We begin today’s roundup with The New York Times and its editorial on President Biden’s take on climate change:
Anyone with the energy to slog through acres of verbiage will find the elements of a plausible strategy embedded in his $2 trillion recovery plan. The plan is not exactly what his energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, enthusiastically described as a “once in a century” chance to reinvent America’s energy delivery system. (One would hope for more such moments in this century.) But it offers a great deal more than one would deduce from the reactions of left-of-center groups. The Center for Biological Diversity, for instance, complained about the plan’s “gimmicky subsidies,” its fealty to free markets and its failure to end oil and gas drilling much more quickly. [...]
The plan has many moving parts, two of which are transformative. One is aimed at reducing emissions from cars and trucks, America’s biggest source of carbon dioxide emissions. Mr. Biden is betting heavily on electric vehicles, which today make up only 2 percent of the vehicles on the road. To “win the E.V. market,” as he put it (China being the main competitor), he proposes $174 billion to build half a million charging stations along the highways — a small fraction of what will be needed, but a good start — plus an array of tax credits aimed at persuading manufacturers to make E.V.s and equip them with batteries that can be recharged as quickly as one can fill up a tank of gas. Also, point-of-sale credits to get people to buy the finished products.
At The New Yorker, Lizzie Widdicombe highlights the moms fighting climate change:
These days, climate change isn’t just a concept in their research. It’s a harrowing presence in their daily lives. Russell lives in Tucson, the third-fastest-warming city in the U.S. Last year, she said, “We had one hundred and eight days above a hundred degrees—you can’t quite get your head around just how long that is.” (The average number of hundred-degree days that Tucson typically experiences is sixty-two.) covid lockdowns were in full effect, too. Her kids are ten and fourteen. As the temperature climbed, cabin fever set in. They couldn’t visit their friends, and it was too hot to go to the playground—or even to play in the back yard. Russell started waking them up at 5 a.m. to walk the dog. “I had to plan ahead for harsh conditions, like a general. I tried to make it fun. Like, we’re on an adventure!” But she was worried about their mental health. “They need to see the sky!”
Meanwhile, back at The New York Times, Michelle Goldberg writes about the housing market, NFTs, and other hot zones in the economy:
In a letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, wrote that, thanks to factors including government stimulus, increased savings, “a new potential infrastructure bill, a successful vaccine and euphoria around the end of the pandemic, the U.S. economy will likely boom.”
This is wonderful news. But watching the bizarre things happening in the worlds of art and finance, I thought of something I read in William J. Bernstein’s recent book, “The Delusions of Crowds: Why People Go Mad in Groups.” He wrote that one of the defining features of a bubble is that “financial speculation begins to dominate all but the most mundane social interactions,” and “stocks and real estate” become primary topics of conversation.
We’re not quite there yet. But having lived through the 1990s, I remember what the beginning of a boom culture felt like. As happened a century ago after the last world-transforming pandemic, we could be in for a period not just of prosperity, but delirium.
On a final note, don’t miss Rep. Mondaire Jones’s piece on ending the new Jim Crow:
White supremacists are closer to restoring Jim Crow than at any time in memory. They are staging an assault on the right to vote: reducing early voting, restricting registration and reversing the rollout of voting by mail. We all know why: They need to entrench their diminishing hold on power by disenfranchising voters of color.
[...]
We now find ourselves at a crossroads. For the first time in 10 years, the Democratic Party controls Congress and the White House. Building a multiracial democracy will not be easy. But if we do not act now, it may soon be impossible.
Now is the time for a Third Reconstruction — one that abolishes Jim Crow once and for all.