Environment

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden’s climate agenda faces yet another obstacle: Kyrsten Sinema

      by

      Biden’s climate agenda faces yet another obstacle: Kyrsten SinemaWhile the centrist senator Joe Manchin has announced his support, it is unclear whether Sinema will also back the bill The most ambitious attempt yet to pass climate legislation in the US may have surprisingly won the crucial backing of a senator who owns a coal company. Now it faces a further, deeply ironic, obstacle – a lawmaker who was once a member of the Green party.Last week, Joe Manchin, the centrist West Virginia senator who has been lavished by donations from the fossil fuel industry and made millions of dollars from his ownership of a coal-trading firm, stunned Washington by announcing his support for $369bn in spending to boost renewable energy and slash planet-heating emissions.Manchin’s backing of the bill, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is critical given Democrats’ slender control of an evenly divided senate. But the fate of Joe Biden’s agenda, along with broader hopes of maintaining a livable climate, now appears to have shifted to another swing vote in the US Senate: Kyrsten Sinema.It’s unclear whether Sinema, an enigmatic and elusive figure, will support the bill, which requires all 50 Democratic votes to pass in the face of unified Republican opposition to acting on the climate crisis. Sinema’s office has said the Arizona lawmaker will “need to review the text and what comes out of the parliamentarian process” before deciding whether to back it.The uncertainty adds to a tortuous process that has stretched back for more than 18 months, with both Manchin and Sinema stymying Biden’s original plan for a $3.5tn bill that included sweeping measures to force down emissions.A pared-down bill, which includes vast tax credits for clean energy and incentives to purchase electric cars has now, eventually, been agreed with Manchin, who on Sunday called Sinema a “friend” and that he “would like to think she’d be favorable to it”.But there is no guarantee of Sinema’s support, given her mercurial career, which began as a Green party member who was anti-war and criticized capitalism, before becoming one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. Since being elected to the US Senate in 2018, the first Democrat to do so from Arizona since 1976, Sinema has become best known for her colorful wigs, unconventional outfits and calls for bipartisan agreement with Republicans.Her previous action to block Biden’s initial attempt at climate legislation has alarmed advocates and some scientists who warn the US is running out of time to act on global heating. “It seems distinctly possible that she will sink the bill, or make enough concessions to Republican opponents to climate action that the bill is rendered toothless,” said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University.“She seems much more interested in working toward the interests of her corporate donors than the people she is supposed to represent. I hope that my suspicions are proven wrong.”Mann said that if Sinema does sink the bill, legislation that analysts said would slash US emissions by about 40% this decade, he would endorse a primary opponent to Sinema. Although she rarely gives interviews or engages with many of her constituents, Sinema has previously expressed reticence to raise taxes on corporations and may look unfavorably at measures in the new bill, called “closing loopholes” by Manchin, that would require large companies to pay a certain level of tax.However, backers of the bill say they are hopeful that Arizona’s vulnerability to rising temperatures will help convince Sinema of the need for significant action to reduce emissions. Arizona is one of the fastest-heating states in the US, with Phoenix enduring a record year so far for heat-related deaths. In May, Sinema toured the aftermath of a huge wildfire near Flagstaff that she called “sobering”.“By supporting this bill Senator Sinema can help grow Arizona’s energy economy while protecting her constituents from the extreme heat, droughts and wildfires that runaway climate change would inflict on them,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former US Senate staff member, who is now with the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington. “Those strong incentives make her support seem overwhelmingly likely.”Mann said people in Arizona are “suffering the devastating consequences of climate change already, in the form of extreme heat, deadly floods and wildfires. If she votes down this bill, it is a slap in the face of her constituents.”Republicans have not given up hope of obstructing the bill’s progress, with Pat Toomey, a GOP senator from Pennsylvania, expressing optimism that Sinema could be convinced to vote against it.“I’m not speculating about what she is going to do, but I do know there are some provisions in this field that she has had reservations in the past,” Toomey told Bloomberg on Monday. “I’m looking forward to chatting with her this week.”TopicsUS politicsDemocratsJoe BidenClimate crisisfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      What’s in the climate bill that Joe Manchin supports – and what isn’t

