Joe Manchin and the Republican senators did not give as their reason for opposing Build Back Better the argument that China isn't doing enough. The Republicans claim that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax, perpetrated by scientists who want grant money. Joe Manchin said he was afraid of inflation. Obviously that's not his real reason but let's go with it.
Suppose we do nothing to curb carbon emissions. One consequence will be that Joe Manchin gets even richer. Another consequence is that everything will get more expensive. There are multiple reasons for this. We'll need to spend massively on rebuilding infrastructure in response to rising sea levels and higher temperatures. An airport runway in England recently melted, and they had to close the airport. Trains had to be slowed down or canceled because the rails were bending. We'll need to modify housing and workplaces. Everything will get more expensive.
When the Colorado river dries up, agriculture in the Central Valley of California and much of the Midwest will be devastated. That's where we get most of our food from and in fact food exports are a big part of what makes the U.S. a superpower. You won't like it at all when that happens, because your food will get much more expensive if you can get it at all.
Oh yeah -- fossil fuels will get more expensive too because the most accessible sources of petroleum have already been exploited and oil companies are having to go to less accessible places and more expensive technologies to extract it.
But what if we make the needed investments in renewable energy? Researchers at Brown University (yeah I know, Commie U. I make no apologies) have created an interactive map that shows you the construction jobs that will be created, the long-term renewable operation jobs, energy efficiency jobs, reduced travel times and costs, electricity savings, lives saved because of less pollution, and labor hours saved. Everything will get cheaper! That's because we don't have to pay one penny to the sun for shining or the wind for blowing. Oh yeah, you can even click on West Virginia and see all the good paying jobs that will be created. And they beat the hell out of mining coal.
1 comment:
It's so strange how the only thing keeping our society and nation from incredible advances in education, politics, culture, environmental stewardship, mental health and more is fear.
FDR really was correct! Fear itself truly is all we have to fear ... and it's the biggest component in the mind of almost every Republican senator and representative in the U.S. Congress. The fish stinks from the head down, as they say. These politicians are pandering to the smallest minds among us; there are almost no Republican politicians to lift people out of poverty and the ethical, racist gutter because they've got trigger fingers when it comes to joining them (just not in the poverty --because they think keeping others poor is the way to become rich). It's like W. B. Yeats said ... passionate intensity in the worst of us. When more people with a moral and ethical compass (think Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders, Kinzinger) begin to speak out, things will change. There's so much damn darkness and willful ignorance obscuring the light.
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