Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

We still have time to mess this up!

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Bark louder, little dog.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Michael is moving north

Reader Interactions

93Comments

  1. 1.

    chopper

    if it ends up a little east of the predicted path it’ll be even worse, as it’ll avoid going over a cold eddy in the gulf and have a better chance at intensifying more before landfall. oy.

  2. 2.

    trollhattan

    Getta load of that map. You know who could use a crapton of rain right now? The Carolinas–I bet they’ve even started drying out from the last one.

    Yeesh.

    In honor of hurricane season, someone might front-page this. Climate scientists have been inherently conservative in their predictions, as scientists are wont to do, and now we’re seeing the effects much earlier than the models had implied.

  3. 3.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    Jesus Chirst, another one. It looks like more rain is going to get dumped on the Carolinas. Just what they needed.

  4. 4.

    DCrefugee

    I’m outside Sillysota, and we’ve had enough rain this summer, also. Michael is already spawning overcasts and fast-moving showers here. Gonna get worse before it gets better…

    Meanwhile, OT, does anyone listen to the 1A program on NPR? Today’s Kavanaugh coverage was really poor. I had to turn it off…

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    I’ll forgo any complaining, as several folks above have already noted that the Carolinas will be impacted far more severely than whatever drops here in NoVA.

    Well, by ‘forgo any complaining’, I mean in regards to Hurricane Michael. All other topics are still valid for complaint opportunities!

  7. 7.

    Another Scott

    @DCrefugee: 1A started off really good, but I almost always have to change the channel shortly after Joshua introduces the topic and the participants these days. The BothSidesism and WhatAboutism is just too strong. Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  8. 8.

    Adam L Silverman

    The Florida gubernatorial election is now taking place beginning on Wednesday of this week. If Andrew Gillum, who is both the Mayor of Tallahassee and the Democratic nominee for governor is perceived as doing well in responding to Hurricane Michael, he will solidify his chances of being the next Florida governor. If the perception is the other way, he’s toast. The Florida Republican Party is already running ads blasting him for his response to the last hurricane that hit the Tallahassee area. I’ve seen it twice already while watching the Astros-Indians game. Blonde, white woman, sitting in the kitchen of her house, the interiors of which are also painted white including the cabinets, invoking the good, suburban homemaker stereotype sadly recounting Gillum’s failures last time and why this makes him the wrong person to be Florida’s governor.

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    Btw completely off topic but: do any jackals want to buy a pair of tickets to Tuesday night’s Nine Inch Nails show at the Anthem in DC (or know someone who wants to go)? My brother and I are going, and he has a second pair he forgot to unload until yesterday. (Yes really – the stories I could tell about Mr. Forgetful)

    Lemme know! =)

  13. 13.

    Mary G

    @Adam L Silverman: White woman in a white house; they aren’t even bothering to pretend much.

    Great piece in Harper’s Bazaar via Tom and Lorenzo pairing celebrity women and activists. Laverne Cox hits a few nails on the head:

    Laverne on the country’s reaction to current policies: “[Separating families] is being normalized and we’re being desensitized. We are becoming adjusted to injustice and we should become maladjusted to injustice. We must have a historical perspective and so that we’re not repeating the same historical mistakes. We’re being colossally distracted, too, by the spectacle and the entertainment of it all. Forty-five, if nothing, is entertaining. And there’s a lot of things to be outraged about and to resist against… Trans people are under attack right now and there’s so much else going on that a lot of folks aren’t paying attention. But everybody’s under attack.”

    Laverne on women’s rights over their own bodies: “Obviously I can’t get pregnant so it’s not a personal issue for me, but the folks I know who’ve had abortions it was not an easy decision for them. It was one of the worst days of their lives. And it’s not an easy decision but it’s not for me to tell her that she should or shouldn’t. There’s not ever a conversation about the woman who has to carry the child. There’s not a conversation about the child once the child gets here. How do we have those conversations? I’m not sure, I’m really not…I want to be able to come to a space where we can coexist, but also so that people can have rights over their own bodies. As a trans woman, it’s the most sacred thing for me to be able to do exactly what I need to do with my body because this is my body and everybody should be able to have that right.”