      by

      What’s in the climate bill that Joe Manchin supports – and what isn’t Though it faces obstacles before passing, package has been touted by jubilant Democrats as the largest climate bill ever in the US Joe Manchin, the centrist West Virginia senator and coal company owner who has repeatedly thwarted Joe Biden’s attempts to pass legislation to tackle the climate crisis, shocked Washington on Wednesday by saying he will support a bill aimed at cutting planet-heating emissions.The $369bn package has been touted by jubilant Democrats as the largest climate bill ever in the US, and even the world. It still faces obstacles before passing but the support of Manchin, a crucial swing vote in an evenly divided US Senate, appears to augur well for its chances. So what’s in the legislation?The basics of the billThe climate spending is part of a broader package, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, that totals $739bn. The majority of this bill, however, is dedicated to confronting the climate crisis, with $369bn dedicated to the crisis over the next 10 years.It’s part of a reconciliation budget that can only be passed with all 50 Democratic votes in the Senate, due to unified Republican opposition, meaning Manchin’s acquiescence was critical.What does it include to address the climate emergency?The bulk of the bill allows for large tax credits for clean energy, such as solar and wind power, to allow such projects to go ahead on a grand scale. States and utilities will also get $30bn to help the transition to renewable, zero carbon electricity.A new $27bn “clean energy technology accelerator” will be created to help advance renewable technologies, $3bn will be given to the US postal service to electrify its fleet of trucks and there will be a new program to drive down leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas drilling operations.A further $20bn will be spent to promote climate-friendly agricultural practices and another $5bn to make American forests better prepared for the wildfires that increasingly threaten them due to global heating.What will people be able to access directly from this bill?The legislation includes a tax credit worth up to $7,500 for people who want to buy a new electric car, which has until now largely been the preserve of wealthier Americans.There is also a $9bn scheme, focused on low-income households, to electrify home appliances and make dwellings more energy efficient. Further tax credits, spread out over the next decade, will make it easier to buy heat pumps, rooftop solar and water heaters.Disadvantaged communities that suffer the brunt of fossil fuel pollution have also been recognized, with $60bn dedicated to environmental justice projects across the US.Are there any criticisms of the bill?The spending is a big reduction on the $550bn initially envisioned by Biden and Democratic leaders but sunk by Manchin’s opposition. The final bill amounts to far less, even over 10 years, than what the US spends annually on its military.The bill doesn’t include any mechanism to specifically phase out fossil fuels, the primary cause of the climate crisis, and, indeed, looks to lock in their use for decades to come due to a compromise struck with Manchin. Under the deal, regulations around drilling will be loosened and new leases will be offered in places such as the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Environmentalists have called this arrangement a “climate suicide pact”.How significant is this?Despite its imperfections, the bill is expected by both its authors and independent analysts to allow the US to cut its emissions by 40% by 2030, based on 2005 levels. This brings the US close to Biden’s goal of slashing emissions in half this decade, which scientists have said is imperative if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change.What does it mean for the world?The US is the world’s largest economy, the world’s second largest carbon polluter and a superpower in diplomatic and military might. Its failure, thus far, to meaningfully act on the climate crisis has constrained global efforts and so this legislation, if passed, could prove to be an “historic turning point”, as Al Gore, the former US vice-president, put it.World governments meeting later this year at UN climate talks in Egypt could be emboldened to do more to cut their own emissions, while the direct impact of the US reductions could mean that heatwaves, floods and other disasters will be less severe than they would have been otherwise.TopicsClimate crisisJoe ManchinUS politicsexplainersReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Activists surprised and relieved at Manchin’s decision to back climate bill

      by

      Activists surprised and relieved at Manchin’s decision to back climate billBut the senator’s insistence on more fossil fuel drilling was called a ‘climate suicide pact’ by one expert Climate advocates reacted with surprise and delight to Joe Manchin’s decision to back a sweeping bill to combat the climate crisis, with analysts predicting the legislation will bring the US close to its target of slashing planet-heating emissions.Joe Manchin makes U-turn on tax and climate bill as US edges closer to recession – liveRead moreThe West Virginia senator, who has made millions from his ownership of a coal-trading company, had seemingly thwarted Joe Biden’s hopes of passing meaningful climate legislation – only to reveal on Wednesday his support for a $369bn package to support renewable energy and electric vehicle rollout.The move by the centrist Democrat shocked many of Manchin’s colleagues, who despaired after more than 18 months of seemingly fruitless negotiations with the lawmaker, a crucial vote in an evenly divided Senate.“Holy shit,” tweeted Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota. “Stunned, but in a good way.”Should the bill pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by Biden, it will be the biggest and arguably first piece of climate legislation ever enacted by the US. The world’s largest historical carbon polluter has repeatedly failed to act on the climate crisis due to missed opportunities, staunch Republican opposition and the machinations of the fossil fuel lobby.The climate spending, part of a broader bill called the Inflation Reduction Act, “has the potential to be a historic turning point” said Al Gore, the former vice-president.“It represents the single largest investment in climate solutions and environmental justice in US history. Decades of tireless work by climate advocates across the country led to this moment.”The bulk of the bill includes hefty tax credits to unleash clean energy projects such as wind and solar as well as a rebate of up to $7,500 for Americans who want to buy new electric vehicles. There is $9bn to retrofit houses to make them more energy efficient, tax credits for heat pumps and rooftop solar and a $27bn “clean energy technology accelerator” to help deploy new renewable technology.A further $60bn would go towards environmental justice projects and there is a new program to reduce leaks of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from oil and gas drilling.“This will be, by far, the biggest climate action in human history,” said Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii. “The planet is on fire. Emissions reductions are the main thing. This is enormous progress. Let’s get it done.”The authors of the bill predict it will cut US emissions by 40% by 2030, based on 2005 levels, a claim guardedly backed by independent experts. Scientists have said global emissions must be halved this decade then zeroed out by 2050 if the world is to avoid catastrophic heatwaves, droughts, floods and other climate impacts. Biden has set US emissions targets along these lines.The bill would “bring clean energy jobs to America and lower energy bills for American families”, tweeted Leah Stokes, a climate policy expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara.“It would get us 80% of the way to President Biden’s climate goal. This is a gamechanger.”However, Manchin has said the legislation “does not arbitrarily shut off our abundant fossil fuels” and has extracted guarantees of new offshore and onshore drilling, including a stipulation that millions more acres of public lands be opened for fossil fuel companies before new solar or wind energy projects can do the same.The West Virginia senator is a keen backer of a large proposed gas pipeline in his home state and has called for greater domestic oil production, citing fears over inflation.The requirement for more drilling leases amounts to a “climate suicide pact”, according to Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity.“The new leasing required in this bill will fan the flames of the climate disasters torching our country,” Hartl said, lamenting “a slap in the face to the communities fighting to protect themselves from filthy fossil fuels”.Should the bill pass, it will almost certainly do so without a single Republican vote, with the party still almost uniformly opposed to any significant action to address the climate crisis or impinge on the fossil fuel industry.Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, said he could not believe that Manchin “is agreeing to a massive tax increase in the name of climate change when our economy is in a recession. I hope that common sense will eventually win the day.”TopicsClimate crisisJoe ManchinUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Six staffers arrested after climate sit-in at Chuck Schumer’s office

