The gargantuan lie: We have more time

Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community discussed comments by film director Adam McKay. He created The Big Short about the 2007-9 financial crisis, Vice about Dick Cheney, and Don’t Look Up about our tendency to ignore global warming. McKay wrote an essay for Current Affairs titled “The Gargantuan Lie that is Collapsing the World’s Climate.” Dartagnan wrote:

In an essay for Current Affairs, titled “The Gargantuan Lie that is Collapsing the World’s Climate,” McKay highlights a phenomenon that he argues is the most insidious and dangerous impediment to any effective action on global climate change: “It is a lie told worldwide by hundreds of thousands of institutions, elected officials, many universities, legacy news, some large non-profits and eventually—as the deception entered mainstream culture—even by ourselves, to ourselves, every single moment of every day.” What is this “lie” about which McKay writes? It is the lie that “we have more time.” ... He’s talking about the more insidious interpretation: the unobtrusive hum in the background of our mind that knows something is terribly wrong here, but counsels us not to think about it too much, because it’s too exhausting and debilitating. It may not even be a conscious denial of reality, more of a reflex actually. The lie that soothingly says tomorrow is another day, so don’t worry and its really OK to “keep doing what we’re doing” because tomorrow is — without a shred of doubt — most assuredly “another day.”

UK Chief Scientist David King warned that what we do over the next three-four years will determine the fate of humanity. The problem is that warning came five, almost six, years ago. And in that time nothing significant has been done – even worse, the country elected the nasty guy who is doing all he can to make the situation worse. And that implies it’s too late to save humanity. Climate scientists said we should act to avoid warming the planet by 1.5C. We’ve passed that. The benchmark is now not to exceed warming by 2.0C and we’re way too close to it. But that much warming means we leave behind a stable climate, one that has “seasons.” The human population is now above 8 billion. Warming by that much means potentially lethal heat-related survival stress, crop failures and mass, involuntary migration. Some predictions predict the death of a billion people, others say two billion. If warming reaches 3.0C, and we’re not doing anything to prevent it, predictions say deaths could reach four billion – yes, half of humanity – by 2050. Those deaths have started to happen. Back to that gargantuan lie. That played out three weeks ago in a news report of tornadoes in New York City that said nothing about the historical significance of those tornadoes and said nothing about climate change. This week the New York Times discussed the depleted water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The article did mention climate change, which is good, but didn’t mention the drivers of climate change. McKay showed that as the temperatures go up, US news mentions of “climate” go down. As the problem worsens the media is informing us less. Fossil fuel companies and their enablers are working to distract us. Part of how they do it is keep saying, “we have more time.” Oliver Willis of Kos reported that ABC and parent company Disney sued the Federal Communications Commission in response to FCC Chair Brendan Carr bringing their station licenses up for renewal early with a threat of cancellation. ABC says it’s a First Amendment issue and the FCC threat is because some of its shows are critical of the nasty guy. Willis wrote that ABC has grown a spine. After the nasty guy won in 2024 ABC paid $15 million over a suit experts argued was frivolous and could have easily been won. But they caved, hoping for some good will from the nasty guy. That good will didn’t last long. To stay in the nasty guy’s good graces, one must forever agree to his demands. Thankfully, ABC saw it couldn’t do that. Emily Singer of Kos reported Sen. Jon Ossoff, in his bid to keep his seat is blasting the nasty guy and his opponent Mike Collins. Over the weekend at a campaign event he said:

He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.

Who is Natalie? That’s Natalie Harp. She’s been seen traveling with the nasty guy. She has been leaving him notes that sound like love letters or a great deal of sucking up. Her role hasn’t been defined by the White House. I’ve read a lot of speculation. Aide? Eye candy? She does look a lot like Ivanka and Melania. Nurse or nanny to a decrepit old man who butters him up to make him feel better about himself? Note that Ossoff mentioned her name, but made no comment about what role she fills. Even so, the White House freaked out, saying nasty things about Ossoff. Singer concluded:

If Trump and the White House really wanted this story to go away, they would simply let it go rather than draw attention to it with childish social media posts. But leave it to Trump and his administration to create more problems for themselves based on their sick desire for revenge and humiliation.

In Wednesday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a lot of commentary about Ossoff’s comments. My favorite is by Niles Francis:

Idk if it was the point but man Ossoff sure has flabbered the gasts of an entire administration and right-wing media ecosystem.

The nasty guy has spurned the leaders of South Korea for another attempt to be best buds with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. That prompted exlrrp to post a meme in the comments showing the nasty guy saluting someone in uniform that is not American (I don’t recognize the person). In the background is Kim. The caption says, “Every time a maga tries to claim Dems are Communist, show them this pic.” In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup exlrrp posted a tweet from middleageriot showing Kim and the nasty guy shaking hands for the camera. The caption (which may be fictional): “Kim Jong-un: ‘I moved on Trump like a bitch. When you’re tyrannical dictator, he’ll let you do it. He’ll let you do anything.’”