    All you East Coast Juicers stay safe. I wish we could get some rain over here in California. We were predicted to have half an inch here where I am last week and I spent a whole day checking radar, which showed heavy rain about five miles offshore, but it never came over land.

  14. 14.

    gvg

    Well it rained all summer, more than usual, until about 2 weeks ago when everything dried up. Now we could use some rain. hope it goes where it can be absorbed.
    I haven’t noticed mayors being that influential in Hurricane response. Govenors and Presidents however do impact, so Voldemort and Trump are who I will hold responsible.
    Last Hurricane, last year, it seemed like FEMA was slow to authorize enough tree debris pickup and the huge piles of cut up wood were blocking views and something of a traffic hazzard. It wasn’t outrageous though, just annoying since we all know perfectly well what has to happen.

  16. 16.

    dww44

    @trollhattan: As a resident of the state directly west of the Carolinas, we could really use the rain and if the gods are kind, most of it could be dumped here. OTOH, the system is predicted to be a fast moving one so any rains in Carolina will hopefully not be heavy for very long.

  17. 17.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mary G: She was just pudgy enough to imply she was a mom, but not so pudgy as to be unattractive. And they only filmed her from the about the shoulder blades up, so… The Florida GOP folks who do these types of ads no what they’re doing.

  18. 18.

    PT&S

    A lurker takes advantage of the Open Thread to ask for hivemind help:

    I want to find a certain blog post from years gone by. As best I can recall, it stated simply and clearly that if you want to have an honest discussion about someone else’s position, especially if it’s someone who disagrees with you, you have a duty to put the most reasonable possible meaning on their words, rather than inflate what they said into a less reasonable meaning or a strawman to argue against.

    (One lovely thing about this is that it’s a useful modern-day restatement of Occam’s Razor.)

    I remember the item in question as being by Ta-Nehisi Coates, in his blog at theatlantic.com, probably around 2014. However, my Googling and my review of that blog archive haven’t succeeded, so I may have some detail wrong.

    Does anyone have a clue where to find the post? Thanks.

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @Schlemazel: https://the1a.org/

    They have all the ingredients to make a really compelling show – input from listeners a day or few before the show airs, produced by a heavyweight NPR station in DC, a good time slot (10AM ET weekdays), good producers, a host that isn’t from the the Jurassic, etc. But it too often turns into mush because they BothSides the guests and let some RWNJ dudebro WhatAbout and filibuster any sensible point brought up. It makes me want to throw things.

    Grrr….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  20. 20.

    chopper

    (cole runs in, huffing and puffing)

    “hey guys, i managed to rebook my vacation for sunny north carolina. i arrive this thursday and…what, what is it?”

  24. 24.

    Raven

    We were scheduled to go to the Emerald Coast in two weeks. Here’s what our friends wrote.

    What a disastrous trip! Red tide arrived same day we did, so no beachgoing. Hot as hell – not like normal October. Miserable! At least when we were here in September and it was hot as hell, the beach was gorgeous and water clear and perfect. Now, yuk. Dead fish and eels everywhere, stinky, water a slimy murky opaque olive green. Air is toxic at the beach. You cough and sneeze til you give up and leave. To add insult to injury, Walter caught a cold and has just passed it on to me. We saw that nasty horrible Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a bar. Now, a hurricane. Bad juju!

  25. 25.

    Raven

    “Three of us tried to go to Henderson Beach State park in Destin yesterday and could not even get out of the car for the toxic air blasting in our faces off the ocean from the red tide. Its invisible in the air. As for the water, its not red, more like diluted dark green where the waves break. I describe the feeling as one of the following: 1) like microscopic shards of glass or poison are going into your lungs. 2) like you inhaled microscopic airborne acid particles. 3) Like microscopic jellyfish are stinging inside your lungs. You start coughing and have trouble breathing and cannot catch your breath. No I don't have asthma and I am a non-smoker. Its heartbreaking to not be able to enjoy such a beautiful coastline and not see the turquoise waters”

  26. 26.