      by

      Six staffers arrested after climate sit-in at Chuck Schumer’s officeOn Monday, 17 people sat in the Senate majority leader’s office to demand he reopen climate negotiations Six staffers were reportedly arrested in Congress on Monday afternoon for staging a sit-in at Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s office and protesting about a lack of legislative action on the environment.Biden under pressure to declare climate emergency after Manchin torpedoes billRead moreThe congressional staffers and activists had started the demonstration earlier Monday, with 17 staffers sitting in Schumer’s office to demand that he reopen climate negotiations, according to Saul Levin, a policy adviser for progressive congresswoman Cori Bush.“Right now, we Hill staffers are peacefully protesting Dem leaders INSIDE. To my knowledge, this has never been done,” he wrote.HAPPENING NOW: We’re asking Senator Schumer to negotiate like this is the coldest summer of the rest of our lives (it is). pic.twitter.com/wjXnHfTQqn— Saul (@saaaauuull) July 25, 2022
      Some also protested outside the building.Schumer, Senate majority leader, had been under pressure to negotiate a climate deal, especially after the supreme court struck down a key protection of the Environmental Protection Agency.But Schumer, and Joe Biden’s, efforts to advance climate legislation have been thwarted largely because of the opposition of the Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, who has been called a “modern day villain” for his ties to the fossil fuel industry and killing off the president’s environmental proposals.Later in the day the sit-in at Schumer’s office seemed to turn more contentious.A tweet posted by NBC News reporter Julia Jester features a short video purporting to show one of the staff members in handcuffs, explaining why the group jeopardized their careers to take the action.The reporter asked the male staffer what they were demanding of the senior Democrat. He replied: “to reopen negotiations on the climate reconciliation package … and pass climate legislation”.Christian Hall, a congressional reporter for Punchbowl News, also tweeted that Philip Bennet, president of the Congressional Workers Union, had been taken away in handcuffs.Philip Bennet, President of the Congressional Workers Union is among one of the arrested protesters. pic.twitter.com/JG1oNKgHbg— Christian Hall (@christianjhall) July 25, 2022
      The reporter asked why the group had chosen Schumer’s office, and not that of Manchin. (Earlier today, Manchin announced he had tested positive for Covid-19 and was working remotely).The staffer replied cryptically: “Because there’s always going to be a sheep that strays away from the herd.”TopicsChuck SchumerClimate crisisUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

    • 225 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      If Biden isn’t willing to really fight the climate crisis, he shouldn’t run in 2024 | Daniel Sherrell

