Green New Deal

Over 300 elected officials endorsed a letter calling on state and federal governments to address climate change.

As leaders responsible for America’s present and future prosperity, we must significantly raise the bar for climate leadership and set our nation on a new path. We join with states, cities, businesses, and institutions that are already taking bold action to protect public health and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs in energy efficiency and clean energy like wind and solar.

And yet, Michael Duggin wonders if it's too late to persuade enough people of the urgency.

From my own experience, I have found that neither fact-based reason nor the resulting cognitive dissonance it instills change many minds once they are firmly fixed; rationalization and denial are the twin pillars of human psychology and it is a common and unfortunate characteristic of our species to double-down on mistaken beliefs rather than admit error and address problems forthrightly. This may be our epitaph.

Update (December 17):  COP24 ended with an agreement on a "rulebook" to implement the Paris goals. But Simon Pirani argues that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has only subordinated ecological interests to economic ones.

A huge amount of political energy is expended to convince us that the international climate talks are dealing with the global warming problem. They simply are not. Since 1992 the annual level of greenhouse gases emissions from fossil fuel use has risen by more than half. That is a failure. If we don’t characterize the talks in that way, we cannot deal with the political consequences.

The 2015 Paris agreement marked the final collapse of attempts to adopt binding emissions targets. I do not want to say the voluntary targets adopted are worthless, or that the policies adopted in some countries to achieve them are not helpful, or that serious efforts – most obviously, the substantial investment in renewable energy for electricity generation – are not being made to move away from some uses of fossil fuels. But we need to assess progress soberly and not confuse hopes with reality.

Even a Green New Deal faces divergent routes of being promoted as a market-oriented investment program versus "a program of state infrastructure investment".

Whether such a war-type mobilization would ever be implemented in any significant capitalist country remains to be seen.

[Instead of] just a social-democratic spending program, a much deeper-going shift to post-capitalist social relations could provide the context for the fundamental changes in social, economic and technological systems that will be necessary to break the economy’s many-sided dependence on fossil fuels.

Update (December 18):  Robert Hunziker points to a statement from 415 money managers as a sign of hope.

Global investors managing $32 trillion issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit ... demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis.

Update (December 20):  The Congressional Budget Office claims that climate change poses little economic risk to the U.S. in the next ten years.

Update (December 21):  House Democrats will revive a select committee on climate change, but it apparently won't focus only on creating a Green New Deal. Alexander Kaufman points to the effect of building support among 40 members of Congress.

The push forced a sea change in climate politics, pushing the policy debate from stagnant, wonky and dubious solutions centered on market tweaks to sweeping, dramatic policies that scientists say could actually make a dent in surging greenhouse gas emissions.

Update (January 2, 2019):  Ellen Brown describes how a Green New Deal could be funded.

Update (January 3, 2019):  Patrick Walker is skeptical over the willingness of Democrats to confront Dear Leader on his criminally insane climate policies.

Update (January 6, 2019):  Stuart Scott says our operating system is flawed--money and growth economics.

Update (January 7, 2019):  The Sunrise Movement is going on tour to promote a Green New Deal.

Update (February 3, 2019):  Rob Urie explains why the powers that be (including in the House) oppose a Green New Deal.

The larger issue remains that corporate profits and the wealth held by oligarchs are the wages of environmental destruction. Depending on how these are calculated, the net benefit of three centuries of capitalist production might easily have a giant minus sign in front of it. In this light, the insurgent Democrats’ offer to have the Federal government fund environmental resolution seems incredibly generous. It is the potential for upending existing power relations that makes it contentious.

Update (February 7, 2019):  Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey announced a resolution describing the goals of the Green New Deal.

Update (February 9, 2019):  Joe Conason says the introduction of the resolution is already a significant accomplishment.

For the first time in years — perhaps for the first time ever — millions of Americans are not only fretting about the planet’s imperiled future but also organizing behind a visionary approach to its salvation.

Lacking in legislative details, this bill wasn’t drawn to address every aspect of climate policy or all of the economic changes required to reduce carbon emissions to zero within 10 years, its ambitious goal. The Green New Deal is an idea, designed to explode the myth that environmental progress must reduce economic growth and destroy jobs — as corporate propaganda has insisted for decades. Instead, this clean-energy transition promises full employment at living wages, universal health care and improved educational opportunity.

Naturally, Sean Hannity isn't convinced.

This is a real, serious threat to our way of life.

Yeah--a way of life that's leading us to disaster.

Update (February 12, 2019):  Jessica Corbett writes that "a growing number of labor, economic justice, racial justice, indigenous, environmental and community organizations have lined up behind the bold proposal and vowed to pressure lawmakers to pass" the Green New Deal resolution. It should be a major campaign issue in 2020. Terry Schwadron notes Republicans are mounting their attacks over the "excesses of government".

[T]hese attacks miss the point. The real meaning of the Green New Deal is that, as a society, we need to take on the ultimate environmental challenge as a social mission—a commitment to making substantial change.

Update (February 18, 2019):  Zach Carter and Alexander Kaufman argue now is not the time to quibble over cost.

The Green New Deal’s agenda is clear: Climate change is an emergency that deserves immediate attention. Millions of lives are quite literally at stake.

Update (February 22, 2019):  Lisi Krall questions whether a Green New Deal can function within a capitalist framework.

The GND’s problem, as I understand it, is that it wants to deal with the first contradiction of capital (job creation and new outlets for capital investment) and the second contradiction (biophysical limits) by assuming that we can transition to renewable energy seamlessly and at unrealistic speed, ultimately achieving both green growth and job security.

But, John Feffer and Jim Goodman do defend the resolution.

While the ultimate solution to [the inherent economic and social problems of capitalism] would be a different economic system, perhaps a social democracy, we must consider the GND as a part of a solution that we can no longer ignore.

Update (February 25, 2019):  Jeremy Brecher offers 18 Strategies for a Green New Deal.

Update (March 4, 2019):  Kristine Mattis argues that in terms of a Green New Deal, "the only sustainable policies are radical ones".

