15.00PB one of the (political) rules is the first rule about solving climate change is don't say climate change. Okay. I've heard that many places and so the Democrats were saying energy prices are really large. A big cause of that is the war against Iran and closing the Hormuz Strait.
But we know that a big cause an ongoing cause of inflation is climate change. If fuel prices are higher that spirals through the whole economy because it's much more expensive to ship goods. the idea of these multiple tipping points, multiple cascade of failure of food growing crop, you know, food producing regions mostly in the northern hemisphere they're located would greatly cause spiral, you know, food prices to spiral even more.
So if people are really worried about inflation of food for example and these other things, climate change is a big part of it. But the thing is is you need to elect a democratic government that recognizes the reality of this'and in order to do that you don't want to mention climate change directly.
[Blogger just turned into Alice down the rabbit hole; The first rule of climate change advocacy is don't mention climate change? Trumpism is not the only insanity right now.]
PB So I think it's been a hidden sort of factor. The other thing that really is mind-boggling to me is how the political system can work in the US in terms of follow the money. Okay that's an old saying. So follow if you follow the money if you look at oil and gas money going to Republicans or groups- 97% of their 170 billion plus (political donations) went to Republicans or groups.
And then of course you can talk about the tech industry like the cryptocurrency, online gambling, AI, right? the money from there, more and more money from there went into also supporting Republicans in some key states. We know about Musk's donations and so on. [Skip to]
19.00
So the polarization is very, very concerning because that leads to huge problems.
HS Thanks, Paul. I just want to push back and not against you but against the rule that you asserted and that is I think it's absolutely disastrous and one of the reasons why climate action has not gotten further that people feel that they can't the politicians can't mention climate change. What that guarantees is when they get in office they have no mandate to do anything on climate change because they haven't brought it up as a campaign issue.
Now, there are different ways to do it. And coincidentally, I just got an email before we recorded this from an organization that links climate change to economic populism, and they did an analysis of last night's election, a quick and dirty one, and they found overwhelmingly that about two or three dozen candidates for the House of Representatives who talked about climate change, but linked it to higher prices, overwhelmingly won re-election or election. even in cases where they were against it. So I think the conventional wisdom and you're right, Paul, it is the conventional wisdom I think is terribly misguided and that's my opinion and I'll stick with it until I see the facts otherwise. [skip to]
21.05
HS All right, we will now turn to our next panelist, Regina Valdez, who's coming from New York. It looks like you're outdoors on a nice day. Regina, you're a keen observer of American politics. Give us your assessment of what happened last night and anything you'd like to say about Brazil as well.
RV Yes, and I am coming to you live from Central Park. Don't worry about me. I know it's November in New York City, but it's hot as hell out here, okay? So, I'm not cold. I'm not cold at all. I do remember when there were Thanksgiving parades many years past where it was snowing and I was freezing my ass off and I just couldn't wait to get somewhere warm. But let me tell you, my have times have changed. Haven't they changed? And of course, we did have what they're calling the blue tsunami last night. I have to be honest with you all. I was really quite I was pessimistic going into this and think we're going to have a blue wave, much less a blue tsunami. And how about Texas? [skip to]
22.30
And I agree. I agree with what you said, Herb, that it's not a mandate. It's not necessarily a mandate on the climate. But I also agree with what you had to say, Paul, that the way to institute climate change awareness and to get people to vote in the interests of our climate environment is kind of not to mention it.
And listen, I don't understand. I don't have to understand. I mean, sometimes what I've learned in life, and I've had so many ups and downs, is that I just have to look at how it is. And that's not how I want it to be, not how it should be, but how it is.
And you know, I remember it was like five or six years ago when the network news wouldn't even mention climate change. Let's hope we're heading in a good direction. I mean, we've got Brazil and we've got United States. I mean, the United States really needs to lead the way with fossil fuel regulation, scaling down mining, which Trump just was just so excited about coal, scaling down the use of fossil fuel.
And Brazil almost the size of the United States with the world's largest rain forest. There's two environmental powerhouses there that can do so much in regards to this climate crisis that we're in. I think it does give the United States a degree of bonafides in regards to our influence no matter how small it is at this point in regards to climate regulations. EPA enforcement is something that we really really need to look at. I mean, I don't know if we have an environmental protection agency or if we have an environmental oil agency. Maybe Dan can speak to that. It's become absurd.
But, you know, I think actually Brazil, even though the election was won by kind of less than 2%, I think there's more of an environmental mandate from Brazil than the United States. But having said that, I think there's a ray of hope. And I'm going to give an example. I remember when Obamacare was law of the land. Of course, we don't have that anymore. Who wants healthcare? But I remember the states that were very red and against Obamacare. People signed up for it in droves. They just needed to call it Kentucky Care, right?
As long as they were signing up for Kentucky Care, everyone was for it. And I think I hate to say it, but I think we can do the same thing with climate, tying it to the financial reality, tying it to not being able to get a mortgage on a home, tying it not being able to insure your home.
25.00
Climate finance is the next big thing.
And I think now that we have Democratic control of the House and Senate, let's hope that we can push through some new regulations and quit the roll backs, some of the old ones. Thank you.
HS Another example of the challenge of climate change. If you went to start talking to people about how we need to act on climate change, here we are in November and it's 70 degrees. People would say, "I like this just fine." You know, youknow, that's one of the many dilemmas. Quick wrap-up comments. Dan, your thoughts.
DG Well, on the question of how do we present this issue? I would just make the general point. We need to treat the electorate and our fellow citizens as persons capable of rational thought and thinking about hard things.
And we need to be able to talk effectively about difficult things.
So I do not agree that the best way to win on climate change is is not to mention it. I think we need to connect it to people's lives, but I think we also need to help people appreciate the real tsunami of climate change that is upon us. I am, as you may have seen in my most recent blog at cprclimate.org, car. I took some time to go down to Long Beach to photograph this row of houses falling into the sea because of the combination of sea level rise, the increased volume of the sea because of El Nino and the repeated Kelvin waves that are sweeping the western coast of the United States. This will occur again and again.
There's no use, I think, in denying this or in ignoring this. It needs to be discussed.
HS Thank you, Dan. Paul.
PB you know, the latest rise of global warming temperatures is point 4 degrees Celsius per decade per Hansen and also some peer-reviewed papers recently. So, you know, we're in 2026. So, by 2050, we're going to have a degree Celsius rise. That's two and a half decades at point4 per decade. So, we'll be at 2.5.
However, this 04° C rise per decade wasn't the case two decades ago. It was only 02.
So assuming we accelerate from we don't just have 4, it goes to point 6 maybe in a decade or point 8, you know, we're going to be over 3° C by 2050.
Okay, that's the trend we're on.