      by

      If Biden isn’t willing to really fight the climate crisis, he shouldn’t run in 2024Daniel SherrellHis latest climate defeat has affirmed what we’ve long feared: that he just isn’t the man for the moment On Friday, 15 July, Joe Biden acknowledged the death of his signature climate bill, conceding defeat in a war he never truly seemed willing to wage. He did it from a hastily prepared briefing room in Jeddah, where he had spent the previous day shilling for increased Saudi oil production.It was painful to watch. The fossil fuel oligarchs had him right where they wanted him: his climate ambitions foiled, his rhetoric defanged, his hat in his hand. For their part, they had never been under any illusions that they were waging a war. Over the course of his presidency, they had deployed every weapon at their disposal to protect their profit margins from the public’s desire for a dignified life on a habitable planet.Their final blow was delivered on Thursday by US senator Joe Manchin, puppet to the plutocrats, a man capable of patting his grandchildren on the head while selling their future to the highest bidder. With a fickleness bordering on sadism, Manchin killed our last chance at federal climate action for years, effectively completing the corporate capture of our nation’s climate policy.Biden’s failure to prevent this capture has confirmed, with almost eerie precision, the worries that dogged him on the campaign trail. That he was too milquetoast, too norm-bound, too nostalgic for the 1970s. Young people have waited in vain for the administration to evince a fiery, existential urgency around climate, a willingness to start twisting arms and cracking skulls. But Biden has shown himself either unwilling or unable to don the same brass knuckles as his opponents. His latest defeat has affirmed what we’ve long feared: that he just isn’t the man for the moment.There are still ways that he could flip this script. He could declare a climate emergency and leverage the Defense Production Act and the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to circumvent a Congress corrupted by corporate polluters. He could wage rhetorical and political war on Manchin, stripping him of his committee chairmanship, and parading his naked corruption in front of the American people. He could appeal privately to Mitt Romney, perhaps the last Senate Republican with any integrity, who just last month bemoaned our nation’s lack of progress on climate. He could say the truth out loud, at the top of his lungs: that the fossil fuel industry has declared war on the American people. That we are fighting for the soul of our democracy and the future of our planet.If he’s unwilling to do even that, he shouldn’t run for president in 2024. What young voter in their right mind would nominate him again? Why would we trust him to succeed without a congressional majority when he’s failed so abjectly with one? His entire theory of governance will have been disproved: his “decades of experience”, his purported “knowledge of the Senate”, his reputation as a “deal maker” – if he couldn’t land a climate bill, what good were they?Surrounded by a suffocating gauze of Beltway consultants, he made mistake after mistake. He failed to use his bully pulpit to rally the public around the dangers of climate change. He almost never named – let alone declaimed – that those dangers were the direct result of burning oil, coal and natural gas. He held up executive climate regulations and approved fossil fuel projects, miscalculating that it was carrots and not sticks that would win Manchin’s approval. Over the remonstrations of the Squad, he decoupled his own climate agenda from Manchin’s beloved infrastructure package, promising everyone that he could get Manchin’s vote on the former.Was that a lie, or just deeply naive? I’ll still be agonizing over this question in 2024, when I pull the lever for his primary opponent.I want to emphasize that Biden is not the villain here. It is Republicans – and Joe Manchin – who are making the sociopathic choice to further enrich the already-super-rich at the expense of all life on earth. I have no doubt that Biden wants sincerely to address the climate crisis. But presidents are not judged on their intentions. They are judged on their results. And on climate especially, the results of the Biden administration – of the entire, gerontocratic leadership of the Democratic party – have fallen dangerously short of what’s needed.With summer heatwaves intensifying and federal climate legislation wilting, young people are rightfully desperate. There are only so many losses we will accept before taking our chances on a different formula: the charismatic fire of an AOC, the crossover appeal of a John Fetterman, the judicious futurism of a Ro Khanna.Joe Biden may be a “decent man”, as his defenders constantly contend. But what does my generation care about decency, when the planet’s going up in flames? If he really wants a second term in office, he should show us why he deserves one. He needs to realize he’s at war with the oligarchs. And then he needs to start winning.
      Daniel Sherrell is the author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World (Penguin Books) and a climate activist
      TopicsJoe BidenOpinionUS politicsClimate crisisDemocratscommentReuse this content More

    • 188 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      No Republican senator supported a climate plan – where is the party on the issue?

