This is a panel discussion trying to make sense of the moment we are in. It’s not as clickbaity as the thumbnail. The video is actually quite reasoned and calm, and includes perspectives from both sides of the aisle.
Constantine makes the point that he believes the reason people voted for Trump is that they were not willing to accept a “managed decline” of the economy. I think that’s accurate. Keep in mind people on the right are statistically more likely to work in professions like coal mining, construction, and transportation. It’s easy to see how a policy of reducing carbon might be seen as a direct attack on the only way of life they know.
I agree with the left in the sense that it’s important that we do put boundaries in place to prevent the exploitation of nature and humanity. What concerns me however, is that many of the solutions proposed for climate change are coming from the bankers and the polluters who created the situation we are in now. I don’t trust that they are authentic in their desire to save “people and planet” - I think they wish to greenwash the public, pay their carbon tax, and continue the business models they are comfortable with. Carbon is a way of framing the issue that is much easier for these companies to deal with than if society begins to look at the multitude of ways our economic activity affects the environment. If you asked me what should be our top 3 priorities to protect nature and habitats, carbon would not be on the list. Glyphosate, nitrogen blooms, and petroleum spills. Those come to mind. But I also don’t think we can respectfully have this conversation without including the right, whose livelihoods we are discussing.
Anyway. These are just my perspectives. What do you think should be the nation’s priorities? What are you hopeful or optimistic about? What should we be doing locally to best position Delta county for the coming years?
Great points Brandon! I’m taken by the example of bankers benefiting from problem. Perhaps we need to be just as suspicious when they equally benefit from the ‘solution’ ?!
May I add as a couple more areas of consideration with regard to ecosystem stewardship?
*Biodiversity decline,
*Desertification/habitat loss,
*Decline of eco-literacy in modern education.
Yeah, I’m with you my friend. Looking at the health of the ecosystem as a whole.
Antonio, what do you think about this area that we are in, the border between the desert and the mountains? We’ve talked before about the importance of ruminants in land management for instance. Anything you want to share?
It is an intriguing convergence of ecosystem niches that can produce unique biological communities. Forest edges that meet grasslands are often super fertile with diverse species of flora and fauna that like to occupy those ecosystem niches.
I like to imagine, esoterically, these spaces to be rich with metaphysical and elemental beings; and being-ness ?!
God, i’m so sick of hearing the meme, “it’s the economy stupid.” Think Clinton coined that bs. Sure, coal and the fracking gas industry don’t like efforts to stem climate change or those who support doing something about it. This is how the religion of capitalism controls the majority, the 90%, by threatening to erase people’s jobs if they don’t conform. When it comes down to feeding their families, i think that u know the choice of many. I think if the government cut the massive waste that supports a bloated military budget and instead this savings went to retrain fossil fuel workers in clean energy jobs, it would free people to honestly speak their minds. Unfortunately, the energy industry doesn’t want these workers to have this choice. Keep em bitching and blaming everyone except those responsible. Migrants who want to steal the jobs of privileged americans who would never consider them. They may be working for slave wages but don’t complain as they want to survive and survival is nature’s prime directive. That survival instinct is how capitalism works. So what to do in delta county. First is to attend town hall meetings with our supposed “representatives in government.” And i suggest this as a start. Hickenlooper town hall on the 13th. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQZTVxHLsmDdHNszHKGLXBgBlbh. Lets organize a gathering and promote what Congressman Al Green stood up for and what he was ejected for “smuggling a spine into the chamber.”. Ten democrats support his censure and i wish to confront each one.
The 10 Democrats who voted with Republicans to censure Green were: Ami Bera of California, Ed Case of Hawaii, Jim Costa of California, Laura Gillen of New York, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Tom Suozzi of New York. Trumps sycophants all.
I’m down with cutting military budget. You know that Trump has proposed to do this, right? He has proposed to create agreements with Russia and China that would reduce nuclear stockpiles and military spending across the board. And he’s the only president, left or right, within my lifetime that has demonstrated he is serious about this.
Yes, you’re right, providing people alternatives is a good way to get their support, or at least lessen the resistance. Doing that in practice is… messy and imperfect.
It is questionable whether solar and wind can take over completely from fossil fuels. And how much land mass would need to be dedicated to them in order to do this. And whether we would have done more harm to the ecosystem by creating these massive wind and solar farms. And what we do with the giant wind turbine blades that are currently ending up buried in the ground. Or the fact that the offshore turbines were responsible for killing whales… ironically.
When I lived in Phoenix one of my good friends was working in R&D at APS (one of the two major power companies in the city, and the one that runs Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant). She worked on a project to figure out how to best incorporate solar into the grid. Right now Arizona is in a situation where during peak solar hours, they have more energy than they can use. Storage isn’t cost efficient, so the excess just gets lost, or exported to other states. My friend worked on a project where the power company would take control of the home thermostats and cool the homes an extra 5-10 degrees during peak solar, so that when people come home from work (normally peak usage period) they can coast on their air conditioning for a while. This gives you an example of creative thinking used to deal with the fact that peak production and peak usage times don’t match up. But you can’t extend this to 100% and say that it would be feasible to run the grid purely on solar and wind. You’re dealing with physics and economics that make that a no-go. And that’s in Arizona, which is best case.
Case in point: a conversation with Bernie Sanders’ former campaign manager on how the Democratic party has lost their way, and how they can find it back again by linking up with the working class:
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