    Mary G

    Read this thread about why “both sides” is so dangerous:

    1) There’s been a lot of handwringing in the media pundit corps and centrist politicians these days about the loss of comity, post-Kavanaugh. And then Donald Trump made them all look absurd with his remarks at his rally last night. Thread follows. pic.twitter.com/P0e81j7im4— David Neiwert (@DavidNeiwert) October 7, 2018

    I retweeted it to Chuck Todd, Senator Collins, NPR, the FTFNYT, and Brian Stelter of CNN. Any other offenders I should call out?

    I am genuinely afraid that Twitler, aided and abetted by Republicans in control of state election procedures, is going to deligitimize Democrats and overturn or rig the mid term elections. They are attacking political speech (WaPo) A Texas yard sign depicted a GOP elephant with its trunk up a girl’s skirt. Police seized it.

  27. 27.

    donnah

    “stinky, a slimy murky opaque olive green.”

    Sounds like Sarah Huckleberry Sanders to a T.

  29. 29.

    smedley the uncertain

    @Major Major Major Major: We don’t get many Hurricanes up here in Western NY Just the white stuff for a month or so and it’s abit more docile most of the time. Then back to sailing on the great Lake Erie…

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    I’m so glad that climate change is a hoax, or else I would really worry about these storms.

    More seriously, everyone affected take care and be safe.

    Meanwhile, OT, does anyone listen to the 1A program on NPR? Today’s Kavanaugh coverage was really poor. I had to turn it off…

    I am not familiar with this program. Is it like “Morning Edition?”

  31. 31.

    jl

    Might be good post to mention that William Nordhaus shared the fakey Swedish Bank Nobel prize in economics. I think ‘Nobel Memorial Prize’ is the precious official name.

    Nordhaus is part the DemocRAT Deep State coup plotters who is spreading alarm about the Chinese hoax about the problems of human caused greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change. Joseph Fourier in late 18th Century, John Tyndall in mid 19-th century, and Svante Arrhenius around 1900 are part of the hoax too.

    Norrdhaus first articles on the economics of climate change, IIRC< were wrong and silly, where he said a little bit of warming might be good. Now he is on the right side of the issue, mostly, and last I checked wants a world-wide carbon tax of at least $50 a ton.

    Nordhaus might still be on the wrong side of the debate about how to do long term discounting of future costs and benefits of policies. Last I checked he thinks normal economic discounting rules apply. Martin Weitzman, Nicholas Stern and Graciela Chichilnisky has done more innovative work, IMHO, that shows, as the chances of cataclysmic catastrophe rise substantially above zero, normal rules make the economy too slow to react. Maybe those people should have won the prize, But I'll take Nordhaus.

  32. 32.

    Mary G

    For the first time in 16 years, The Fresno Bee is withdrawing its support for GOP incumbent Devin Nunes. https://t.co/yF93yNGhcS— HuffPost (@HuffPost) October 8, 2018

    Also, the San Diego Union Tribune, a far right paper, endorsed Mike Levin over Diane Harkey in my district, CA49, pretty much saying that despite his desire to bankrupt the country, he is not batshit insane like the Republicans have become, so he is the clear choice.

  33. 33.

    PT&S

    @Another Scott:
    (and thanks to Adam for contributing as well)

    These are in the right direction, but not the actual droids post I’m looking for. Your finds show that he surely was thinking about this kind of topic a good deal at the time, though.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    @Mary G:

    I am genuinely afraid that Twitler, aided and abetted by Republicans in control of state election procedures, is going to deligitimize Democrats and overturn or rig the mid term elections.

    Let’s get out the vote and win everywhere we can. Deal with the Republicans from a position of strength.