      by

      No Republican senator supported a climate plan – where is the party on the issue?The party has largely abandoned its past climate denialism, but experts and activists say the ideas Republicans have proposed are insufficient or misguided When Joe Manchin announced an abrupt end to Senate negotiations over major climate legislation last week, activists and even fellow Democrats expressed outrage against the West Virginia lawmaker. Manchin was attacked as a “modern-day villain” who had delivered “nothing short of a death sentence” to a rapidly heating planet.Some Democratic leaders, however, including Joe Biden, have since attempted to redirect that anger toward congressional Republicans instead.“Not a single Republican in Congress stepped up to support my climate plan. Not one,” Biden said, speaking at a coal turned wind power plant in Massachusetts on Wednesday. “So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency.”Although congressional Republicans have refused to embrace Biden’s policy ideas, the party has largely abandoned its past climate denialism. But climate experts and activists say the ideas Republicans have proposed are insufficient or misguided and fail to address the magnitude and urgency of this crisis.Republicans have not generally been viewed as champions when it comes to combating the climate crisis at the federal level. Donald Trump famously withdrew the US from the Paris climate agreement, and his administration rolled back nearly 100 environmental rules during his presidency, eliminating important regulations for the fossil fuel industry.More recently, the conservative-dominated supreme court handed down a decision, in West Virginia v the Environmental Protection Agency, that will severely hamper that government agency’s ability to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.There have, however, been some modest signs of change among Republicans when it comes to climate policy. While it was once quite common to hear Republican lawmakers reject the very idea of climate change, many members of the party are now at least willing to discuss the issue.“I think there’s been a really significant narrative shift over the last five years,” said Quill Robinson, vice-president of government affairs for the American Conservation Coalition, a right-leaning environmental advocacy group. “A lot of elected Republicans and also the broader conservative movement is a lot more comfortable, willing and honestly interested in engaging on this issue of climate change.”Signs of that change are visible in Congress. Last year, Republican congressman John Curtis announced the formation of the Conservative Climate Caucus, which counts more than 70 Republicans as members.The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, has released his own climate platform. The proposal, unveiled last month, outlines how Republicans would work to address environmental and energy issues if they regain control of the House, as they are expected to do after the midterm elections this November.Critics say McCarthy’s platform is a perfect example of Republicans’ failure to grasp the enormity of the climate crisis. The plan calls for increasing domestic fossil fuel production and boosting exports of US natural gas. In the past several months, Republicans’ demands to boost US oil production have grown louder, as the war in Ukraine drives gas prices to record highs.Environmental experts have said that global reliance on fossil fuels needs to be drastically reduced in order to substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions and avoid disastrous climate breakdown. Republicans’ proposals threaten to accelerate this looming calamity, Democrats argue.“This House Republican proposal simply recycles old, bad ideas that amount to little more than handouts to oil companies,” Democrat Frank Pallone, chair of the House energy and commerce committee, said last month. “It is a stunning display of insincerity to admit climate change is a problem but to propose policies that make it worse.”Republicans have also called for taking additional steps to protect American wildlife, but climate activists have again criticized those proposals as too incremental to meet the moment. In contrast, the Biden administration has set a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050.Kidus Girma, a spokesperson for the youth-led climate group Sunrise Movement, said even Biden’s policy objectives fall far short of the changes necessary to help protect the planet.“We fundamentally don’t have that timeline,” Girma said of Republicans’ incremental approach. “Emissions cut by 2030 is incrementalism in itself. So I don’t know how much more incremental we could get.”Robinson argued that Democrats’ failure to pass Build Back Better and the supreme court’s decision to limit the EPA’s regulatory power demonstrate the urgent need for bipartisan compromise on this issue – even if the end product falls short of what climate activists have demanded.“You can’t rely on nine justices of the supreme court, one man in the White House, and one single party in Congress to pass durable, lasting climate policy,” Robinson said. “This has to be done on a bipartisan basis in Congress.”TopicsRepublicansClimate crisisUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Big Oil V the World review – how can these climate crisis deniers sleep at night?

      by

