When Joe Biden was elected president two years ago, I never thought that I'd be writing three separate posts cursing West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin for blocking Biden's agenda, but here we are. Yes, once again the congressman who seems to relish his position as the Democratic senator who can hardly stand the Democratic agenda has killed a movement to do something about climate change when he backed out of a senate spending package deal yesterday. Is it any surprise that the man who has taken more money from oil and coal companies than any other person in congress wants to do nothing in the fight against climate change? It is a sign of just how ridiculous the American version of democracy is that a senator from a state with less than two million people can hold so much power over the rest of the country.
The timing of this couldn't be worse: just a few days ago our extremist Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (and by extension, the Biden administration) cannot regulate the carbon emissions that greatly contribute to climate change. Given the court's ruling, congressional action seemed to be the only way for the country to do anything about what is the greatest problem facing the world today, and now that looks doomed too. (Manchin, has, as he always does, said that he may still be willing to make a deal, but don't count on it!). While it's easy to get angry at Manchin over this, it should be remembered that the Republican party, which is still the only major party in the entire world to deny the science of climate change, is even more to blame. From the George W Bush administration removing all references to climate change from their own EPA reports to Trump ripping up the Paris climate accord, the Republican party's denial of science has been disastrous for both the country and the world.
And while the Supreme Court and Manchin are fiddling, the world is burning: 50 million Americans are currently threatened by overwhelming heat, the west coast is suffering through the now yearly ritual of terrible forest fires, and Europe is also in the middle of a crippling heat wave. This is hardly the time for inaction. Thankfully, the court ruling left some things Biden can do around the edges, like regulating some air pollution, and cars and trucks. But most of the work now must be done at the state level and local level; the good news is that states like California, Colorado and Ohio are passing laws to deal with the growing problem. One encouraging sign is that on last April 30th. the state of California drew almost a 100% of its energy from renewable sources, and where California goes, other states will follow. Meanwhile, with electric vehicles are finally becoming popular in the US and more and more auto manufacturers are planning to abandon gas engines in the future.
Will action against climate change on the state and local level be enough to make the difference? Sadly, it doesn't look like it will, but with the Republican party poised to retake the house and maybe the senate in November, it looks like laws passed in some states is all the country is going to do in the near future. Given that the Paris climate accord's goal was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030, something that now looks almost impossible in the US (which is the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world), science deniers like Manchin and the Republican party seem to have won again, with the world the loser.
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