Ignoring the Environment, For Fun, Profit and Mass Suffering

   

What’s goin’ on? Why has Joe Biden’s second phase infrastructure bill, heavy on addressing climate change, failed? It’s uniformly opposed by virtually all Republicans in Congress, and most of those climate change vectors won’t fly even with one Senate Democrat, Joe Manchin, from coal-driven West Virginia (despite a decades-old steep decline in coal demand and mine closures, which accelerated in the Trump era). The main thrust of GOP climate change measures – and yes, they accept that it is real but think we’ve done more than our share to contain it – is to plant trees and help those who have been impacted by global warming. Reactive and not very proactive. They deny the obvious reality that there are millions of new jobs in the offing, taking the position that they are protecting existing jobs above all else.

As for other forms of pollution, often entailing dumping waste into public waterways or leaking landfills, their official position is that environmental regulation needs to be curtailed to protect business. It seems that “radical left-wing Democrats” need to be stopped before they kill millions more jobs. That job growth has been skyrocketing, finally tempered by a recession, escapes their statistical analysis. They prefer to make abstract judgmental conclusions, as their support for Big Lie evidences; they really hate statistics and hard facts.

This GOP resistance to deal with climate change is exemplified by their recent litigation to force lower automotive emission standards, effectively adopted by most carmakers since California is the largest car market: “Seventeen Republican state attorneys general on Friday [5/13] announced a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for allowing California to set its own vehicle emissions standards… The lawsuit alleges EPA Administrator Michael Regan violated the Constitution’s doctrine of equal sovereignty by allowing California an exemption from the Clean Air Act, which the Golden State used to impose more stringent emissions limits than the nationwide limit.” The Hill, May 13th. OMG!

While the GOP claims to speak for “all Americans,” you have to wonder why they fear open and unencumbered elections – relying heavily on minority/Democratic voter exclusion through gerrymandering and voter suppression instead. They’ve pushed hard for a White evangelical agenda, and as their own reaction to current leaked anticipatory Alito opinion reversing Roe v Wade illustrates, those Republicans with national political ambitions won’t opine on that wildly unpopular possible decision; they prefer to address the much less significant secondary issue: the leak itself. They clearly miss the issues that concern younger Americans.

Rising generations, disillusioned by the entire political process – see my May 4th Is Politics a Solution or Disease - Ask the Rising Generation blog – feel seriously betrayed by the political system, immobile from congressional gridlock driven by a right-wing, filibuster blocking evangelical-value GOP constituency. They are the ones alive today most likely to be impacted by the worst ravages of climate change. A pre-Roe controversy poll from the Pew Research Center (reported on May 26, 2021) highlights that reality, as the Pew charts above show:

• The views of Gen Zers and Millennials are distinct from those of older adults over the use of fossil fuels. Majorities of Gen Zers (56%) and Millennials (57%) favor phasing out new gasoline cars and trucks by the year 2035; by contrast, majorities of Gen X (53%) and Baby Boomer and older adults (59%) oppose this idea. And while adults across generations are inclined to use a mix of sources to meet the country’s energy needs, support for phasing out the use of oil, coal and natural gas is significantly higher among Gen Zers and Millennials (43% and 42%, respectively) than among Gen X (32%) and Baby Boomer and older adults (25%)…

• Republicans’ views on energy issues have shifted compared with a year ago, leading to wider political divides between the parties. Republican support for expanding wind and solar power, while still a majority, has decreased 13 and 11 percentage points, respectively, compared with a year ago when Trump was in office. The shares of Republicans and Republican leaners who support expanding hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas (up 10 points), offshore oil and gas drilling (up 6 points) and coal mining (up 6 points) have risen over the same period. Even so, younger Republicans remain less likely than their older counterparts to support expanding fossil fuel sources, consistent with past Center surveys.

But as noted, climate change is hardly the only environmental horrible that threatens our health and safety. From the radiation-leaking storage sites – from Hanford, WA to Sylmar, CA – to the intentional release of toxic chemicals directly on to neighboring waterways (North Carolina) and onto land within minority neighborhoods (Louisiana and Mississippi), these remain challenging but very toxic waste. And then there’s this pervasive release of microplastics, a reality that probably existing in majority of our bodies. The industries that supply the ingredients for plastics still pretend they are doing all they can. Writing for the April 29th Los Angeles Times, Susanne Rust and Rosanna Xia present a summary of what environmental leader, California, is doing about this issue:

“California’s attorney general has announced a first-of-its kind investigation into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their alleged role in causing and exacerbating a global crisis in plastic waste pollution… Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Thursday [4/28] that his office has subpoenaed Exxon Mobil Corp. seeking information related to the company’s ‘historic and ongoing efforts’ to minimize the public’s understanding of the harmful consequences of plastic… ‘For more than half a century, the plastics industry has engaged in an aggressive campaign to deceive the public, perpetuating a myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis,’ Bonta said.

“Fossil fuels such as oil and gas are the raw material of most plastics. In recent decades, the accumulation of plastic waste has overwhelmed waterways and oceans, sickening marine life and threatening human health… In a statement released late Thursday [4/28], Exxon Mobil denied the accusations.” If anyone finds a way to re-energize our disillusioned younger voters, who supported Joe Biden’s election 2-to-1 in 2020, the GOP is toast. But in the meantime, as Republicans use their control of the Senate (where rural, right-wing states with small urban populations have the same voting power as mega-populated, mostly blue, states) to block obviously necessary health and safety measures that impact all of us, we remain woefully behind in protecting the very environment where we live, breathe and sweat. Have a nice smoldering, searing summer!

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is easy to ignore the obvious if you are also willing to ignore hard facts.