  35. 35.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl:

  39. 39.

    Schlemazel

    @Another Scott:
    based on the description it sounds interesting. Based on the reviews it sounds like Nice Polite Republican at its finest.

    The 80s GOP knew what they were doing when they unfunded public broadcasting

  40. 40.

    jl

    @Brachiator: I agree. Big turnout can stump attempts to fix vote. At least at this stage, I think, where still some honest actors down in the guts of the federal bureaucracy, and elections run on state and local level. Trumpists haven’t corrupted enough state governments, as we saw in Mississippi’s reaction to the Trump voter fraud panel that Kobach blew up with his own special incompetence, and other countries haven’t had enough time.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    @Betty Cracker:

    1A replaced the Diane Rehm Show. It sucks, IMO, for the reasons described above.

    Thanks for the info. There are good alternative shows on my local public radio station, KPCC, so I’ve never been much of a listener of NPR’s news and political shows.

  44. 44.

    West of the Rockies

    Open thread, so I have a question: has anyone seen any “It’s time to heal” essays about Kavanaugh?

    I’m sure they’ll be of a same vein:

    Republicans need to not spike the football.

    Democrats need to suck it up, let go, move on, give Kavanaugh a chance, not be shrill, and, oh yes, realize that rural folks have very real concerns!

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    @PT&S: It might have been in the Atlantic’s comment section. He used to be quite active there (I remember some threads he participated in when he was in his all-things-Grant period). Unfortunately, the comments don’t seem to be around any more.

    Good luck tracking it down.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  48. 48.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    In honor of hurricane season, someone might front-page this. Climate scientists have been inherently conservative in their predictions, as scientists are wont to do, and now we’re seeing the effects much earlier than the models had implied.

    Great BBC story on the scientists’ final report. Thanks for the link.

    There’s also a link to the IPCC site. The full report is a monster, but the summary for policy makers can be downloaded and is 34 pages or so and much more digestible.

  49. 49.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Adam L Silverman:

    This new and pessimistic view about economic growth holds that growth is limited by a finite amount of essential, depletable natural resources. In the process of consuming finite resources, the world standard of living descends inexorably toward that of Neanderthal man.

    Yeah, that sounds about right. I’ve said before, the late 20th century was as close to utopia as we’re probably ever going to come to, unless we strap down now and fix our shit. A political system like China’s could do it-they’ll just shoot the factory owners if they don’t comply with emissions regs.

  51. 51.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Because trans lives don’t matter anyway… failing to protect them from a school shooter is feature, not a big, amirite. (Thankfully it was only a drill.)

    https://www.wusa9.com/mobile/article/news/local/transgender-student-barred-from-shelter-in-locker-rooms-during-school-safety-drill/65-600932681

    I try not to spam BJ with these sorts of things, but I could post something equally rave-inducing every week. Because it’s already that bad for trans people in this country, and I’m sure it’s going to get worse, a lot worse, now that the bigots are emboldened.

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:

    Yeah, that sounds about right. I’ve said before, the late 20th century was as close to utopia as we’re probably ever going to come to, unless we strap down now and fix our shit. A political system like China’s could do it-they’ll just shoot the factory owners if they don’t comply with emissions regs

    China has massive pollution problems. You could also say that in some ways, the West shifted some of their pollution making to China as that nation became a global manufacturing giant. It remains to be seen how China deals with its share of climate and pollution problems. There are only so many people you can shoot.

  54. 54.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Brachiator:

    It remains to be seen how China deals with its share of climate and pollution problems. There are only so many people you can shoot.

    They’re currently okay severely curtailing the city dwellers’ lives via air pollution, of course.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    “I’ve asked Jesus to forgive me, so why won’t you?”

    These assholes always seem to ask Jesus for forgiveness and skip the crucial step of asking the actual victim for forgiveness. Not a coincidence, I’m sure.

  58. 58.

    Ohio Mom

    @PT&S: I feel for you. I have many half-remembered things from one corner or the other of the internet I wish I had printed out.

