Methane is a greenhouse gas over thirty times more potent than CO2. Per the article, this rollback would save the entire oil and gas industry barely $50 million a year. If I didn't know better...
Methane is a greenhouse gas over thirty times more potent than CO2. Per the article, this rollback would save the entire oil and gas industry barely $50 million a year. If I didn't know better (and I'm questioning if I do), I'd say the GOP is trying to make the collapse of human civilization into part of its campaign platform.
The GOP is full of evangelical Christians who want to see the world end in fire as foretold by the Revelation of St. John in the Bible. The GOP is also full of capitalists who don't give a damn if...
The GOP is full of evangelical Christians who want to see the world end in fire as foretold by the Revelation of St. John in the Bible.
The GOP is also full of capitalists who don't give a damn if the planet is uninhabitable after they're dead as long as they don't have to pay a dime more in taxes while they're alive.
Plus, they own luxury doomsday bunkers and probably daydream about society collapsing so they can retire to their bunkers.
The GOP is also full of capitalists who don't give a damn if the planet is uninhabitable after they're dead as long as they don't have to pay a dime more in taxes while they're alive.
Plus, they own luxury doomsday bunkers and probably daydream about society collapsing so they can retire to their bunkers.
I'm usually pretty chill, and it has been a very long time since anything made me as angry as that article about the Silicon Valley preppers that was floating around a while ago. The taxes and...
I'm usually pretty chill, and it has been a very long time since anything made me as angry as that article about the Silicon Valley preppers that was floating around a while ago. The taxes and regulations required to move our civilization to a more sustainable model would cost them less than any prepping that had a realistic chance of success, and would have an outcome that's preferable on so many levels. The fact that these people, who command tremendous power and run entire sectors of our economy, either don't realize that or don't care is an indictment against capitalism if ever I saw one.
My thing is, why can't they just fuck off to their hidey holes? If that's what they want to do, fine, but could they just do it without holding us back from avoiding the end of life as we know it?
My thing is, why can't they just fuck off to their hidey holes? If that's what they want to do, fine, but could they just do it without holding us back from avoiding the end of life as we know it?
It all comes down to power. As things are right now, they're at the top of the socioeconomic food chain. Whether or not they seek actual political office, billionaires and multimillionaires hold...
It all comes down to power. As things are right now, they're at the top of the socioeconomic food chain. Whether or not they seek actual political office, billionaires and multimillionaires hold vast amounts of power, but this power can only be exercised within a society that respects it. We usually don't think of it this way, but as the most basic expression of this power, being a billionaire allows you to basically order ordinary people around and have near total control of your local environment.
If they fuck off to their holes and stop bothering the rest of us, that intensely limits the scope of their power. Rather than controlling everything and everyone in their day to day lives, and having influence that spreads across the globe, their influence and status is basically reset to equal with their billionaire shelter-neighbors. Or if you're not prepping communally, you maintain your power (at least so long as your money has social value), but the scale diminishes from global to a few dozen people.
So basically, they don't want to do that until moving to a shelter would preserve their power, until society's so far gone that their means of control (capital) no longer has any meaning. Because they're shitty people. That might sound harsh but it's true. No matter how good their PR teams are, there's no billionaire that got to that position without exploiting people, and lots of them. It's what they're good at, and they're terrified, of losing their power, and of the consequences of their actions.
This fits perfectly into the narrative that the Trump admin is furthering Russian interests. Global warming can be a net positive for Russia. All efforts to end our dependence on fossil fuels is...
This fits perfectly into the narrative that the Trump admin is furthering Russian interests. Global warming can be a net positive for Russia. All efforts to end our dependence on fossil fuels is also a direct threat to that country.
(The thawing of the North Pole could also lead to World War 3 for some of the same reasons, so it might not turn out well for them at all in the end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
NB Just because it fits into that narrative doesn't mean it's true. I know of zero proof that Trump is doing this to aid Russia.
Just to make this a bit more doomsdayish, there is the possibility that methane released from permafrost would cause enough short-term warming that it thaws more permafrost and releases additional...
thaws huge swaths of its land mass now unusable due to permafrost (which also releases a lot of methane trapped in the soil)
Just to make this a bit more doomsdayish, there is the possibility that methane released from permafrost would cause enough short-term warming that it thaws more permafrost and releases additional methane, leading to a nasty positive feedback loop referred to as the methane clathrate "gun".
Methane is a greenhouse gas over thirty times more potent than CO2. Per the article, this rollback would save the entire oil and gas industry barely $50 million a year. If I didn't know better (and I'm questioning if I do), I'd say the GOP is trying to make the collapse of human civilization into part of its campaign platform.
The GOP is full of evangelical Christians who want to see the world end in fire as foretold by the Revelation of St. John in the Bible.
The GOP is also full of capitalists who don't give a damn if the planet is uninhabitable after they're dead as long as they don't have to pay a dime more in taxes while they're alive.
Plus, they own luxury doomsday bunkers and probably daydream about society collapsing so they can retire to their bunkers.
I'm usually pretty chill, and it has been a very long time since anything made me as angry as that article about the Silicon Valley preppers that was floating around a while ago. The taxes and regulations required to move our civilization to a more sustainable model would cost them less than any prepping that had a realistic chance of success, and would have an outcome that's preferable on so many levels. The fact that these people, who command tremendous power and run entire sectors of our economy, either don't realize that or don't care is an indictment against capitalism if ever I saw one.
My thing is, why can't they just fuck off to their hidey holes? If that's what they want to do, fine, but could they just do it without holding us back from avoiding the end of life as we know it?
It all comes down to power. As things are right now, they're at the top of the socioeconomic food chain. Whether or not they seek actual political office, billionaires and multimillionaires hold vast amounts of power, but this power can only be exercised within a society that respects it. We usually don't think of it this way, but as the most basic expression of this power, being a billionaire allows you to basically order ordinary people around and have near total control of your local environment.
If they fuck off to their holes and stop bothering the rest of us, that intensely limits the scope of their power. Rather than controlling everything and everyone in their day to day lives, and having influence that spreads across the globe, their influence and status is basically reset to equal with their billionaire shelter-neighbors. Or if you're not prepping communally, you maintain your power (at least so long as your money has social value), but the scale diminishes from global to a few dozen people.
So basically, they don't want to do that until moving to a shelter would preserve their power, until society's so far gone that their means of control (capital) no longer has any meaning. Because they're shitty people. That might sound harsh but it's true. No matter how good their PR teams are, there's no billionaire that got to that position without exploiting people, and lots of them. It's what they're good at, and they're terrified, of losing their power, and of the consequences of their actions.
This fits perfectly into the narrative that the Trump admin is furthering Russian interests. Global warming can be a net positive for Russia. All efforts to end our dependence on fossil fuels is also a direct threat to that country.
Global warming
https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/russia-to-reap-benefits-from-climate-59145
(The thawing of the North Pole could also lead to World War 3 for some of the same reasons, so it might not turn out well for them at all in the end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
NB Just because it fits into that narrative doesn't mean it's true. I know of zero proof that Trump is doing this to aid Russia.
Just to make this a bit more doomsdayish, there is the possibility that methane released from permafrost would cause enough short-term warming that it thaws more permafrost and releases additional methane, leading to a nasty positive feedback loop referred to as the methane clathrate "gun".
If this "gun" started to fire, it would be hard to tell because of just how remote all that permafrost is...but one sign would be if sinkholes started appearing in the permafrost.