“Are you ready for President Kamala Harris declaring a national emergency over climate change?” Senator Marco Rubio, Big Sugar, FL.
Marco, yes! Yes, I am.
To be clear right off the bat, I suspect that every single Democratic presidential candidate will pledge to be a climate hawk because they won’t win the nomination otherwise. Because you see, we are already in a national emergency at this very moment due to the unfolding crisis that is climate change. Besides, I believe that a Harris, Beto or any of our other exciting qualified presidential candidates recognize that climatic change is not just a national emergency but a planetary emergency, and we need a leader that can motivate the world to act.
If you haven’t noticed, Republicans and their lackeys in the media have a new meme (that is supposed to terrify us; I suspect) of which Rubio is but one example for Traitor Don’s threats to declare a national emergency over climate change refugees from Central America and his stubborn tantrum to build an imaginary wall. A national crisis on the climate is to be feared, to be afraid, to be enraged at the thought of a Democratic president attempting to save the planet. Fuck them.
Republicans have been working the referees in the media for decades on climate change, insisting that there is doubt with the science, or stating I’m not a scientist but; it is a hoax, a money making scheme for scientists and the elites, or some other unprovable bullshit that they vomit out on their end. And it works, fossil fuel bought and paid for republicans have been able to play the media like a Stradivarius.
Take Fox News for example, where Brian Kilmeade stated that- “It would just set a terrible precedent. The next president, if it is a liberal president, will say a state of emergency will be climate change.” Notice the coordination, the effort to deceive that climate change is not a threat at the national level, let alone an international one. I even heard this crap from guests on MSNBC, not one of them was corrected by the MSNBC host. Pretty remarkable.
Many of us are aware of how grim the situation is for the survival of our civilization. It’s going to be bad, really bad no matter what we do and I suspect that humanity will not decarbonize within the next decade - which the IPCC has identified as the only solution to save some of what is left for lifeforms to exist. That’s a big deal and I am not seeing the serious effort yet to complete the transition to green power in time.
So what’s next, what do we do? We mitigate as much as we can to delay and soften the body blows that we all will experience from a hurting planet.
After the recent surge in more powerful windstorms, increasing rain amounts and ferocious storm surge during 2017, (think Hurricane Maria, Irma and Harvey and the utter destruction these storms wrought) Congress appropriated 16 billion dollars to beef up defenses against the pattern of increasing destruction to our infrastructure by recent hurricanes. Donald, take the oil, Trump and his swamp creature, HUD Secretary Ben Carson, have not spent a dime of those funds; instead making suffering American citizens fend for themselves.
Christopher Flavelle at Bloomberg writes:
The Trump administration is sitting on billions of dollars intended to help vulnerable cities and states prepare for extreme weather, prompting growing criticism from state officials worried about the next storm season.
In February, following a string of severe natural disasters in 2017, Congress provided a record $16 billion for disaster mitigation -- building better defenses against hurricanes, floods and other catastrophes.
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The $16 billion in funds was meant to address a longstanding complaint about U.S. disaster policy: instead of spending money to protect communities before a storm, the government typically releases funding only after damage has happened. Yet a federally-funded study in 2018 found that every $1 spent on mitigation saves $6 on future disaster costs.
Climate change is causing federal disaster costs to increase. Extreme weather cost the federal government more than $350 billion over the past decade, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, an amount that’s expected to increase as rising temperatures lead to more intense and more frequent storms.
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In Puerto Rico, which is due to receive $8.3 billion of the funding, Housing Secretary Fernando Gil blamed the delay on inadequate federal staffing. “HUD were not prepared with the amount of personnel necessary to meet the magnitude of the emergency,” he said in an interview in December.
Democrats have a huge mess on our hands, but a new congress can prepare us to charge straight ahead in 2020 when the must win elections take place.
Thanks for reading and caring.