    Is there a way you could write Coates and ask him directly? I bet he’d be flattered.

  59. 59.

    Brachiator

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    During a lock down safety drill at her middle school in Stafford County, last week the LGBTQ rights group Equality Stafford says she was forced to sit alone on the bleachers and then in the hall while everyone else in her physical education class at a Stafford County middle school took shelter in locker rooms.

    The teachers were apparently debating which locker room would be appropriate for her.

    What kind of chickenshit bullshit is this?

    I would presume that this would have been worked out before. And I also presume, unless something has changed in the way people think about these things, that the decision would be based on what gender the person identifies with.

    Morons.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @Brachiator:

    I’m guessing that one teacher or administrator raised a stink and they had to try and placate that person.

    If they try to claim it was some kind of “safety issue,” is the school such a hellish Lord of the Flies nightmare that the teachers can’t control the kids they’re supposed to be directly supervising inside a small room? Really?

  61. 61.

    jl

    @Brachiator: ” It remains to be seen how China deals with its share of climate and pollution problems. There are only so many people you can shoot. ”

    China has invested a huge amount of money getting ready to produce alternative energy capital goods: wind, solar, etc. At least from what they are spending for the future, it isn’t coal. They recognize that costs of their air pollution problem are enormous, from what I have read.

  62. 62.

    Betty Cracker

    Here’s the ultimate both-sides NPR bullshit right here, by the NPR TV critic and retweeted by Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep:

    Utterly moronic drivel.

  64. 64.

    CarolDuhart2

    Idea: How about #MichaelangeloDay? to replace #ColumbusDay? Italian heritage without the slavery and genocide, great art and invention instead.

    Another advantage of alternative energy: less dependency on regimes with crappy politics who can threaten to cut off supply if criticized or threatened. If Europe continues on its course of adapting, then Putin could only threaten about natural gas. Saudi Arabia would have to work harder on diversifying its economy, opening to doors to reform at least in economics. Also wind and solar will never run out as long as the sun shines, there will be energy.

  66. 66.

    elliott.gorelick

    Even the forecasters at the NHC are being surprised. Yesterday’s forecast calls out a major strengthening predicted in one model for Michael, but then states that seems too radical so we will assume it is wrong. By morning, the forecast now shows that it will indeed be a major hurricane before landfall. These large jumps are not guaranteed, but the uncertainty is a new phenomena. (At some point, the new info will be baked in with a higher baseline.)

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    I would proudly display this magnet on my car:

    I stand with Christine Blasey Ford

    Except it doesn’t exist.

    Would other people here be interested in something like that, also? My dream is that someone designs that and 5 million are sold in the first month.

    First I wanted a pin i could wear, but her name is too long for that.

  68. 68.

    CarolDuhart2

    @WaterGirl: I would use the initials-they are shorter and would fit on a pin, bumper sticker or most other items. Also a good idea for red areas or supporters who would need to keep secret to all but the knowing.

    Also, could at least some of the proceeds go to her? Life isn’t going to normal for her for a while, or even ever, and whatever she needs to do should be funded properly.

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker: “the death of compromise”…one party is ok with running a pedophile for Senate, the other party isn’t; one side is fine with a hostile foreign power’s interference in our elections, the other side isn’t; etc etc etc tire rims and anthrax vs Italian for dinner.

    McConnell’s already out there saying that the McConnell rule for SCOTUS nominations will ahem um not apply leading up to 2020. Help us our here NPR man – how do we compromise with that?

  72. 72.

    Brachiator

    @jl:

    China has invested a huge amount of money getting ready to produce alternative energy capital goods: wind, solar, etc. At least from what they are spending for the future, it isn’t coal. They recognize that costs of their air pollution problem are enormous, from what I have read.

    Ran across this on the Internets. China’s problems seem massive.