[I]f we can sum up the fundamental cause of our existential crisis in one simple phrase, it is this: our way of life. It is a way of life predicated on the desire for more – more energy, more products, more technology, more synthetics, more manufactured goods (i.e., bads), and more manufactured wants. Yet, our insatiable yearning for more has left us with less of the one thing upon which our entire lives depend: the natural world.

The low-carbon, more equitable future sought by the GND resolution is undeniably a good one; however, its foundation based on our current paradigm of prosperity – i.e., more energy, more production, more industry, more technology, more consumption – renders it insufficient to effect the radical changes we need for a sustainable future.

We have never, ever prioritized environmental concerns, which is why we find ourselves in this precarious predicament in the first place. Without fundamental changes, ecosystems will continue to deteriorate all around us to the point where our species is permanently imperiled. Humans have spent the past several centuries (at a minimum) despoiling the planetary ecosystem on which we all rely for life. The idea that it is impractical to attempt to deal with our ecological crises is frankly, insane. It suggests one must be either too obtuse to comprehend the simple scientific realities of our time, or too self-absorbed to care.

Update (March 30, 2019):  The coldest place on earth still faces melting as AOC campaigns for the GND.

Update (April 3, 2019):  It does seem important to make the distinction being thinking we can "fix" things versus asking "how do we prepare for where we're going". But that's not to say a Green New Deal can't make a difference and Lance Olsen defends the idea from all manner of disingenuous attacks.

Broadly framed, we have two choices now. Either we get the rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society that scientists and Green New Deal advocates are urging, or we get another, more costly, and decidedly unkinder kind of rapid, far-reaching, and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society if we allow fossil fuel capitalism to defeat us.

Update (April 28, 2019):  Nick Licata thinks the Democrats blew it:

Without the support of farmers and unions, the Green New Deal will remain a list of talking points for politicians. The democrats made a serious error releasing their 14-page non-binding House Resolution 109 without those groups taking a lead in its roll out.

Update (May 8, 2019):  Shamus Cooke worries that GND won't go far enough.

If the Green New Deal is viewed as a final destination— within a capitalist framework— instead of a pitstop toward further economic-climate transformation, we risk enormous energy being co-opted by the establishment that hope to prevent deeper necessary changes.

Update (May 16, 2019):  It's not called a Green New Deal, but Governor Jay Inslee has released a $9 trillion plan as part of his presidential campaign.

The 38-page Evergreen Economy Plan promises at least 8 million jobs over 10 years, and offers the most detailed policy vision yet for mobilizing the entire United States economy to stave off catastrophic global warming and prepare for already inevitable temperature rise.

Update (May 21, 2019):  Mark Mills with the conservative Manhattan Institute don't deny climate change, but throws cold water on the notion of a "new energy economy". He argues there are physical limitations and cost inefficiencies on renewable energy technology.

The scale challenge for any energy resource transformation begins with a description. Today, the world’s economies require an annual production of 35 billion barrels of petroleum, plus the energy equivalent of another 30 billion barrels of oil from natural gas, plus the energy equivalent of yet another 28 billion barrels of oil from coal. 

To completely replace hydrocarbons over the next 20 years, global renewable energy production would have to increase by at least 90-fold. For context: it took a half-century for global oil and gas production to expand by 10-fold. It is a fantasy to think, costs aside, that any new form of energy infrastructure could now expand nine times more than that in under half the time.

I'm not sure about all his details, but he's not necessarily wrong about the impossibility of maintaining current levels of energy consumption without fossil fuels. We just don't want to give that up.

Update (June 14, 2019):  Richard Moser contrasts the Green New Deal from the Democratic Party with that of the Green Party.

Update (June 15, 2019):  Matthew Rozsa gives an overview of the Green New Deal.

Update (June 16, 2019):  Carl Pope discusses the climate plans of the major Democratic contenders.

Update (June 22, 2019):  Paul Rosenberg responds to Pope and makes the case for a climate debate among the Democrats.

Update (July 24, 2019):  Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are planning a "bold", watered-down version of the Green New Deal.

The Sunrise Movement, the youth-led climate advocacy group that thrust the Green New Deal into the national spotlight, accused the committee of "misrepresenting the science" by saying a 2050 net-zero emissions target in the U.S. aligns with the scientific consensus.

"That is what the world’s top scientists at the United Nations are saying, conservatively, is necessary to achieve globally," Sunrise co-founder Varshini Prakash said in a statement. "It’s clear that if we are to achieve that goal globally, the United States — as one of the world’s largest and most developed economies — must move much more aggressively. To set a low goal that is misaligned with what science demands out of the gate is irresponsible, and bargaining against our future."

Update (August 8, 2019):  Aviva Chomsky discusses the interplay among unions, environmental organizations and the Green New Deal.

Update (August 24, 2019):  Pete Dolack describes the Democratic resolution as a watered down version of the Green Party's plan, which is, nevertheless, unrealistic without the support of leadership.

A more fundamental problem is that the backers of the Democratic Green New Deal seem to assume that a program challenging corporate interests to such a serious degree can be fully implemented in the current U.S. political and economic system, and that corporate interests will simply sit back and allow such a program not only to be signed into law but to actually be implemented. A massive social movement, bringing together the widest possible array of organizations and resolute in using a multitude of tactics inside and outside the system, could bring about the proposed program, but there is not a word of public involvement in the Democratic program. It is all to be created by congressional action.

[S]hutting down entire industries and overhauling the world’s economic system will come at serious cost. It’s not realistic to pretend otherwise. Those of us in the advanced capitalist countries will have to consume less, including using less energy. That, too, is inescapable and both Green New Deals fail to address that.

This is a debate that shouldn’t be reduced to a sterile "revolution or reform" opposition. We need all the reform we can achieve, right now. The balance, nonetheless, is clearly on the side of advocates who push for the fastest possible transition to a new economy, one not dependent on fossil fuels. An economy based on meeting human need and in harmony with the environment, not one made for private profit and that externalizes onto society environmental and other costs. The price of business as usual will be catastrophic environmental damage. Socialism or barbarism remain humanity’s future options.