      Big Oil V the World review – how can these climate crisis deniers sleep at night?This shocking documentary series reveals the lies oil lobbyists told to undercut democracy, prevent action against global heating – and bring our planet to the brink Al Gore described it as “in many ways the most serious crime of the post-world war two era, whose consequences are almost unimaginable”. Can you guess which one the former vice-president meant? Genocide in the former Yugoslavia? Genocide in Rwanda? The attack on the twin towers? The oxymoronic “war on terror” that produced – rather than eliminated – terrorism? The nuclear arms race? The invasion of Ukraine? The crimes of Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot? Or other ones I haven’t the space to cite?Gore is in fact referring to a very specific moment that occurred on 25 July 1997. That day, the US Senate voted by 95-0 for the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, ruling that the US should not sign a climate treaty that would become known as the Kyoto protocol – despite the Clinton administration’s desire for the US to be a world leader in the fight to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It meant that Clinton would only be allowed to take action when developing countries – particularly India and China – were bound by the same strictures.‘What we now know … they lied’: how big oil companies betrayed us allRead moreThe worry, touted by purported experts (many of whom were briefed and funded by US oil companies), was that Kyoto would be a disaster for the US. Imposing strict emission controls on the US – while industrialising nations such as India and China were not similarly constrained – would cost the US upwards of 5,000 jobs, put more than 50 cents on a tank of gas, whack up electricity bills 25% to 50% and put the struggling US economy at a competitive disadvantage in international markets. Or so it was claimed.Jane McMullen’s excellent and shocking first instalment of a three-part series, Big Oil V The World (BBC Two) reveals another reason for senators Robert Byrd and Chuck Hagel’s resolution. For many years, the big oil lobby had poured scorn on the growing scientific orthodoxy that humanity is hurtling towards a climate catastrophe and that the leading reason is the rise in emissions of greenhouse gases.What I didn’t know, and this documentary helpfully explains, is that the US’s largest oil company, Exxon, had labs filled with researchers who had produced detailed reports showing the reality of the climate crisis. That research, though, was suppressed.The bitter irony, clinched by one of the company’s former climate scientists, Ed Garvey, was that Exxon could have been part of the solution rather than the problem. Garvey worked on Exxon’s carbon dioxide research programme from 1978 to 1983, when it was closed because falling gas prices made it seem an expendable luxury.Garvey also recalls that there were scientists at Exxon developing alternatives to fossil fuels such as solar power and lithium batteries. But their work was shelved. The future of the planet, Garvey suggests, was deemed less important than Exxon’s short-term profit.Although the Clinton administration in which Gore served had from the outset committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to their 1990 levels by 2000, and leaders of industrial nations such as the British prime minister, John Major, called for even deeper cuts, the Senate resolution effectively destroyed the president and his vice-president’s hopes of the US leading the world. Instead, the US, through its inaction, helped hasten the climate catastrophe we now live in.To clinch this rhetorical point, the programme repeatedly cuts from talking heads to scenes more hellish than those imagined by Dante or Milton. Floods in China, a fiery hellscape in California, storms lashing Louisiana and, in one shot, battering an Exxon gas station.After seeing such images, I wonder how Hagel, who sponsored that 1997 Senate resolution and went on to become defence secretary, sleeps at night. He was among the climate crisis deniers this documentary catches up with to hear them repent. Off-screen, the excellent interviewer asks Hagel if he feels he was misled, given that Exxon, whose execs lobbied him before the Senate vote, was making a concerted effort throughout the 1990s to cast doubt on the reality of the climate emergency and the role of human activity in increasing global temperatures – even though their own scientists were telling them that the science was sound.“We now know about some of these large oil companies … they lied,” says Hagel. “Yes I was misled. Others were misled. When they had evidence in their own institutions that countered what they were saying publicly – they lied.” If the truth had been told to Hagel and other climate crisis-denying senators, would the situation be different? “Oh absolutely,” says Hagel. “I think it would have changed the average citizen’s appreciation of climate change and mine. It would have put the United States and the world on a different track. It has cost this country and it’s cost the world.”Last August, the UN secretary general António Guterres said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group’s report confirming the link between human activity and rising greenhouse emissions is “a code red for humanity”. That Senate resolution, McMullen’s film argues, contributed to our climate emergency.No one in this programme explores the hideous political ramifications of this terrible state of affairs, namely that the virus of capitalism (in the form of big oil) undercut democracy through a sustained campaign of disinformation. How easy it proved for corporations to sucker politicians such as Hagel to subvert not just the will of the people but the wellbeing of the planet. If McMullen’s film has a moral, it’s that democracy must be healthy enough to resist commercial lobbying, so that we don’t get fooled again. In 2022, that seems an unlikely scenario.TopicsTelevision & radioTV reviewTelevisionDocumentaryClimate crisisFactual TVOilOil and gas companiesreviewsReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘The world is counting on us’: Biden vows to tackle climate ‘emergency’ – as it happened

