The Guardian: We bailed out the banks but we're not prepared to bail out the planet

[OKIsItJustMe]

We bailed out the banks but we’re not prepared to bail out the planet

Larry Elliott
Sun 30 Jul 2023 19.29 BST
US and UK must use financial firepower of the state to put economies on a saner course

Like many other politicians, Joe Biden talks a good game about the need to tackle global heating. Climate change is an “existential threat”, the US president said last week, as America sizzled amid record-breaking temperatures.

Biden had to do something in response to what António Guterres, the UN secretary general, described as the boiling of the planet. The White House announced a series of measures – such as improved access to drinking water and planting more trees – in response to what has been the hottest month on record.

To Biden’s critics, this is fiddling while Rome burns. They say he should be declaring a climate emergency, which would allow him to block new fossil fuel projects without congressional approval. As it is, Biden has showed a marked reluctance to take this step. There are clearly limits to what the US government is prepared to do to counter this “existential threat”.

It is a similar picture in the UK, where the Conservative party’s surprise victory in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection was in large part due to the plans by London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, to expand the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to the capital’s outer boroughs.

…

[Think. Again.]

1. Biden has ....

...clearly and publicly stated he considers the Climate Crisis to be an emergency.

It's almost(?) dereliction of duty not to formalize that in order to have the best chance of protecting the nation's public safety, national security, national fiscal security, national energy security, national health security....

[PortTack]

2. I highly doubt President Biden could get much done with just an EO

[BlueIn_W_Pa]

3. This is the kind of drama headlines that turn so many people off

to doing anything beyond a grandiose idea that can't happen. There is no "bail out the planet" comparable to the banking fiasco.

Biden and the US can't do anything globally with substance until the rest of the planet stops their ever growing GHG emissions. China alone passed the US in GHG over 20 years ago, and is emitting more than double everything the US puts out today, and "commits" to slow down in 2050.

The Antarctic glaciers will do their damage long before that.

Trees natural to their habitat, locally, I would agree with. They convert radiant energy into sugar instead of heat and offer habitat. There should be a tax credit for planting (or rather, re-planting) the areas that used to be forests to cool the local areas down (suburban-ites especially).

Doomer? Not really because locally I'm optimistic, but as a chemical engineer looking to "ok, cool, have a headline so what do we have to do to accomplish this", the math doesn't work out globally.

[yonder]

4. +1.

[Wonder Why]

5. We don't need to help Mother Nature. All we've ever been told is that

our forests, oceans and plains are rich with wildlife, minerals and oil. Let her sell them and fix the problem herself.

Throw another log in the fireplace, honey and turn up the A/C. It's getting too warm in here. Tomorrow, remind me to call the plumber. He talked us into that 12 acre watering system for the lawn but it's still turning brown. Traded us for those old growth redwoods but I think I should have saved some of them for more firewood. It's getting expensive because the firewood guy has to drive so far with his semi to get us more. I can remember the good old days when one redwood would supply us for a whole month.