Update (October 3, 2019):  Don Fitz discusses the Green Party debate over GND and asks whether it is environmentally sound to continue to seek increasing production.

Update (October 10, 2019):  John Davis sees "accursed wealth" as the greatest obstacle to change.

It was the ideas of Descartes and Bacon that created a space, in the early seventeenth century, for a scientifically founded modernity. The climate emergency – the planetary crisis – now demands, not a Green New Deal which recycles Gore’s still-born ‘Global Marshall Plan’, but the attempted closure of modernity through a complementary revolution in thought – an intellectual foment capable of turning back the rapacious appetites of capitalism.

Update (October 17, 2019):  Jon Rynn explains the Green Economy Reconstruction Program as proposed by the Green Party.

Update (December 7, 2019):  John Atcheson supports a Green New Deal saying half measures won't work.

[I]t’s too late to rely on the market to solve the crisis we’ve put ourselves in. No politically acceptable tax or fee will foster the magnitude of change we need, in the time we need it.

Update (December 22, 2019):  Carl Boggs argues that the GND as proposed in the U.S. doesn't go far enough.

If the transnational corporate order remains intact it is hard to see how a fossil-fuel economy embedded in American capitalism will be materially weakened, given its many trillions of dollars invested in deeply-embedded modes of production and consumption.

Economic predictions indicate that leading industrialized nations could easily double their GDP output within the next two or three decades. It is delusional to believe vulnerable ecosystems could endure such overburdening "development" very far into the future.

Update (December 31, 2019):  As a key aspect of a Green New Deal, Ellen Brown cites David Perry in pointing to regenerative agriculture as a way of removing carbon dioxide from the air. Restoring soil carbon content from 1 percent to 3 percent could sequester a trillion tons of carbon--approximately the amount released since industrialization began.

Update (February 23, 2020):  Cameron Roberts uses historical case studies to argue against "carbon pricing as the primary way to promote low-carbon technologies and practices".

[R]adical technological change was achieved not by relying on price signals to coordinate change, but by the state intervening and coordinating it directly.

Update (May 21, 2020):  Don Fitz reviews The Green New Deal and Beyond by Stan Cox.

Stan Cox is one of those intense thinkers who are highly cautious about unbridled support for a concept that might have drawbacks. In his forward to the book Noam Chomsky notes that pro-GND US congresspersons do not directly challenge the fossil fuel industry. And Naomi Klein, who enthusiastically endorses what Cox writes, precautions that we must be wary that good paying green jobs do not morph into high-consuming lifestyles that add to greenhouse gas emissions.

Update (June 25, 2020):  Marshall Auerback wants an expanded GND.

The pandemic suggests that we may need to incorporate a wider and more complex range of priorities than the ones that are baked into existing Green New Deal models.

[T]he GND models need to incorporate more of our immediate social needs—better public health, infrastructure and education, freedom from punitive personal debt, and a more equitable and democratic political system—as well as national economic priorities, such as manufacturing and an end to wasteful military spending.

Today’s Green New Deal is achievable, but we’re going to need a bigger acronym and a more expansive vision that incorporates many of the things we have learned during this pandemic. The likely structural changes required to offset the damage left in its wake are profound, but the burdens must be shared more equitably and the benefits dispersed more broadly, if it is to have any chance of success. Our future prosperity, indeed the future success of our democracy, depends on it.

Update (July 6, 2020):  Michael Galant discusses a Global Green New Deal.

To escape the global recession and build a more resilient world on the other side, we need to rewrite the rules. We need a system of trade that puts workers and the environment before corporate profits. We need enforceable global floors on wages, labor laws, and environmental protections. We need global coordination to end the scourge of tax havens, debt relief for countries in crisis, and massive global redistribution.

Matthew Rosza calls for a Green Declaration of Independence.

In addition to existential threats like global warming and the pandemic, people throughout the world are becoming rapidly more aware of systemic injustices directly caused by prevailing political and economic power structures. We have a military-industrial complex that wages constant wars, weapons of mass destruction that could mark the death of our species and pollution that could wipe us off the planet by lowering our sperm count. We have a racist prison-industrial complex that deprives millions of people of their most basic freedoms and severe income inequality that leads to rampant economic suffering and the deprivation of opportunities for social mobility for millions of people.

In short, we are a society in which "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" either do not exist or are seriously threatened for, literally, everyone. As a result, we need to be liberated from the forces that are causing this — and far more urgently than the colonists needed to be freed from King George III more than two centuries ago.

Update (July 19, 2020):  More from Jon Rynn about using a Green New Deal to create a new economic system.

The economy is an ecosystem, but it is one that is heading for collapse. By reorienting the economy to revolve around the government-led, manufacturing-centered, and sustainable creation of wealth, we can reconstruct the broken systems that are causing so much misery and distress, and guarantee that the civilization will be viable over the long term.

Update (August 24, 2020):  Howie Hawkins, Mark Dunlea, and Jon Rynn defend a robust GND.

[T]he Democrats have taken the Green Party’s Green New Deal slogan, divested it of real content, and finally abandoned it altogether in the 2020 Democratic platform.

Resign

After a tumultuous campaign by the most unqualified candidate and despicable human being in history, his presidency has been a long stretch of disasters revealing increasing corruption and outright criminality. Recent sentencing memos paint the clearest picture yet that Fuckface von Clownstick does not belong in office.

Though impeachment is well deserved, Amanda Marcotte notes that conviction in the Senate is highly unlikely.

[A]n expanded Republican majority in the Senate is fully committed to doing everything it can to thwart the rule of law and the will of the people to protect the great orange menace glowering in the Oval Office.

If and when [Dear Leader] is acquitted in the Senate, he will immediately equate that with an exoneration.

Pubic pressure through the media won't happen because there's a desire to believe office-holders are well-meaning.