    China consumes almost as much coal annually as all other countries combined, and coal burning in the country is the biggest source of both air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, the leading cause of climate change. Chinese cities are among the most polluted in the world.
    — Aug 17, 2016

    It’s going to take a lot of ingenuity to deal with this scale of problem.

  73. 73.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Betty Cracker: Right – what’s their answer? I mean “We acknowledge that Republicans will break any rule, law, and act unethically in order to illegitimately retain power and advance their agenda. What’s really important is that Democrats keep compromising with them and not fighting back.”

    My question for these idiots is always “What do you think we should do, then?”

  75. 75.

    CarolDuhart2

    @West of the Rockies: I started thinking about this this morning. You know how people enjoy other group’s holidays? Nobody but Italians celebrate #ColumbusDay. Why, because Columbus has a horrible reputation. He did nothing that was worth being happy about. To the increasing number of people who often ended up on the other end of the sword, its a holiday that is a painful reminder of that. So the day is basically ghettoized.
    #IndigenousPeoplesDay is a way to somehow rectify that, but as long as the rest of it is called #ColumbusDay, it might not be enough. Take Columbus out of the equation, and the rest of the nation can simply celebrate Italian culture, history, food and the rest. #MichaelangeloDay or #DaVinciDay would be a day of healing and even fun for everyone. It would also be a good way to preserve that Monday in October, which the way it’s going, might be repealed because so few celebrate it, and others resent or take it for granted.

  76. 76.

    jl

    @Brachiator: Sorry don’t have any references now, but I’ve read that Chinese leadership sees urban pollution as a public heath emergency, and is already harming the country’s productivity and international competitiveness. Their investment in ability to build out wind, solar, tidal, biomass, etc. energy capital goods is enormous, both in quality and quantity. If there is a Chinese plot to hurt the US, they might be in league with the Russians, and Saudis, since Trump is striving to remove their main competition, US, in terms of quantity. So, now they have to worry about Northern Europe in terms of quality. I haven’t gone looking for what is going on other countries, except Brazil had big plans for some areas, for example, biomass.

    I haven’t kept up with the news on it for almost a year now, though.

    Maybe Trump will team up with McDonalds with an ad campaign to stay fat and eat lots of big Macs, since weight loss puts more CO2 into the atmosphere. Let’s watch for that.

  77. 77.

    jl

    @CarolDuhart2: I don’t mind an Italian-American day. But a guy who was tried as a corrupt governor and human rights criminal in his won damn era, is not a good look. Columbus was convicted for corruption as governor, got off on the human rights abuses (which for his time, you know had to be pretty bad to even get him in trouble). Need to pick someone else.

    Anyway, in his own time, seen as a bad enough apple that he got stripped of the governorship of his own (from European point of view) discoveries.

  78. 78.

    CarolDuhart2

    @jl: You are of course, right. Considering that this was a time of heretic hunting, witch burning, and other abuses often going unchecked, Columbus had to just about terrible in every respect.

  79. 79.

    Robert Sneddon

    @jl: Re: China —

    At least from what they are spending for the future, it isn’t coal.

    Actually coal is China’s future, at least out to 2050 or so. China wants and needs lots more electricity generating capacity than it’s got at the moment, especially if it goes hard for electric transport in the form of cars, trucks and buses as well as its current extensive buildout of high-speed rail. The current plan is to have about a TeraWatt (TW) of coal-fired generating capacity, maybe 1.25 TW as well as about another TW of other sources including fossil gas, solar, wind, nuclear, hydro etc. That coal-generating capacity will require about 3 billion tonnes of coal a year, about half the world’s consumption and about what they burn right now. It will be generated by modern super-critical and ultra-critical power plants, significantly hotter and more efficient than the current generating plants and a lot cleaner. The CO2 emissions will be the same though.

  81. 81.

    Dan B

    @Raven: The smoke in Seattle the past two summers was like the red tide air you describe. It took longer to feel uncomfortable but it went on for weeks. Our summers are short and usually like paradise with 150 miles of crystalline visibility with miles of blue Pugrt Sound, emerald hills, and gleaming glacier clad peaks. It makes up for months of grey skies. Now it seems we will have massive forest fires every summer. The talk of global warming was robust. But the discussion of solutions and the future clean economy were weak and now absent.

