We are used to the idea of fossil fuels being used up and exhausted, but glaciers of fossil water which provide the major rivers of the world with the inundations of melt water that make farming and agriculture possible are disappearing even faster. For the last half century we have been talking about this.
We are aware that the Polar Ice caps are melting and sea levels rising, but for some reason seemingly less concerned that in the mountains as the glaciers melt there are disastrous floods. Fresh water that was locked in ice and stockpiled for us in the last ice age is making its way to the sea where it is not easy to desalinate once it arrives. With it comes increasing amounts of pollution.
In Africa, Asia, Australia and South America rain forests are being cut down, Oceans have been pushed to the brink and are dying. Sea levels are rising. There are already 50 million people trying to escape the effects of catastrophic environmental change and that number is going up fast.
Many progressives seem to have thought that sitting out an election cycle or voting green would teach Obama and the Democrats a lesson. Heh. Right now we probably have less than a decade to act decisively to mediate climate change, and maybe less than that to deal with the linkage between supplies of fresh water disappearing and global starvation.
We are already looking at resource wars with people fighting not over oil, but food and water. While there may be a shortage of water apparently there is no shortage of weapons and ammunition.
Some parts of the third world such as India and China are rapidly industrializing and raising wages and standards of living to levels comparable with the US. The sales of large luxury carss, SUV's and Hummers in China will before long exceed sales in the US. Much of the third world already has worse gridlock than the US and is building mass transit to cope with it.
As the Malthusian increase in population, pollution and war goes exponential so does climate change and yet progressives in the United States have just determined that their wisest course would be to fill governments state and local with climate change denial embracing teabaggers so as to make the point that the Obama administration hasn't done enough.
When it comes time to choose between "negotiating" and "compromising" with the House on tax relief for billionaires and the repeal of healthcare or standing firm I think climate change mediation, the six hundred some odd pieces of legislation already passed by the House but not approved by the Senate, blocked confirmations, blocked aid to Haiti and everything else we want as regards getting stuff done need to be a part of the process.
Progressives need to support hanging tough regardless of the consequences to the economy and jobs of having billionaires hold them hostage by refusing to reinvest until they get tax breaks. I'd suggest taking the position that we don't negotiate with terrorists.
Demanding that public climate change hearings be held before we begin to discuss tax breaks for anybody, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire without having passed the Obama tax cuts may be necessary. We need to grow spines and learn how to stand up for the important stuff and we are running out of time to do it.