There's no way most pundits will ever admit that the entire Republican majority in the Senate supports [Fuckface] not because they believe he's not guilty, but because they don't care if he's guilty.

Marcotte says the electoral solution is best--a Democrat needs to succeed him to prevent a pardon.

[L]et's keep our eyes on the prize: Jail time for [Fuckface], and no state funeral. To get there, patience will be required.

Cody Fenwick argues there's a solution to the impeachment dilemma. Call for resignation.

Republicans will say that impeachment, investigations, and scrutiny of the president's misdeeds will damage the country. They are probably right. But ignoring the mountains of evidence against the president would do much more harm to the country by sending a signal that the people cannot trust their government and that powerful people will never be held accountable.

And if Republicans are concerned about the harm the proceedings will cause, they can join with Democrats in the calls for resignation. Democrats could rightly say they've been backed into a corner, but that resignation offers the country a way out of the unfolding chaos. If [Dear Leader] stepped down, he'd be saving the country from an awful lot. If he stays on, despite the damning case against him, he is responsible for the trauma the ongoing fights inflict upon the American people, not the Democrats.

Update (January 20, 2019):  In an interview with Andrew O'Hehir, Andrew Coan explains the role of special counsel in U.S. history and notes that Robert Mueller's report isn't necessarily going to be as damaging as most people assume.

Also,  Yoni Appelbaum gives a extended argument for impeaching Dear Leader.

Only by authorizing a dedicated impeachment inquiry can the House begin to assemble disparate allegations into a coherent picture, forcing lawmakers to consider both whether specific charges are true and whether the president’s abuses of his power justify his removal.

Update (March 4, 2019):  The House Judiciary Committee is requesting information from 81 people/agencies/organizations with ties to Fuckface von Clownstick. Chair Jerrold Nadler:

We have sent these document requests in order to begin building the public record. The Special Counsel's office and the Southern District of New York are aware that we are taking these steps. We will act quickly to gather this information, assess the evidence, and follow the facts where they lead with full transparency with the American people.

Update (March 6, 2019):  Paul Blumenthal explains what Democrats are looking at:

The document requests by the House Judiciary Committee focus on five lines of investigation: 1) the [Moscow Tower] deal negotiations, 2) possible conspiracy between the [von Clownstick] campaign and the Russian government and other foreign governments to influence the 2016 presidential election, 3) possible crimes to cover up the alleged conspiracy, 4) payment of hush money to the president’s extramarital lovers in violation of campaign finance laws and 5) the president’s receipt of money in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

Update (March 8, 2019):  Seriously deranged or a winning strategy?

Update (December 29, 2019):  F. Michael Higginbotham calls on Dear Leader to resign.

The divisions in the country today are even more corrosive than they were in 1974. That’s why it’s even more important that [Fuckface] emulate the best of Richard Nixon, who, in a rare moment of grace, understood he could only weaken the nation he led by focusing solely on himself, and chose the better path.

Simple Human Principles

Nathan Robinson reflects on the values he's realized through the works of Noam Chomsky. Robinson notes that Chomsky's political writing has been done out of sense of moral obligation.

I am skeptical of anyone who "likes" politics. Perhaps if we lived in a world without injustice, and we were just debating what color to paint the new village merry-go-round, it would be possible to find politics a source of enjoyment. But in a world where there are serious human stakes to politics, it is not a game. Chomsky came into political activism because he was horrified that hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people were being doused with napalm by the United States military. The idea of "liking" politics seems perverse. Those who know Chomsky have said that he is motivated by a deep and sincere compassion for the victims of atrocities committed by his country; Fred Branfman recalled a visit with Chomsky to the site of U.S. bombing in Laos, where Chomsky wept after hearing stories from Laotian refugees, displaying the "most natural, human response" of the foreign visitors when compared with the stony journalists who simply took notes.

I’ve always been reminded by this to remember what "politics" is about: It isn’t pro wrestling, it isn’t a horse race. It’s the process that determines how power is going to be used.

Update (December 8):  Even if we don't like politics, it remains important for citizens of a functioning democracy to be informed. An excerpt from The Chomsky Reader gives his view for why people focus attention on subjects other than politics.

I think that this concentration on such topics as sports makes a certain degree of sense. The way the system is set up, there is virtually nothing people can do anyway, without a degree of organization that's far beyond anything that exists now, to influence the real world. They might as well live in a fantasy world, and that's in fact what they do. I'm sure they are using their common sense and intellectual skills, but in an area which has no meaning and probably thrives because it has no meaning, as a displacement from the serious problems which one cannot influence and affect because the power happens to lie elsewhere.

Now it seems to me that the same intellectual skill and capacity for understanding and for accumulating evidence and gaining information and thinking through problems could be used -- would be used -- under different systems of governance which involve popular participation in important decision-making, in areas that really matter to human life.

Poser President

Instead of seeking out real solutions, Dear Leader only knows how to issue threats when a company like General Motors announces plant closures with nearly 15,000 jobs cut. Bob Hennelly hopes the election results indicate that more workers now realize who their real friends are.

In December 2018 [von Clownstick], the once fiery populist avenger, has shrunk in stature. He’s now a self-obsessed narcissist, unable to stay focused long enough to keep his "no-collusion" story straight, never mind capable of compelling American multinationals to put American workers ahead of their global pursuit of ever greater profits.  

Fourth National Climate Assessment

Volume II is now released. The assessment is required every four years. Volume I was released last year. From the overview:

With substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., consistent with the very low scenario), the increase in global annual average temperature relative to preindustrial times could be limited to less than 3.6°F (2°C). Without significant greenhouse gas mitigation, the increase in global annual average temperature could reach 9°F or more by the end of this century.

Update (November 25):  If there are future historians, they will not look kindly on a Republican Party that shrugs off the urgency of climate change. Senator Jodi Ernst:

We know that our climate is changing. Our climate always changes and we see those ebb and flows through time.

Update (November 27):  So the Press Secretary complains that the climate assessment is based on models--it's not "data-driven". "It's not based on facts." So what facts from the future should we be using?

