(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . I Wish You Well in Your Climate Anxiety, DC [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-07-27 It’s been widely noted by political junkies in the last 8 weeks that a seriously markedly new tone and prominence has been given to the climate crisis by the Washington Post. Florida coral reefs are dying, New England smashed by record floods, Canadian wildfire smoke choking off the sun with dark tendrils of doom. California was blanketed with heavy smoke years ago from American fires with the wine country becoming death country, my dear friend Kim from Paradise fleeing for her life in utter horror as the fire raged in fury on the road. My cousin Kim was flooded out of her house in Houston six years ago, her image on a raft making it to the New York Times. Better late than never as the old saying goes, but for those who have been anxiously watching the climate crisis for decades there is a creeping dread it’s already too late to stop massively destructive change the climate crisis will bring about, the searing heat from the summer of 2023 just the beginning of a process we may not have the power to stop or ameliorate. The Biden Administration actually accomplished climate crisis legislation in 2022, the first American President to do so. Readers know how tough I have been on the Biden Administration–for damn good reasons–but here credit must be given for doing something, anything, especially with such a narrow majority in the House. Unfortunately the $369 billion in the bill will be spent over ten years, the approximately $36 billion annually a mere rounding number compared to the Pentagon budget. Still it’s something real and a step in the right direction. Of course with the Republican takeover of the House in 2023 all hope or any chance of further progress flew out the window to a flat splat of nothing, our endearing Republican cousins not only deny “woke” climate crisis action, they actively pass State legislation to stop it. If somehow they accomplish the political miracle of all time and capture the Presidency in 2024 write off any climate crisis action for another 4 years. Good luck living with that knowledge–or if the Republicans keep the House or capture the Senate in 2024–my journalism friends at the Washington Post, for very soon you’re going to discover heightened awareness of the climate crisis means absolutely nothing to Republicans, they’ll actively work against you and then sneer at your in a seething hatred you’re one of those woke liberals, shut up and let the white men drive 500 horsepower Mustangs. More Americans will flee their homes in raging fire horror or drown as they run for their lives, more animal species will suffer and vanish, more and more stories will be covered how we are a biological species in a fragile ecosystem we appear to have smashed but hey, didn’t you hear us? Shut up, we Republicans seek to rule and this climate thing is in the way. The sneering denial, the hatred, the incalculable damage done to the ecosystem, the rolling waves of human migration misery while nothing is done year after year, it’s really hard to live through on a daily basis. I would suggest the usual prescriptions: therapy, personal relationship investments, fitness, good diet, gratitude lists. All this will aid on a personal level but for our planet very little will be done. We may pay for that mistake with our very existence as a viable country, that is not hyperbole, and it has crushed the faith and optimism of our younger generations. Perhaps–just maybe, possibly–a different reporting and analysis approach will help, not just heightened awareness of the crisis but this idiotic and infuriating both sides bullshit, god it’s so offensive. Democrats seek solutions and answers for the climate crisis, Republicans actively seek to destroy our ecosystem. Democrats don’t run a felon convict as a Presidential candidate. Democrats do not seek to deny voting rights, Democrats do not persecute the LGBT community in one of the most disgusting fascist punching-down political acts I have ever seen, Democrats don’t exploit a public health crisis to the point of even killing their own. This, too, has been widely known for decades but the Washington Post and the rest of the beltway journalism corps stubbornly refuses to believe it. One supposes if DC drowns in a smashing flood or goes up in roaring flames they’ll get it. Maybe. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/27/2183592/-I-Wish-You-Well-in-Your-Climate-Anxiety-DC Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/