Rise to the challenge of sucking less

About 14 months ago my friend and debate partner was annoyed with me because I said Republicans are racist (quite separate from Republicans being despicable totally unworthy of holding office, which he agrees). Last July I noted that Republicans are fine with and very good at using racism to gain office. Friend, if you still believe Republicans aren’t racist you may skip the rest of this section. Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community wrote that Republican Glenn Youngkin won the job of governor of Virginia. With that win it is clear Republicans are no longer using dog whistles, the coded phrases that still inflame white Americans against people of color.

Thanks to Donald Trump, the GOP has finally dispensed with such niceties. As Paul Waldman writing for The Washington Post points out, out-and-out racism is no longer something to be disguised in the Republican Party. In fact, it’s something to broadcast loudly and clearly, just so there’s no mistake.

Speaking in dog whistles, they decided, is a waste of time. In addition, the nasty guy showed them they could be loud and offensive and suffer no consequences. They could revel in it. And, when they’re in power, they will act on their beliefs. Now that they’ve dispensed with the coyness, dissembling, and excuses the American people can see them for what they are. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported on a poll from the Public Religion Research Institute:

The PRRI survey found that 18% of all Americans say that "true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save our country," including 30% of Republicans, 17% of independents, and 11% of Democrats. ... Fully 39% of those who say 2020 was stolen agreed that violence may be necessary to save the country.

The COP26 Climate Conference is going on. Here’s a bit of news from Glasgow and the climate. Greta Thunberg spoke from outside the conference – because she was not allowed in. Leah McElrath tweeted:

I’m with @GretaThunberg. It is hard not to hear the current round of rhetoric of concern—all previous of which rounds have been unmatched by action—and to feel furious and untrusting. The fact they shut out youth activists like her from speaking is unconscionable.

That’s not a good sign. Hunter of Kos wrote:

It is very difficult to feel optimistic about this new climate summit, simply because even though world leaders do finally appear to grasp the we-are-boned urgency of at least not chugging blithely toward rendering parts of the planet no longer tolerable for human life, we have also been here before. That leaders have to be regaled by the same phalanx of famous names urging them to rise to the challenge of sucking less may be a necessary part of the pageantry, but contributes to the ongoing impression that world leaders have spent a half-century in such meetings and are still working on being convinced to care.

Sam Knights tweeted:

A speaker from Indonesia says: “I have travelled a long way to come here, to deliver this message to the COP... stop killing us... stop killing us... please, stop killing us.” Our economic and political system is incentivising death and destruction. We must resist it.

Chitown Kev, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted John Rennie Short of The Conversation:

The study authors predicted that by midcentury, London’s climate will resemble that of modern-day Barcelona, and Seattle’s will be like current conditions in San Francisco. In short, in less than 30 years, three out of every four major cities in the world will have a completely different climate from the one for which its urban form and infrastructure were designed.

Kev also quoted Bob Berwyn of Inside Climate News who quoted Isak Stoddard of Uppsala University, a climate researcher and author of a new study.

“The wealthiest 1 percent of the world’s population emits twice as much as half the human population, and the top 10 percent more than half of all global emissions, which is so wrong in so many ways,” he said. High emitters have the most power in global climate talks and, at the same time, often feel less vulnerable to climate impacts, which weakens their incentives to cut emissions. Those least responsible for the pollution warming the climate often suffer the worst impacts, yet have little leverage at climate talks, Stoddard and the international team of researchers wrote in the paper, published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources.

Kev also quoted Matthew Taylor of the Guardian wrote that this conference will be very white and privileged.

The Cop26 Coalition – which represents indigenous movements, vulnerable communities, trade unionists and youth strikers around the world – says that up to two-thirds of those it was helping to travel to Glasgow have given up, overwhelmed by a combination of visa and accreditation problems, lack of access to Covid vaccines and changing travel rules – as well as “scarce and expensive” accommodation. ... “What we know for certain is that thousands of people from the global south are being excluded, and they represent tens of millions of voices from those right on the frontline of this crisis which are not going to be heard … We are looking at global north countries making decisions with minimal accountability to those least responsible and most affected, and that goes against everything Cop should stand for.”

Steven Bernard, Dan Clark, and Sam Joiner of Financial Times begin an article with:

Up to 3bn out of the projected world population of about 9bn could be exposed to temperatures on a par with the hottest parts of the Sahara by 2070, according to research by scientists from China, US and Europe. However, rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions could halve the number of people exposed to such hot conditions. “The good news is that these impacts can be greatly reduced if humanity succeeds in curbing global warming,” said study co-author Tim Lenton, climate specialist and director of the Global Systems Institute at Exeter university.

The map at the top of the article shows the areas that will be too hot include a good chunk of the Amazon basin, a swath across sub-Saharan Africa, chunks of Arabia, India, Indonesia, and northern Australia. The map is colored for suitability for human life and too cold is as bad for life as too hot. The rest of the article explains the conclusion in more detail. Rusty Robot of the Kos community showed a chart that concludes that if we multiply our electricity generated by wind by four and if we multiply our electric solar capacity by ten we should be able to replace the electricity generated through coal and gas (at current usage). This is good news. Now we need to do it. April Siese of Kos has a bit of good news from the conference. Biden’s speech at the conference included a vow to reduce methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, committed to reach 75% reduction in methane emissions by 2030. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, announced his country would reach net-zero by 2070 (perhaps a little late – the recommend goal is net-zero by 2050 – but at least the pledge was made). China said it will be net-zero by 2060, the US and EU aiming for 2050. Methane is a big climate deal, even though carbon dioxide gets all the press. Methane is only 10% of emissions but its effect on the climate is 80 time stronger than CO2. It is also lasts in the atmosphere a lot longer. A lot of methane sources are various parts of the oil industry where it is sometimes cheaper to vent or burn methane than to capture it for use. Methane is also released from cracks in oil pipelines. So Biden’s announcement and new rules from the EPA on how to find methane sources is good news. Marissa Higgins of Kos reported that Beth Robinson has been confirmed by the Senate to be a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. This is news because Robinson is lesbian, the first openly LGBTQ woman to serve on a federal circuit court. In the jobs she’s had so far she’s been described as a respected jurist, a champion of equal rights and equal justice, and having “extraordinary professional expertise.” She’s one of the good ones. Back in the late 1990s she served as a co-counsel in the case Baker v. Vermont. The ruling was about guaranteeing same-sex couples equal protections and rights and is what prompted Vermont to create civil unions in 1999. Being a Circuit Court judge means she is more eligible to become a Supreme Court justice. Merriam-Webster announced they added 455 words and definitions to their dictionary. Their post announcing the new words listed less than three dozen of the words. And I’m going to list only some of those: Because (as in “because reasons”), deplatform (what big tech did to the nasty guy), super-spreader, bit rot (I’ve been familiar with this since early in my computer programming career), whataboutism, and dad bod.