But really, we're just counting down the days to the end of all, listening to Dear Leader.

One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers. You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean. ... As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it — not nearly like it is.

Update (November 29):  A report published in The Lancet outlines the health impacts of climate change.

A rapidly changing climate has dire implications for every aspect of human life, exposing vulnerable populations to extremes of weather, altering patterns of infectious disease, and compromising food security, safe drinking water, and clean air.

Update (December 3):  Senator Bernie Sanders hosted a town hall presentation on climate change.

Update (December 5):  A report from the Global Carbon Project projects an increase in carbon dioxide emissions of 2.7 percent this year--up from 1.6 percent last year. The leadership hasn't been there to cut emissions and promote ideas like a climate jobs guarantee.

Update (December 23):  Two studies conclude that there has been no statistically significant "pause" in global warming. According to Michael Mann:

There was a natural slowdown in the rate of warming during roughly the decade of the 2000s due to a combination of volcanic influences and internal climate variability, but there was no actual 'hiatus' or 'pause' in warming.

Update (January 16, 2019):  A report from Oil Change International shows that fracking will be a disaster for the climate.

Between 2018 and 2050, U.S. drilling into new oil and gas reserves could unlock 120 billion metric tons of new carbon pollution, which is equivalent to the lifetime CO2 emissions of nearly 1,000 coal-fired power plants. If not curtailed, U.S. oil and gas expansion will impede the rest of the world’s ability to manage a climate-safe, equitable decline of oil and gas production.

Standing Up to a Bully

Earlier this year, Michelle Wolf upset some people with sharp humor and so the White House Correspondents' Association decided to scrap having a comedian next year. Naturally, Dear Leader had to spew his idiocy--finding it easier to attack performers rather than murderous autocrats. And Wolf tweeted this response:

I bet you’d be on my side if I had killed a journalist.

Laura Bradley explains Wolf's further dig.

She added the hashtag "#BeBest," a sarcastic reference to [the First Lady's] anti-bullying campaign.

This is How Republicans Win

Stacey Abrams ended her campaign for governor of Georgia, but made no concession.

[M]ore than a million citizens found their names stripped from the rolls by the secretary of state, including a 92-year-old civil rights activist who had cast her ballot in the same neighborhood since 1968. Tens of thousands hung in limbo, rejected due to human error and a system of suppression that had already proven its bias. The remedy, they were told, was simply to show up. Only they, like thousands of others, found polling places shut down, understaffed, ill-equipped, or simply unable to serve its basic function for lack of a power cord. Students drove hours to hometowns because mismanagement prevented absentee ballots from arriving on time. Parents stood in the fitful rain in four-hour lines, watching as other voters had to abandon democracy in favor of keeping their jobs and collecting a paycheck. Eligible voters were refused ballots because poll workers didn't think they had enough paper to go around. Ballots were rejected by the handwriting police. Citizens tried to exercise their constitutional rights and were still denied the right to elect their leaders.

Under the watch of the now-former secretary of state, Democracy failed Georgia.

Update (November 27):  Abrams has filed a lawsuit over voter suppression in the 2018 election.

Update (November 29):  An additional lawsuit charges that Georgia's election system is unconstitutional.

Update (December 3):  Republicans have a new tactic:  Change the rules when you do lose an election.

Wisconsin Republicans moved quickly Monday with a rare lame-duck session that would change the 2020 presidential primary date to benefit a conservative Supreme Court justice and weaken the newly elected Democratic governor and attorney general.

Update (December 5):  They have no shame. And Wisconsin is not the only state involved. Stealing ballots isn't enough in North Carolina. And Michigan is trying "to gut a bill that would’ve raised the state’s minimum wage and given workers access to paid sick leave".

Update (December 7):  Scott Bateman illustrates how democracy works.

Update (March 22, 2019):  A Wisconsin judge has blocked a package of laws passed to weaken incoming Democratic officials after the 2018 election.

Update (July 14, 2019):  Even when Democrats control the entire state government, Republicans still find a way.

Update (August 30, 2019):  The House Oversight Committee is investigating an unusual pattern of undervotes in the Georgia Lt. Governor's election last year. Andrew O'Hehir explains that there's a typical "drop-off" in votes since people tend to be less interested in lower offices up for election. But, going against the trend, Lt. Governor had greater drop-off than lower contests. And:

An analysis by the Democratic data-tracking firm TargetSmart found that the drop-off "grew even more extreme in precincts with large African American populations".

Update (September 12, 2019):  The slimy North Carolina Republicans thought it would be clever to override a veto by scheduling a vote while most Democrats were at a 9/11 memorial.

In a stunning display of contempt for democracy, House Speaker Tim Moore, a Cleveland County Republican, called a surprise vote to overturn Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the state budget just after a session opened at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday. Democratic lawmakers and the media had been told by Republican leaders that there would be no vote in the morning.

Update (June 13, 2020):  While other states seem to be figuring out how to expand voting by mail, Georgia had major problems with its primary this year. Andrea Young:

The ACLU warned that insufficient resources were allocated for polling places, machines, in-person election staff, and staff to process absentee ballots and that this would result in the disenfranchisement of voters in 2020. It gives us no pleasure to be proven right.

Whether it is incompetence or intentional voter suppression, the result is the same—Georgians denied their rights as citizens in this democracy.

And now Republicans are worried suppression will be "weaponized". 

Democratic turnout among white and black voters was high in this week’s elections, even in predominantly GOP precincts. They fear it could reach historic levels in November if Democrats manage to demonize Republicans as actively suppressing minorities from voting.

The Great War

President Emmanuel Macron marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I in Paris.

The traces of this war never went away.

The old demons are rising again. We must reaffirm before our peoples our true and huge responsibility.

Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism. Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism. In saying 'Our interests first, whatever happens to the others,' you erase the most precious thing a nation can have, that which makes it live, that which causes it to be great and that which is most important: Its moral values.

Update (November 14):  Dennis Morgan wonders if people really understand that war.

