Krugman on Climate and Politics: Origins and Ends

It may seem that the US government's persistent failure to address the climate emergency with the required urgency, and in particular the Republican party's intransigence, is a byproduct of larger political forces.  After all, it is extremely rare to see this threat to the survival of civilization and life on Earth as we know it as the subject of the top story of the day.  At best, it is an afterthought.  So it must be a low priority politically as well as in the real world.

But economist and columnist Paul Krugman sees the Republican response to the climate crisis as central and generative--as how this all started.

There is no one writing today who thinks and writes with such clarity as Krugman, so I can do no better than to quote his most recent column at length.  It begins:

The most terrifying aspect of the U.S. political drama isn’t the revelation that the president has abused his power for personal gain. If you didn’t see that coming from the day Donald Trump was elected, you weren’t paying attention.

No, the real revelation has been the utter depravity of the Republican Party. Essentially every elected or appointed official in that party has chosen to defend Trump by buying into crazy, debunked conspiracy theories. That is, one of America’s two major parties is beyond redemption; given that, it’s hard to see how democracy can long endure, even if Trump is defeated."

Then in two paragraphs, Krugman summarizes the latest data and implications of it that has escaped the big headlines this week (go to the column itself for the relevant links):

However, the scariest reporting I’ve seen recently has been about science, not politics. A new federal report finds that climate change in the Arctic is accelerating, matching what used to be considered worst-case scenarios. And there are indications that Arctic warming may be turning into a self-reinforcing spiral, as the thawing tundra itself releases vast quantities of greenhouse gases.

Catastrophic sea-level rise, heat waves that make major population centers uninhabitable, and more are now looking more likely than not, and sooner rather than later."

He notes that taking action to address the climate crisis "was never going to be easy," but that the chief barrier has been extremist (which has become its mainstream) Republican denial.  He reiterates that this is not a byproduct but historically an origin of current Republican decadence:

"As I’ve written in the past, climate denial was in many ways the crucible for Trumpism. Long before the cries of “fake news,” Republicans were refusing to accept science that contradicted their prejudices. Long before Republicans began attributing every negative development to the machinations of the “deep state,” they were insisting that global warming was a gigantic hoax perpetrated by a vast global cabal of corrupt scientists.

And long before Trump began weaponizing the power of the presidency for political gain, Republicans were using their political power to harass climate scientists and, where possible, criminalize the practice of science itself."

Krugman points out that many of the architects of this extremist strategy have been rewarded with high federal and White House positions and influence.  In addressing why Republicans have gone down this road, he points to the enormous political contribution to the Rs by huge fossil fuel corporations, and to the "halo effect" that accompanies doing something good, like addressing the climate crisis. If that happened, then this might make addressing other problems more popular, but Rs oppose any progressive or liberal programs.  So they must oppose them all, especially one so comprehensive.

But he also admits that:

The truth is that even now I don’t fully understand how things got this bad. But the reality is clear: Modern Republicans are irredeemable, devoid of principle or shame. And there is, as I said, no reason to believe that this will change even if Trump is defeated next year.

Krugman concludes:

The only way that either American democracy or a livable planet can survive is if the Republican Party as it now exists is effectively dismantled and replaced with something better — maybe with a party that has the same name, but completely different values. This may sound like an impossible dream. But it’s the only hope we have.

Broke It

Yesterday voters of the United Kingdom may well have done what Hitler could not do: they set the UK on a path of destruction.  Who would have believed that it would end with conscious self-destruction.

 Until this day it was possible to believe that the referendum that started the bloody process of taking Great Britain out of the European Union had been an aberration, a combination of misunderstanding, apathy and sinister manipulation. But it appears this time the voters went into this with no doubt of what they were voting for.

They voted to retain as their Prime Minister their very own blond monster, the British Trump, Boris Johnson. Like Trump’s Republicans, the Conservative Party abased itself to serve him. Remember that Johnson literally threw out of the party those members of Parliament who dissented from his orders. This totalitarian act should have been met with institutional censure and his removal, but the Conservative Party swallowed it, and now they are owners of Johnson’s ongoing evil.

The effects of this vote may take some time to see, but eventually the UK will likely suffer enormous economic and political consequences, that will probably ripple through western Europe and around the world. Scotland is almost certain to secede, and Northern Ireland is more likely to rejoin the Republic of Ireland or become completely independent than it is to remain in the UK.  That is, if Brexit turns out to be real and not just the politically popular marquee on an illusion.

If the world is to address its greatest threats—most of them related to the climate emergency-- it will need to be more united, not less. Most importantly, it will need a common body of laws to keep its conflicts from becoming self-destructive. This is a big step in the wrong direction.

It can only shake any confidence that the US will right its own course in its 2020 elections. Right now the Republican Party is, without dissent, shamelessly and consciously defying the Constitution that is the most sacred of America's body of rules, that embodies the principles that are the very backbone of the nation. And it looks increasingly like they will get away with it, and enhance their chances of retaining the White House and continuing the country’s current path to totalitarian self-destruction.

The US and the UK survived Hitler because they had extraordinary leaders in FDR and Churchill. There was no such leader to oppose Boris Johnson in the UK, and it is beginning to look like there may not be one in the US to successfully oppose Trump.  Some pundits point out that a (slight) majority of UK citizens wants to stay in the European Union, but they keep losing elections.  Let's hope that's not prophetic in our case as well.

Don''t Believe Me Just Watch: It's All Dance

This has to be the best edited video of its kind.  Watch these classic movie dancers with funk music and draw your own conclusions.  Besides, it's great fun!  For a better view, go to its YouTube location for its slightly larger default view. (It doesn't look too good any larger.)

Poetry Monday: The Palm at the End of The Mind

Of Mere Being

The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.


Wallace Stevens--perhaps the last poem he completed.