      by

      Biden has concluded his remarks in Massachusetts, where he spoke at the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset that will be turned into a cable manufacturing facility for the offshore wind industry. “This Congress, not withstanding the leadership of that men and women that are here today has, failed in its duty,” Biden said. “So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency. And in the coming weeks I’m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal, official government actions for the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that the president possesses.”“Again, it sounds like hyperbole, our children and grandchildren are counting on us,” he continued. “If we don’t keep it below 1.5 degrees centigrade, we lose it all. You don’t get to turn it around. And the world is counting on us.”Declaring “the world is counting on us,” President Joe Biden announced actions to address climate change and blamed Republicans in Congress for not doing their part to keep temperatures from rising to even more disastrous levels. At the Capitol, lawmakers heard an address from Ukraine’s first lady asking for more weapons to fight off the Russians, while senators are weighing a bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights.Here are some of the highlights from today:
      A bipartisan group of senators announced a deal on reforming loopholes in the electoral college that Donald Trump tried to exploit in the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection.
      Rudy Giuliani, an attorney to Trump, has lost his appeal against a subpoena from a Georgia grand jury.
      Trump called a top Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin recently and pressed him to decertify the results of the 2020 election in the state.
      Rusty Bowers, the speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives who testified before the January 6 committee last month, has been kicked out of the Republican party.
      John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, gave his first interview since suffering a stroke.
      As he described his experience with pollution during the speech in Massachusetts, Biden made a surprising allusion to having cancer, which he hasn’t mentioned in the past.Biden was describing growing up near petroleum refineries, and how his mother would have to use her car’s wipers to get oil off the windshield when the weather would get cold. “That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up have cancer”, Biden said. At 79 years old, questions about Biden’s fitness to serve as president are not new, and he’s followed his predecessors’ practice in sharing health updates from his doctor. In the most recent summary from November of last year, there was no indication Biden had cancer or any other major health issues. The closest it came was noting that “several localized non-melanoma skin cancers” were removed before he became president.The White House has outlined the steps Biden plans to take to fight climate change, which do not include the emergency declaration some of his Democratic allies have called on him to make.These include the creation of the first-ever Wind Energy Area in the Gulf of Mexico, which would cover 700,000 acres and generate enough electricity for three million homes, as well as steps to spur further wind developments off the Atlantic coast and Florida’s Gulf Coast. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will also spend $2.3 billion on infrastructure to make Americans more resilient to heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and other climate-driven disasters. There are also plans to help people pay for cooling costs.Biden has concluded his remarks in Massachusetts, where he spoke at the site of a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset that will be turned into a cable manufacturing facility for the offshore wind industry. “This Congress, not withstanding the leadership of that men and women that are here today has, failed in its duty,” Biden said. “So let me be clear: climate change is an emergency. And in the coming weeks I’m going to use the power I have as president to turn these words into formal, official government actions for the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that the president possesses.”“Again, it sounds like hyperbole, our children and grandchildren are counting on us,” he continued. “If we don’t keep it below 1.5 degrees centigrade, we lose it all. You don’t get to turn it around. And the world is counting on us.”Biden has taken Republicans in Congress to task for failing to pass legislation to fight climate change.“My message today is this: since Congress is not acting as as it should, and these guys here are,” he said, gesturing to Democratic lawmakers in attendance, before continuing, “We’re not getting many Republican votes. This is an emergency, an emergency, and I will look at it that way.”He repeated his pledge to “use my executive power to combat climate crisis in the absence of congressional action.”Republicans have indeed been unreceptive to his administration’s attempts to fight climate change and spur investment in green technology. However, Democrats were hoping to use their dominance in the House and the Senate’s reconciliation procedure to pass some proposals fighting climate change unilaterally – until Joe Manchin said last week he wouldn’t support them.President Joe Biden has started his speech in Massachusetts, where he’s set to announce measures to fight climate change after his legislative agenda to address US emissions stalled.“I come here today with a message,” Biden said as his speech began. “As president, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger. And that’s what climate change is about. It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger. The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake.”The January 6 committee will hold its last scheduled hearing tomorrow, though its investigation continues. The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports on the latest development in the Secret Service’s allegedly accidental deletion of text messages from the time of the attack:The Secret Service turned over just one text message to the House January 6 committee on Tuesday, in response to a subpoena compelling the production of all communications from the day before and the day of the US Capitol attack, according to two sources familiar with the matter.The Secret Service told the panel the single text was the only message responsive to the subpoena, the sources said, and while the agency vowed to conduct a forensic search for any other text or phone records, it indicated such messages were likely to prove irrecoverable.House investigators also learned that the texts were seemingly lost as part of an agency-wide reset of phones on 27 January 2021, the sources said – 11 days after Congress first requested the communications and two days after agents were reminded to back up their phones.Secret Service turned over just one text message to January 6 panel, sources sayRead moreA bipartisan group of senators has just announced a deal to reform the procedure for counting electoral votes in order to prevent the sort of meddling that former president Donald Trump tried to pull off on January 6.The lawmakers have agreed to two bills that would reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which governs how electoral votes are counted following a presidential election. Citing ambiguities in the law, Trump and his attorneys pushed his vice president Mike Pence to disrupt the counting of electoral votes that showed he lost the 2020 election, sparking calls for the 135-year-old law to be reformed.“Through numerous meetings and debates among our colleagues as well as conversations with a wide variety of election experts and legal scholars, we have developed legislation that establishes clear guidelines for our system of certifying and counting electoral votes for President and Vice President. We urge our colleagues in both parties to support these simple, commonsense reforms,” the group of 16 senators said in a joint statement.The first bill is called the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act, and would fix ambiguities in the existing law while clarifying when an incoming administration can access federal resources.The Enhanced Election Security and Protection Act is the second proposal, and would up criminal penalties against people convicted of intimidating or threatening candidates, voters and poll workers, require election records to be preserved, help the US Postal Service deal with mail-in ballots and reauthorize for five years a commission that works with states to improve their voting practices.