[T]he worst thing about World War I is that it led to World War II. It was not two wars – it was the continuation of the same, stupid, useless war that had no meaning, no virtue, and no heroics.

Update (January 30, 2019):  Michael Welton visits an exhibition about the war.

In Praise of Gridlock

While the Senate is a disaster, Democrats are projected to control the House. Governors are a mixed bag. Florida is awful, but in perhaps the most significant result, voting rights have been restored to ex-felons there.

Update (November 7):  It's important to recognize the good stuff. But Jonathan Cohn explains the uphill battle.

It’s no secret why Democrats nevertheless emerged with fewer Senate seats. The Constitution gives disproportionate power to small states in the upper chamber, which in the current political alignment means conservative-leaning states have extra representation. This is an ongoing problem that will undermine Democrats in the next election just as surely as it did this one.

A similar problem plagues the House, where the incoming Democratic majority is probably smaller than it might have been because of partisan gerrymandering. And the newly elected Democrats who won in Republican-leaning districts like Michigan’s 8th are sure to face difficult challenges winning re-election in two years. As gerrymandering expert Dave Daley told HuffPost recently, "If it requires a generational wave to give Democrats [the House], that’s a sign of just how powerful gerrymandering is, not a sign that it can be conquered."

Update (November 9):  It turns out the Senate may not be quite the disaster it seemed to be initially. Florida is heading to a recount and the Democrat in Arizona has taken the lead.

Update (November 11):  At 47 percent, the midterm election turnout was the highest since 1966.

And Andrew O'Hehir sorts through the punditry to find the most useful conclusions.

One of those is that American politics are highly dysfunctional and our society remains bitterly divided, and these problems will not be easy to solve. Another is that this week’s remarkable events mean something. If we give them water, oxygen and time to unfold, we may find out what.

Update (November 12):  Noah Berlatsky sees a long road ahead.

[Drumpfism] in 2018 received a check. But racism, sexism, conspiracy-mongering, lying and hatred ― in short, fascism ― remain for Republicans a viable electoral path. Defeating [Drumpfism] means outvoting fascism, and simultaneously changing the system so that outvoting fascism actually has an effect. To do both will require fighting for many years beyond 2018.

Meanwhile, the election of Kyrsten Sinema to the U.S. Senate is a very good sign.

Update (November 13):  It's very dangerous when candidates and national leaders charge "fraud" before all the votes are counted. Steven Huefner explains:

[I]t is beyond unseemly – indeed, it is downright destructive of public trust in our elections, and fundamentally inconsistent with the health of our representative democracy – for candidates to assert or imply that the reason that Election Night results have been changing in the past few days is because election officials have engaged in some sort of irregular or unlawful conduct to manipulate the results. For anyone who cares about democratic institutions, the responsible position is to let the counting proceed according to state law, and then if necessary to take advantage of recount, audit, and contest processes to ascertain whether any defects occurred in these processes.

The good news is that Judge Amy Totenberg ordered Georgia to delay certification so that provisional ballots can be reviewed properly. Republicans seem to assume that as long as they get close enough in an election, then they simply win no matter what process is in place--as shown by efforts to block Maine's ranked choice voting.

Update (November 14):  There are reports that Dear Leader is increasingly erratic since the election. Heather Digby Parton knows why.

He lost, and his followers will never see him the same way again.

Once a con man is exposed, he blows town and moves on to the next mark. But [Fuckface von Clownstick] is the president of the United States. He's trapped and he has nowhere else to go.

Update (November 18):  Paul Rosenberg argues the new Democratic House will get nowhere by "playing nice".

[W]hat Democrats can and should do instead [is push for] broadly popular proposals and [take] principled stands, to define in detail their own inclusive vision of what America can and will be.

Update (November 28):  The final races have been decided. The Senate stands at 53 to 47 for the Republicans, a gain of two. The House is at 235 to 200 for the Democrats, a gain of forty.

Update (January 7, 2019):  Ex-felons in Florida can begin registering to vote tomorrow.

Update (January 26, 2019):  Implementing expanded voter registration is still running into some problems in Florida.

Update (March 19, 2019):  Florida is still tinkering with the restoration of voting rights with a proposal to require the repayment of fines and fees which could impact over half a million potential voters.

Update (March 20, 2019):  Former Governor candidate Andrew Gillum is pushing a goal of 1 million new registered voters in Florida.

Update (March 22, 2019):  A study by the Associated Press finds that gerrymandering helped Republicans hold on to as many as 16 House seats in the 2018 election.

Update (April 25, 2019):  The Florida House did approve a bill requiring the repayment of fees before ex-felons are allowed to vote.

Update (June 28, 2019):  Governor Ron DeSantis signed the poll tax into law. Stephen Wolf explains the impact.

By demanding that citizens pay all court fines and fees, Republicans could effectively roll back most of the 2018 amendment. It’s unclear just how many people would have had their rights restored by the new amendment, but one analysis estimates Republicans’ actions could keep roughly four-fifths of them from voting—keeping up to 1.1 million more people permanently disenfranchised—all because they’re too poor to pay court costs. Black defendants in particular are considerably less likely to be able to pay off all their court costs than white defendants, according to one study.

Update (May 24, 2020):  U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle ruled the Florida law unconstitutional.

The State of Florida has adopted a system under which nearly a million otherwise-eligible citizens will be allowed to vote only if they pay an amount of money. Most citizens lack the financial resources to make the required payment … This pay-to-vote system would be universally decried as unconstitutional but for one thing: each citizen at issue was convicted, at some point in the past, of a felony offense.

Billionaire's Report

UBS claims there are 2158 billionaires as of last year. Their wealth increased by an average of $648 million during 2017 to an average total of $4.1 billion each.

Update (October 31):  The Guardian reports that the three wealthiest U.S. families, the Waltons, the Mars, and the Kochs are worth a combined $348.7 billion.

Since 1982, these three families have seen their wealth increase nearly 6,000%, factoring in inflation. Meanwhile, the median household wealth went down 3% over the same period.