    We drive a Nissan Leaf and have an air sealed house with ductless heat pumps and solar PV panels. Most of our friends seem clueless. We need to make the connection between horrifying weather all across the country and our individual and political choices. It needs to be clear, connected to morality (children, the vulnerable), and the rapidly growing green energy economy.

  82. 82.

    Dan B

    @jl: I would rather that Nicolas Stern had won the prize. How is the dogma of mildly regulated markets promoting peace?

    You don’t move people to action with a weak story. A story needs heroes and villains (does not have to be a person – a creepy invisible monster will do). It needs a crisis and a solution. Nordhaus story is I finally woke up and want the market to come up with something okay and not too disruptive…. The anti-hero, maybe.

  84. 84.

    Dan B

    @Adam L Silverman: Excellent comments from (Saint – Sane?) Krugman. The clean energy economy is a bright spot in our economy and a powerful job generator. I’m especially pleased that Krugman calls out the insanity of supporting fossil fuels and Fossil Industries.

  85. 85.

    Cermet

    @jl: You know little history of Amerikan and Chinese relations if you think that China would 1) Hurt the US in any serious manner 2) ever ‘team up’ with Russia. China does not look at the world as a bi-polar system nor as a win/lose but take a long term view. They are favorably inclined towards the US and we are also their #1 trading partner which they need. More to the point, they know the orange fart cloud is just the US passing gas – the smell will be over sooner rather than later.

  86. 86.

    Dan B

    @Major Major Major Major: Zero inconvenience to people with vast amounts of money / fossil fuel behemoths who think that zero carbon energy is a giant asteroid. Well it is if they don’t want to go the way of the dinosaurs.
    We put PV on our roof, air sealed, insulated, installed super efficient ductless heat pumps paid for from my retirement. No vacation travel or fancy meals or shows or lots of other things. It’s an inconvenience but we don’t feel guilty about people’s kid’s futures.

    We do wish our friends with kids felt anxious about the future and inspired by our example. Instead we put our energy into helping low income and minority people build a climate change and environmetal movement.

  88. 88.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @jl:

    If there is a Chinese plot to hurt the US, they might be in league with the Russians, and Saudis, since Trump is striving to remove their main competition, US, in terms of quantity. So, now they have to worry about Northern Europe in terms of quality.

    Russia is no competetion for China, and the EU is the same thing as China, just smaller. If China is gunning for anyone it would Russia to get Siberia back. It’s interesting to note who the Chine’s military bases their uniforms on.

  89. 89.

    Dan B

    @Major Major Major Major: China seems to be heading towards leading the world in clean energy and the patentable tech to make it even cheaper. They seem to be aiming towards dominating these rapid growth sectors. If they can reduce the number of coal power planrs it would be even better. At the moment they’re closing the worst ones. It’s not ideal but it still might put the US into a dead end economy. We don’t seem to on track to maintaining a climate that will save agriculture. Breathable air may seem like a luxury when food prices become food riots.

  91. 91.

    Dan B

    @Mnemosyne: Pseudo christians (followers of a fearful god) believe that trans people are perverts at best and possessed by Satan at worst. Its hard to shake the grip of fear. Christianist leaders preach that “gays” cause hurricanes. It should come as little surprise that trans people’s average lifespan in the US is 42.

    When Climate Change hits hard who knows what terrors the Christianists will unleash. We’ve already seen Kavanaugh rage and Pinochet worship.

    Vote, and gird our loins for marching in support of the Constitution.

  92. 92.

    Origuy

    @CarolDuhart2: Guiseppe Garibaldi would be a good person to celebrate Italian heritage for. Abraham Lincoln even considered inviting him to lead the Union Army. The only problem is that his birthday was July 4.

Comments are closed.