Thread. There is now a definitive report from an international panel of scientists informing us that the climate is changing faster and in more direct and dangerous ways than we had hoped. This means real and massive economic and human impacts.
For farmers, this likely means more droughts and more severe and unpredictable weather. For insurance companies it means 500 year storms happening annually. For fisheries it means just less fish. For ski resorts, some will manufacture snow for whole seasons.
For ecosystems, frankly, some will crash. In the developing world where hundreds of millions of people live on coasts, and governments will not have the resources to harden shorelines and develop pumping systems, we will have tens of millions of people, some on foot,
moving away from perennial flooding and severe weather, creating humanitarian crises and instability. But here is the good news - climate change is actually not a thorny or complicated moral or policy issue. The solutions are - place a fee on carbon - incentives 4 renewables,
adapt to climate change, manage ecosystems. None of these are unproven strategies and they would benefit the vast majority of society.
But we have a very specific problem. And it is this: the people who fund the Republican Party are primarily in the fossil fuel business, and they are in charge of the government. So we are stuck.
Look. I can read a poll. I understand that climate change doesn’t necessarily, by itself, drive voters to the polls. But here’s the thing - it really should. Anyone who is planning on being on the planet after 2040 should be pretty pissed at inaction action from people in charge.
America always solves the big problems. We lead. And on this we are absolutely giving away our historical role. There’s only one way to fix this. We need Democrats and especially climate champions in office. END.