Hate and Violence

Eleven people were killed in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh yesterday to culminate a rough week. Right wing violence has increased under this administration. Max Boot makes it clear that speech matters.

[H]olding the president of the United States to account for his hateful rhetoric is not the same thing as subscribing to lunatic 'false flag' conspiracy theories that ricochet around the right-wing world.

In their eagerness to protect their leader, Republicans are guilty of the very sin they have spent years decrying — false moral equivalence.

Extremism has been present in America for a long time. But [von Clownstick] is applying a match to the kindling.

Update (October 29):  Heather Digby Parton echos Boot:

Apparently [he] doesn't understand, or simply just doesn't care, that the heinous violence and terror of this past week were the direct result of [using campaign tactics to get his base riled up]. Will anyone be shocked if it happens again?

Update (November 13):  The FBI reports that hate crimes are up 17 percent in 2017 from the previous year. That's the third year in a row with an increase.

Also, Chauncey DeVega, interviewing Justin Frank, comes up with a chilling thought.

[Fuckface von Clownstick] is the Charles Manson of American politics.

Update (November 18):  Henry Giroux points to von Clownstick's language of hate as nourishment for fascism.

Many in [Dear Leader's] fan base suffer from more than a bad-faith act of adoration for the strongman; they also represent a corrosive element of fandom marked by what appears to be a gleeful allegiance to the structures of white supremacy. The rhetoric of violence, hate and intolerance has morphed into the service of fashioning [Fuckface] as the undisputed strongman at the center of a stupefied cult, and as a symbol for criminalizing those individuals and groups considered disposable and outside the ultra-nationalist notion of America as a white public sphere.

Update (November 27):  The Washington Post analyzed global terrorism data.

Over the past decade, attackers motivated by right-wing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist. While the data show a decades-long drop-off in violence by left-wing groups, violence by white supremacists and other far-right attackers has been on the rise since Barack Obama’s presidency — and has surged since [January 20, 2017].

Update (March 15, 2019):  A white supremacist who cites Fuckface as an "inspiration" killed 49 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. And just two days earlier, our obscene "leader" offered this bit of inspiration in an interview with Breitbart.

You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher. Okay? I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for [Manbaby] – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad. But the left plays it cuter and tougher. Like with all the nonsense that they do in Congress … with all this invest[igations]—that’s all they want to do is –you know, they do things that are nasty. Republicans never played this.

Update (August 7, 2019):  There's basically a mass shooting every day in the United States. The one in El Paso was committed by someone who posted white supremacist beliefs perhaps inspired by over 2000 Republican ads about an immigrant "invasion". Heather Digby Parton knows most mass shooters are not politically motivated, but they do have something in common with Dear Leader:

[A] massive sense of grievance at what they perceive as unfair treatment. The attackers feel entitled to attention, loyalty and reward and what motivates many of these people to take violent action is a desire for vengeance against those who fail to give it to them.

[Fuckface] is someone who shares the immature, entitled worldview that also motivates many of these violent men and he reiterates it every day on social media and television.

Update (August 11, 2019):  Dan Froomkin considers the dangerous rhetoric of Dear Leader.

It’s not just anti-immigration policy [Fuckface] is advocating; it’s anti-immigration hysteria. Actually it’s anti-nonwhite hysteria. Pro-white hysteria.

That explains a lot of what we see at his rallies. His hooting, almost all white supporters are electrified by feeling like part of a reality show that determines whether their white country lives or dies. It brings rapturous excitement to their otherwise mundane lives — like an opiate, only more dangerous to others.

How can one go too far in defense of one’s country? That’s the kind of question [von Clownstick's] framing of the issues can lead his supporters to ask themselves. It’s surely something the El Paso shooter asked himself, and answered.

Update (August 14, 2019):  Heather Digby Parton points out the link between misogyny and white supremacy.

[T]here seems to be a strong correlation between the people who believe they are being robbed of their rightful status by people of color and those who believe they are being robbed of their status by women. These overlapping forms of resentment and anger can all too easily lead to violence. Sometimes this is limited to "ordinary" domestic abuse, which remains widespread in America. Sometimes it results in lethal horror such as Dayton.

Do Democrats Have a Message?

As odious as the opposition may be, it's not enough to simply assume Democratic supporters will turn out. But it's also disappointing to hear complaints about lack of message while claiming that being "too leftist" can't win. Pia Gallegos points out:

According to polling, a majority of Americans support a progressive agenda, including higher taxes on the wealthy, Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, stronger environmental protection, improved public transportation and criminal justice reform.

It's a struggle, but corporate influence works against what might otherwise be a winning agenda. What's the point in asking people to vote for someone slightly less evil than the Republicans?

Update (October 28):  Andrew O'Hehir argues there's no "normal" to go back to in U.S. politics.

[Fuckface] was uniquely positioned to capitalize on perceptions that were at least partly true, but that he did not create. Those included the perception that the nation’s bipartisan leadership caste had condescended to the American people for years, lied about their true objectives and collaborated in a regime of endless war and economic inequality. He translated those perceptions into an especially ugly and dangerous form of cultural warfare, some of whose consequences we have observed this week. That does not mean the underlying feelings of cynicism, apathy, abandonment and disenfranchisement — which are felt across the political spectrum, not just among [Dear Leader's] demographic — are entirely illegitimate.

Democrats have a lot riding on this election: They may suffer a severe implosion if they lose, and have no clear idea what to do if they win. The ... coalition loosely termed the “resistance” can agree that it wants an America that is less conspicuously divided and diseased. But its members absolutely do not agree about the roots of that division and disease, or about how to address it.

Update (October 30):  T.J. Coles makes the case for why modern capitalism constrains what liberal or even progressive political parties can accomplish. The dominance of markets forces everyone to be most concerned with their own self-interest with no one looking out for the common good.

If this decades-long model continues to be imposed across the world, especially in nations with huge populations like India and China, which are increasingly adopting neoliberal policies, today’s divisive politics and crumbling infrastructure will seem like a minor headache, particularly against the backdrop of diminishing resources and climate change.

