Fight like you mean it
The Republican Party’s ruthless long game continues to bear poisonous fruit, abetted by a mixture of cooperation and passivity from many Democrats. Our conservative-dominated Supreme Court just struck down the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate, ruling that it only applies to healthcare facilities. Next month, they will hear West Virginia v. EPA, a case that could effectively destroy the ability of federal agencies to regulate and protect the public good. Meanwhile in Congress, the filibuster is still standing and the Democrats’ signature Build Back Better omnibus bill is on life support at the mercy of corrupt coal baron Joe Manchin and various business interests. With the stakes this high, you better at least pull out all the stops and fight like you mean it.
Needless to say, the prospect for meaningful federal action to do anything significantly positive—much less the type of sweeping structural overhauls needed to stop our ecological crises—appears bleak for the foreseeable future as neoliberalism remains hegemonic and structural flaws remain intact. Enacting transformative political change requires a sober analysis of the terrain we face. But that includes the fact that politics is socially constructed, so we can change it faster than even seems possible. Figuring out how as we do it is up to us.
The US agriculture system is a major contributor to the climate crisis (in addition to many other problems). These are six important findings from a new science, law, and policy analysis intended to point the way towards a zero-emission agriculture system.
Global coal consumption reached an all-time high in 2021 and is projected to increase again in 2022. Not only are we not making progress, we are actively going in the wrong direction. Reversing this trend while also avoiding further oil and gas lock-in will require monumental global cooperation—payments, technology transfer, debt cancellation—to help developing countries skip over fossil fuels to renewable energy along with reorienting production around socially useful goods and services instead of profit.
RIP Magawa, an African giant pouch rat who died of natural causes in retirement after detecting over 100 landmines in the process of clearing 141,000 square meters in Cambodia. Hopefully someday there will no longer be any need for heroic mine-sniffing rats, but in the meantime their abilities are invaluable. Animals are amazing.
Outstanding longread: Is Nuclear Power Our Best Bet Against Climate Change? by Samuel Miller McDonald
