...but maybe you could do without them anyway?
I’ve been feeling very pessimistic about the upcoming election. Voter suppression. Armies of lawyers fanning out to contest vote totals. Russian ratfucking. The Post Office skullduggery. Trump and his minions are desperate to keep him in power – and out of the slammer – for 4 more years. Their desperate tactics just might work. Despite Trump’s tedious and leaden speech capping the Hatch Act Violation Extravaganza last night, I can see many scenarios that leave him in office, and it’s terrifying.
It’s terrifying for democracy. It’s terrifying for Black folks and the BLM movement, terrifying for women, terrifying for immigrants, people of color, people living with disabilities, trans folks and all LGBTQIA people, and all the intersectional communities represented by these Americans, their friends and families, and every Democrat.
It is also terrifying for the climate.
The GOP as currently formulated are not just the Party of Trump. They are also the party of Climate Catastrophe. They’ve spent the last 5 decades denying the science, while Big Oil and Gas were funding junk science that they could quote on the House floor and Fox News. They’ve spewed lies and disinformation. They’ve cozied up to Shell and Exxon and BP, taking bribes… I mean, campaign contributions… and, when leaving office, going to work as lobbyists.
If Donald Trump is reelected (shudder, spit over left shoulder), nothing will change. He loves fracking, and drilling, and all things Big Fossil Fuel. He wants to go back to coal. He took us out of the Paris Accords. His GOP minions do nothing but enable him.
Even if we were to take the Senate, our ability to make a meaningful impact on emissions would be on hold for another 4 years. THIS IS TIME WE SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE.
We’re working our tushies off to get him slung out of office on his malevolent ass. We’re making calls to voters in battleground states. We’re volunteering to be election workers. We’re masking up and socially distantly knocking on doors. We’re donating. We’re canvassing. We’re registering people to vote. We’re putting in the time and the hard graft so we can wake up on January 20, 2021 to the beautiful sight of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris being inaugurated!
But the political part is not enough. And having Biden and Harris in office isn’t a “climate change get out of jail free card.”
Are we deadly, truly, vitally serious about climate change? Do we really care enough to change our habits? Do we care enough to make even a little sacrifice?
Joe and Kamala will walk in the door with a solid climate plan. But that plan will most assuredly NOT be implemented immediately – or 100% – and it will be completely stalled unless we take back the Senate. Government can be a powerful part of the solution – and it’s VITAL that we implement plans that are as close to a Green New Deal as possible – but it is so late. So very, very, late. To make any difference in time, action and sacrifice will be required of all of us. And the science backs this up.
Did you read this piece in the Guardian in 2018? Here’s a taste:
Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change. In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses.
…enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet’s ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades.
World population continues to grow. How will we feed 10 billion people? Not by increasing our production of meat, which not only produces vast quantities of CO2 and methane, but also gobbles up forests to produce pasture (see: the Amazon).
“Feeding a world population of 10 billion is possible, but only if we change the way we eat and the way we produce food,” said Prof Johan Rockström at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
According to another eye-opening piece in the same paper:
Recycling or taking the bus rather than driving to work has its place, but scientists are increasingly pointing to a deeper lifestyle change that would be the single biggest way to help the planet: eating far less meat.
Industrialized agriculture and the onset of the worst species extinction crisis since the demise of the dinosaurs means that livestock and humans now make up 96% of all mammals. But despite consuming the vast majority of farmland, meat and dairy accounts for just 18% of all food calories and around a third of protein.
If all 44 million registered Democrats stopped eating beef tomorrow it would reduce emissions almost immediately, and by a non-trivial amount. That in itself would be a win.
If all 44 million registered Democrats went 90% vegan tomorrow, it would throw the beef industry and Big Ag into a blind panic. But maybe vegan, or 90% vegan, is too extreme for most.
So would you boycott beef?
If you’re not old enough to remember the furor when Oprah told her audience she was going to stop eating beef, check it out. One woman – albeit a very popular woman – saying she wouldn’t eat their product prompted an entire industry to throw a fish-flopping fit.
Imagine what would happen if 44 million registered Democrats didn’t just say we were going to stop eating beef – but followed through on it? That simple action would slash industry profits and hit them in their bottom line. It would show Big Ag that we’re deadly serious about making the changes needed to stop deforestation, reduce CO2 and methane emissions, and do whatever it takes to slay the dragon of climate change.
Industry will produce what we demand. If we keep eating beef, that industry will continue to cut down trees to build more feedlots, which drives deforestation and therefore CO2 emissions and climate change.
I am urging all of us who care about life on the planet to come together – not to have another lovely march in the sunshine with our adorable homemade signs – but to show those in power with our ACTIONS that we are committed to stopping climate change.
A hit to the bottom line is the only thing that moves our corporate overlords to change course and take climate action. And enough of us eschewing beef will make a positive impact on emissions. Two birds – one stone: it’s that simple.
The time to do this is now. Yes, even under President Biden and Vice President Harris. They aren’t coming to take America’s hamburgers. But they do have a climate plan to implement, and we must help them.