Update (November 1):  Craig Collins warns that "rising energy prices and ballooning debt are poised to strangle the global economy once again" and that "a healthy economy that encourages people to take care of each other and the planet is incompatible with exploiting labor and ransacking nature for profit". Capitalism's death throes could be a nightmare.

Without enough energy to generate growth, catabolic capitalists stoke the profit engine by taking over troubled businesses, selling them off for parts, firing the workforce and pilfering their pensions. Scavengers, speculators and slumlords buy up distressed and abandoned properties – houses, schools, factories, office buildings and malls – strip them of valuable resources, sell them for scrap or rent them to people desperate for shelter. Illicit lending operations charge outrageous interest rates and hire thugs or private security firms to shake down desperate borrowers or force people into indentured servitude to repay loans. Instead of investing in struggling productive enterprises, catabolic financiers make windfall profits by betting against growth through hoarding and speculative short selling of securities, currencies and commodities.

"Green capitalism" won't be the way out.

[I]n a growth-less economy, catabolic capitalism is the most profitable, short-term alternative for those in power.

[C]apitalism’s overriding profit motive is fundamentally at odds with ecological balance and the general welfare of humanity.

Update (November 4):  Andrew O'Hehir continues to point out this election won't really solve anything--we're stuck with "the only car in the driveway that will actually start".

It’s important for the Democrats to win, but not because they are thriving and strong and know what they’re doing. That would be a laughable claim. If anything, the Democratic Party seems strikingly unprepared for this moment. It’s a timorous and internally conflicted coalition with no clear ideology and no core constituency, which deliberately avoids controversial or confrontational positions and has spent almost 30 years defining itself entirely in negative terms: not Republicans, not tax-and-spend liberals, not the left.

In fact, it might be more accurate to describe the Democratic Party, in its weakened and deracinated condition, as a different aspect of the same cultural and political decay that produced [Fuckface], rather than as an actual antidote to [him].

It’s imperative for Democrats to win this election because the decades-long process of moral and intellectual rot in the Republican Party has finally ended in a virulent and dangerous form of madness. Republicans have almost entirely ditched traditional "conservative" politics in favor of a radical agenda to "define democracy downward" and remain in power indefinitely at the helm of a pseudo-democratic state built on racial and economic apartheid. A fascist state, in other words, whatever term it might apply to itself. [Von Clownstick] catalyzed and accelerated this process, and became its major beneficiary. But he didn’t start it, and there’s no reason to believe it will stop when he departs the political scene.

Update (November 5):  Heather Digby Parton expresses the underlying anxiety of this moment.

What I think has many of us especially frightened is that we are seeing huge turnout for a midterm election, possibly even hitting the level of a normal presidential election when all the votes are counted. And we don't know if that huge surge means more of us or more of them.

Update (November 14):  Expanding Medicaid turned out to be popular in Idaho, Nebraska, and Utah.

Update (November 19):  Kendra Horn won a Congressional district in Oklahoma that Republicans have held for 44 years. It seemed to help to not talk about Dear Leader.

Horn campaigned on left-wing issues like gun control, stricter campaign finance regulations, opposition to private prisons, and more funding for education.

Update (November 21):  Ira Glasser points to Max Rose as an example for Democrats to follow.

Rose was not particularly telegenic or charismatic. But he told his conservative constituents they were getting screwed. They already knew that, but he told them why.

It wasn’t because of Mexicans or immigrants. It was, he said, because the economic system is rigged to benefit special corporate interests and the extremely wealthy. He told them that because of government policies, they were getting the short end of the stick, and that what is needed is better infrastructure and stronger unions.

He talked about what mattered to them: oppressively long commute times and the opioid crisis, which is destroying lives on Staten Island. And he criticized the incumbent congressman for taking money from the company that manufactures OxyContin.

Rose didn’t lecture people, or shame them, or tell them not to be bigots or hostile to immigrants. Rather, like Franklin Roosevelt in the ’30s, he focused on their local problems, and proposed real solutions.

Update (November 25):  Senator Bernie Sanders has a message. Is this really too far to the left?

Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour and indexing it to median wage growth thereafter.
A path toward Medicare-for-all.
Bold action to combat climate change.
Fixing our broken criminal-justice system.
Comprehensive immigration reform.
Progressive tax reform.
A $1 trillion infrastructure plan.
Lowering the price of prescription drugs.
Making public colleges and universities tuition-free and substantially reducing student debt.
Expanding Social Security.

Keep in mind that "red" states voted to raise the minimum wage and expand Medicaid.

Update (December 2):  House Democrats are focusing on voting rights, campaign finance and ethics reforms in the first bill of the new Congress.

Update (December 10):  Dan Siegel says the presidential election was "a call for white men to fight back against those they hold responsible for their diminished roles in the world". He offers "some ideas for a progressive program to unite the American people".

Guaranteed annual income for all Americans.
Commitment to full equality for all races, ethnicities, religious groups, and genders.
Protect the Earth.
Commitment to World Peace.
Right to Affordable Housing.
Progressive tax system.
Right to healthcare.
Quality Education.
Personal Liberty.
End mass incarceration.
Democratize the political system.

Update (January 14, 2019):  Ted Rall offers his guidelines for progressives.

$25 minimum wage.
Abolish student loans.
Forgive outstanding student loans.
Limit the increase in tuition.
Universal healthcare.
Remove U.S. troops from foreign countries.
End drone attacks.
Cut the defense budget by 90 percent.
Etc.

Update (March 3, 2019):  Paul Rosenberg urges Democrats to learn from the failures of neoliberalism (market fetishism).

Ideally, the Democrats' 2020 primary campaign could and should involve a full-throated debate about the best ways to realize the full meaning of inclusive growth, including all the non-economic dimensions of recognition as well. It should flesh out specific aspects of what progressive populism means, and how to achieve its goals. It should promote sound policies to advance inclusive growth. And it should reclaim the once commonsense idea that while the market can be a good servant, it makes a terrible, tyrannical master.