Crossposted from Docudharma
Climate change is here.
Weather patterns are altering, ocean levels are beginning to rise, there are food and water shortages across the globe, the number of climate refugees in Bangladesh is rising and major port cities around the world are making plans to protect themselves as the seas that will slowly...but not slowly enough....engulf their cities rise.
Glaciers, the source of much of the worlds fresh water supply, are shrinking at a truly astounding rate. Soon there will be no more glaciers in Glacier National Park. (edited for accuracy)
Every credible scientist not in the pay of the oil and coal corporations agrees, the scientific evidence is overwhelming. Even the Pentagon has called Climate Crisis a threat to our national security.
Is that..."alarmist?" Well every, and I mean every model that scientists have come up with in the past 30 years has been wrong. EVERY model has been shown to be underestimating the scope and speed of Climate Crisis. At what point DO we get "alarmed?"
.
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Trillions of dollars in real estate, buildings, infrastructure and port facilities are inevitably going to be lost if we don't at least start to mitigate the effects of Climate Change. Billions of people are at direct risk and ALL of us are at some risk, no matter how far above sea level you are. The changes in weather, the economic changes and the changes to all societies that depend on shipping or farming for food, which is ALL societies, will be affected.
Not to mention the huge, but so far unforeseen hidden consequences that are sure to come as the delicate balances that preserve the fragile web of life on the only planet we have are affected or destroyed. It is as sure as the tides themselves.
And due too the feedback loops that will cause significant acceleration of the effects of Climate Change, this is not some far off event that we can ignore while using the Dems new favorite catch phrase of 'we will fix it later.'
Climate Change, Climate Crisis...is here. Now.
But the Republicans, at the behest of those same oil and coal companies, are willing to sacrifice all of that. Are willing to sacrifice their children's future and their children's children's future....all for a few more dollars in campaign contributions bribes.
This is NOT a political issue. This is not theory. This is not a Liberal Plot.
This is real. This is a planetary crisis that every society on the planet must address, a crisis that can only be ignored by willfully denying all scientific evidence. Which the political creatures in DC are apparently incredibly adept at. When it is to their political benefit.
And the Republicans are blocking even the meager attempts at mitigation of this inevitable crisis that the Dems have offered up.
That is, sacrificing all of that, and dooming your offspring to an uncertain but certainly perilous future for short term gain, is just plain stupid.
So it is undeniable that the Republicans are stupid, and perhaps at their stupidest when it comes to the issue of Climate Crisis, merely because of the stakes involved.
But at least the Republicans have the excuse of pretending that they do not "believe" in Climate Crisis.
The Democrats, who do profess to believe in the concept of science, have no such excuse.
And yet they are about to allow the Republican "majority" to block Climate Change legislation. Even though they KNOW that Climate Change is real....and here. Now.
So that leaves us with an interesting philosophical question, as we wait for the world to drown and wait for potentially billions of people to either die or become Climate refugees.
Is it stupider to pretend that science doesn't exist as the Crisis accelerates? Or is it stupider to KNOW that the Crisis is real and do nothing...as the Dems are about to do?