“The prospect of large-scale violence in the near future is entirely plausible,” warns a new study that looks into the chances of political violence. Ed Pilkington digs into it:One in five adults in the United States, equivalent to about 50 million people, believe that political violence is justified at least in some circumstances, a new mega-survey has found.A team of medical and public health scientists at the University of California, Davis enlisted the opinions of almost 9,000 people across the country to explore how far willingness to engage in political violence now goes.They discovered that mistrust and alienation from democratic institutions have reached such a peak that substantial minorities of the American people now endorse violence as a means towards political ends. “The prospect of large-scale violence in the near future is entirely plausible,” the scientists warn.A hardcore rump of the US population, the survey recorded – amounting to 3% or by extrapolation 7 million people – believe that political violence is usually or always justified. Almost one in four of the respondents – equivalent to more than 60 million Americans – could conceive of violence being justified “to preserve an American way of life based on western European traditions”.Most alarmingly, 7.1% said they would be willing to kill a person to advance an important political goal. The UC Davis team points out that, extrapolated to US society at large, that is the equivalent of 18 million Americans.One in five US adults condone ‘justified’ political violence, mega-survey findsRead moreJohn Fetterman, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor and Democratic candidate for US Senate, has said he has “nothing to hide” about his health after suffering a stroke, and expressed confidence he can beat the celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz in a race key to deciding control of the chamber in November.“I would never be in this if we were not absolutely, 100% able to run fully and to win — and we believe that we are,” Fetterman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in his first interview since suffering the stroke in May.The Post-Gazette reports: “Mr Fetterman, 52, said he has ‘no physical limits’, walks four to five miles every day in 90-degree heat, understands words properly and hasn’t lost any of his memory. He struggles with hearing sometimes, he said, and may ‘miss a word’ or ‘slur two together’, but he said it doesn’t happen often and that he’s working with a speech therapist.”Fetterman enjoys consistent poll leads over Oz and has dramatically outraised him, despite Oz attracting the endorsement of Donald Trump.You can read the interview here.Pete Buttigieg fended off a Republican who used a transportation hearing to ask if Joe Biden’s cabinet had discussed using the 25th amendment to remove the president from office, saying: “I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle.”The transportation secretary was appearing in front of the House transportation committee on Tuesday. Amid discussion of policy, the Texas representative Troy Nehls decided to go in a more partisan direction.“We now see the mainstream media questioning President Biden’s mental state, and for good reason,” Nehls said. “Sadly, he shakes hands with ghosts and imaginary people, and he falls off bicycles. Even at the White House Easter celebration, the Easter Bunny had to guide him back into his safe place.”Aides stood behind Nehls, showing blown-up pictures.Biden, 79, fell off his bike in Delaware last month, to considerable glee on the right.He told reporters: “I’m good.”But with the president beset by domestic and international crises, some compared his awkward moment with one in 1979, when Jimmy Carter, who would turn out to be a one-term Democratic president, was attacked by a rabbit while fishing from a boat.Nehls asked: “Have you spoken to cabinet members about implementing the 25th amendment on President Biden?”Buttigieg, a keen cyclist himself, said: “First of all, I’m glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle. And, I will look beyond the insulting nature of that question and make clear to you that the president of the United States …”Nehls interrupted.Buttigieg said, “Of course not,” then said Biden was “as vigorous a colleague or boss as I have ever had the pleasure of working with”.‘Glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle’: Buttigieg dismisses Republican claims about Biden’s healthRead moreWe’re expecting a major speech from Joe Biden soon on his efforts to fight climate change, which Congress lacks the votes to deal with. That doesn’t mean lawmakers aren’t busy; they’ve heard an address from Ukraine’s first lady asking for more weapons to fight off the Russians, and senators are weighing a bill to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights.Here’s what has happened today so far:
      Rudy Giuliani, an attorney to former president Donald Trump, has lost his appeal against a subpoena from a Georgia grand jury.
      Trump called a top Republican lawmaker in Wisconsin recently and pressed him to decertify the results of the 2020 election in the state.
      Rusty Bowers, the speaker of Arizona’s House of Representatives who spoke to the January 6 committee last month, has been kicked out of the Republican party.
      Former president Donald Trump’s legal adviser Rudy Giuliani will have to talk to a Georgia grand jury sometime next month after his legal challenge against a subpoena failed, the Associated Press reports.Earlier this month, the grand jury in Fulton county, which includes Atlanta, subpoenaed Giuliani and other members of Trump’s legal team as part of their probe into his campaign’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, where voters chose Joe Biden.Giuliani challenged the subpoena, but as the AP reports, he didn’t seem to put much effort into the appeal, failing to show up for a court hearing where he could explain why he shouldn’t have to testify.The grand jury has also summoned Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, who has been challenging his subpoena.Georgia grand jury subpoenas Trump lawyers over effort to overturn electionRead moreGetting the Respect for Marriage Act through the Democratic-led House of Representatives is one thing, but could it pass the Senate? From what reporters on Capitol Hill are saying today, it doesn’t seem impossible.The bill won the votes of all Democrats as well as 47 Republicans when it passed Congress’s lower chamber yesterday. Assuming Democrats unanimously support it in the Senate, it would need the support of 10 Republicans to overcome the inevitable filibuster blocking its passage. According to CNN, several Republican senators have already said they’d vote for it:Thom Tillis, GOP senator from NC, told me he “probably will” support bill to codify same-sex marriage. Bill might get 60 votes, GOP senators say. Vote timing in Senate is unclear.— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
      Thune told me he will take a “hard look” at bill“But if and when (Schumer) brings a bill to the floor we’ll take a hard look at it. As you saw there was pretty good bipartisan support in the House yesterday and I expect there’d probably be the same thing you’d see” in Senate— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
      Asked about some of his fellow Republicans saying a vote on same-sex marriage is just a messaging exercise, Rob Portman told me: It’s an “important message,” and said: “I think this is an issue that many Americans, regardless of political affiliation, feel has been resolved.”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 20, 2022
      Congress is working on a lot of bills at the moment as the Democratic majority tries to make the most of the time remaining before November’s midterm elections, in which they could lose control of one or both chambers. Yesterday, Lois Beckett reports that the House passed a measure to codify same-sex and interracial marriage rights – which are currently protected by a supreme court ruling that could be overturned:The US House has passed a bill protecting the right to same-sex and interracial marriages, a vote that comes amid concerns that the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade could jeopardize other rights.Forty-seven House Republicans supported the legislation, called the Respect for Marriage Act, including some who have publicly apologized for their past opposition to gay marriage. But more than three-quarters of House Republicans voted against the bill, with some claiming it was a “political charade”.All 220 House Democrats supported the bill, which is expected to be blocked by Republican opposition in a politically divided Senate.US House passes bill to protect right to same-sex and interracial marriageRead more More