a less bungling military planner, and Britain been led by a weaker man than Winston Churchill, again Europe and the world would have seen a darker outcome to World War II.
Fast forward to the early 21st century, former President Donald Trump nearly derailed climate fighting efforts so much that now there is only a thread of hope that we can collectively right the climate ship before we hit a proverbial iceberg in which civilization itself will be imperiled. The general consensus is that private enterprise won’t or will not address the most important issue of our time, and we must have a sizeable investment coming from the U.S. government to fix our climate problem. Trump never grasped this inconvenient truth.
Certainly the weather of the last week across the U.S. from Hurricane Ida and the western fires have been a wakeup call to pass the most important bill since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs of the 1930’s:
Trump is gone, thankfully, but another man could potentially be responsible for sinking civilization, and that would be Joe Manchin. For the last few months I’ve written a few posts indicating how perilously close we are to go over a precipice due to inaction stemming from Senator Manchin. Here are some links:
You can see that just about every month I’ve touched upon inaction stemming from Joe Manchin holding up crucial legislation due to now archaic filibuster rules. Is he holding these up out of high principles, or is something more sinister at play here? Frankly, I just don’t know. Still, I am hopeful that his conscience will change his mind:
For today’s main subject I’d like to delve into the reasons why Senator Manchin is balking on the 3.5 trillion Build Back Better package. If he thinks it’s just too expensive can some things be pared without essential Green New Deal items stripped such that climate goals can be met? Here is Senator Manchin’s latest reasoning:
Senator Manchin’s Wall Street Journal opinion piece starts out as follows:
“The nation faces an unprecedented array of challenges and will inevitably encounter additional crises in the future. Yet some in Congress have a strange belief there is an infinite supply of money to deal with any current or future crisis, and that spending trillions upon trillions will have no negative consequence for the future. I disagree.
An overheating economy has imposed a costly “inflation tax” on every middle- and working-class American. At $28.7 trillion and growing, the nation’s debt has reached record levels. Over the past 18 months, we’ve spent more than $5 trillion responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Now Democratic congressional leaders propose to pass the largest single spending bill in history with no regard to rising inflation, crippling debt or the inevitability of future crises. Ignoring the fiscal consequences of our policy choices will create a disastrous future for the next generation of Americans.”
Essentially then, Congress is facing a choice…too much spending or not doing enough to save our climate. Perhaps Senator Manchin doesn’t realize that temporary inflation and economic hardship will be a far less cross to bear than too much stress on our climate, such that civilization itself becomes unsustainable. With that written, the choice is clear, Senator Manchin. Our one last thread of hope is in your hands.
Here are some “ET’s” from Sunday:
Here is some more August 2021 climatology:
Here is more climate and weather news from Sunday:
(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:
(If you like these posts and my work please contribute via the PayPal widget, which has recently been added to this site. Thanks in advance for any support.)
Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”