On the last Saturday before Donald Trump took office, in January 2017, I watched the controlled chaos of a hackathon unfold in a library at the University of Pennsylvania. Volunteer archivists, librarians, and computer scientists were trawling government websites, looking for data sets about climate change to duplicate for safekeeping. Groups like this were meeting across the country. Flowcharts on whiteboards laid out this particular room’s priorities: copy decades of ice-core statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; scrape the Environmental Protection Agency’s entire library of local air-monitoring results from the previous four years; find a way to preserve a zoomable map of the factories and power plants emitting the most greenhouse gases.
The fear was that the incoming administration would pull information like this from public view—and within a week, it did. By noon on Inauguration Day, the Trump administration had scrubbed mentions of climate change from the White House website. By May, officials had taken down the EPA’s page laying out climate science for the general public, as well as 108 pages associated with the Clean Power Plan, the landmark Obama policy meant to curb emissions from power plants—months before the Trump administration tried to repeal the policy altogether.
The administration’s goal was to bury the issue of climate change. Nothing was done to address it; the very mention of it was knocked from the national agenda—and, by extension, the international agenda. If Trump returns to office, he will surely double down on this strategy.
his approach isn’t to ignore it; it’s to actively make it worse
I have no patience with people who “just cant find it in their heart to support Biden again”. There is too fucking much at stake to hold Biden to these impossible standards.
Exactly. They don’t seem to understand that the willful act of cutting of their own noses- spites every face in America.
But it’s never their fault.
especially when biden is one of the most progressive presidents in modern history
It’s not “ignore it”, it’s actively make it worse. Look at all of his coal bullshit. There’s no economic reason to continue supporting coal
Came here to say this. He actively sold off public lands that were held in reserve for the future - it was OURS, now it just managed to line HIS pockets. Remind me again btw why I am supposed to be afraid of “socialism”, but capitalism = perfection? :-(
The presidency can’t afford another Trump presidency.
Tell this to the “gEnOciDe jOe” bros. I’ll bet they still won’t lift a finger come November.
But remember, it won’t be their fault.
knowing how much steve bannon made has way up in wow chat, the likelihood that all those “leftists” screaming that are actually 45 year old white male conservatives.
I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. And in the event they’re not- then they’re mindless drones doing the work of 45 year old white male conservatives.
Too bad do many American voters also ignore it.
*most
Because roughly 60% of likely voters think climate change is a “false religion” that has nothing to do with the climate.
Think about that. Why would a republican candidate that is only about themselves ever do anything about climate change? They poll better when they do the opposite.
We have to be careful here, because we’re getting dangerously close to denial about the popularity of climate change denial. We’re not winning, and even though it’s an existential crisis, “Well you’ll see I’m right when the world is on fire” actually makes people LESS likely to support efforts to fight climate change. Think about that too.