Movement Update

Geez, maybe I whined too soon about the "movement". Turns out 350.org is organizing a protest at Jackson Lake Lodge where activists will confront Bankers from the Federal Reserve. Apperantly the Bankers have an annual retreat at a fancy resort and the protestors will demand they stop investing in fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy. Only problem? This is to be a law abiding protest. The activists will wave signs at the bankers and shout slogans, there are no plans for any arrests. More like a camping trip with some chanting thrown in. So I guess I was correct about the state of "the movement". Same old tactics with the exact same result. People will temporarily feel better, like they are doing something. Having risked nothing, they will go back to their lives and nothing will happen. Someone will start planningt the next protest. If you are going to make demands, you need to have an "or else". These are big dogs, they don't scare easily. One inteesting change is 350 is going to reimburse protestors for their travel expenses. They must be swimming in money, something that could be used for a bail fund. But if we have come to the point of having to pay activists to show up...hourly wage? Stipend? Sure, I'll show up.

Big Black Trucks

Where I live it is extremely easy to identify cult members because they are all driving these incredibly huge, shiny, brand-new big black pick-up trucks. One ton duallies with tinted windows are at the top of the order but they are all massive things and they are truly everywhere, not driven by farmers or ranchers, but by the new "bad-ass redneck" types, with Trump stickers and weapon decals, etc.. These things cost seventy thousand dollars or more which gives you an indication of what our local economy is like. Trump actually made Montana great again. The billionaires who got the tax breaks all moved here and bought ranches which the local tradesmen are fixing up for bank. Plus the Covid stimulus money. What do you do with all this fortune? Big Black Truck. If it takes a couple hundred to fill the thing up, whatever, more where that came from from. Co2 emmissions? Yeah, fuck that. The cult is focused on horsepower and looking good, way up there in the cab of a diesel Ford F350. They are incredibly happy, successful consumers, this working class, and they will not go gently into the night.

State of the Movement

An online conference coming up on the 1st of Sept. will feature Bill McKibben discussing "the state of the movement". If we assume they are talking about the climate movement you would have to ask: what movement? If we judge the strength of "the movement" by the latest "Inflation Reduction Act" (they couldn't even put climate in the title!) you would have to admit sclerotic decrepitude. It was all backroom dealing, no street action whatsoever. The rose colored glasses crowd praises "the movement" for having got anything at all, but clearly Green Capitalism is the big winner and will lead us to the precipice. So how will McKibben spin it? How about: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good? Yeah. How about: This unleashes the power of private investment to create innovative new technologies? Yeah. How about: this is just the beginning, now we really have to push! Yeah. Bill, Greta, AOC, Blockadia; the silence is deafening. The quick retort is Covid, but that doesn't really satisfy. Did the Green New Deal include billions for carbon capture and sequestration, new oil and gas leases, new gas pipelines? We are supposed to look at the bright side: electric cars for the masses, fire-resistant forests (?) more solar panels, etc.. but it is hard not to be cynical, given the hard numbers.

Thrilled To Get Crumbs

Reading all the commentary about the Investment Act, one can't help notice the craven state of the Big Enviros. They were all so prepared to accept nothing that the meager pittance they did recieve is celebrated. Their expectatations that capitalist "democracy" will provide anything have been reduced to this pathetic extent- still they refuse to question the system itself. Like a Dickens orphan it is all "thankyou sir for this bit of gruel." Yes it is all "carrots and no sticks", in other words corporate welfare intended to spur private investment, but nothing can be mandated anymore. Green capitalism is the only possibility. No profit, no deal. This follows the basic trend of what citizens in general now expect from government. Nothing. When told that people in other countries are provided with vastly greater benefits they shrug, mutter something about the nanny state and go back to work. There is money in the bill to help farmers be better stewards and money to make forests more fire resistant. Unfortunately both those horses left the barn a long, long time ago. Farmers have been on welfare for decades but still can't compete without chemicals. Fire is a natural part of the ecosystem and forests need to burn, but we have let things get so bad the fires become catastrophic. To say this is a historic bill is simply to admit insane negligence. Best to watch the parts per million in the atmoshere before you celebrate.

Innovation Will Save Us

Bill Gates is giddy that the Investment Bill is being passed. With some of the billions goint to innovators, unimagined new technologies will be developed that will pull human society back from the brink in the nick of time. Bill is that true believer to his very core. He knows deep down that the Arc of Technology is long but it bends toward progress. One has to live in a very insulated, rarified space to be so optimistic, to have such rose colored glasses. The Investment Bill demonstrates to me exactly how low the bar has been set in this age of crisis, that we think some solar energy is going to preserve order. We are at 422 ppm at Manau Loa. If the awesome power of capitalist innovation was going to save us, wouldn't it have kicked in a little sooner? Does the grotesque sausage making of Washington DC, Manchin and Sinema and the Republican Party, not demonstrate something about Capitalist "Democracy"? But no, for the Bill Gates' of the world, young innovators sitting in incubators drinking energy drinks can accomplish miracles. This is America. With the passage of the Bill we are Great Again!

Salvage?

I know people like David Wallace Wells means well, but the glass-half-full take on the Investment Bill is tragic in its own way. When you realize we went from Bernie's 19 trillion to Joe's 350 billion, it is difficult to think of it as a "win" for the climate. And that is if you can ignore all the horrible "compromises" that had to be accepted, the drilling and mangling. Green growth is the real "green dream", but it is impolite to nay say. The Dems had to salvage something. Even if it's pathetic.Inflation, recession, pollution, misery- these are just the necessary aspects of capitalism we are to accept as "natural", inevitable, cyclical. Accepting the consequences of climate change plus capitalism will not be so easy. The shrinking Colorado may be the best illustration of how Capital finally finds the barrier it cannot transcend. Mega droughts have ended prior societies (or "civilizations") but this time around the scramble for resources will be epic. At some point the developers will have to stop pretending, the government agencies will have to stop pretending, the humans will have to face reality. No more water. The indigenous people could augment this awakening if they had the will, the political organization, the desire for a little revenge. They have treaty rights to lots of that water. That is a power they could use to preserve Mother earth. But it would involve a terrific, bloody fight. BTW, John Tester got his Burn Pit Bill passed at long last. We'll see how he votes on the Republican amendments to the Investment Bill.

No Joe Can Save Us

Picking back up on "politics", much angst surrounding Manchin's venal game, but the whole drama is just a diversion to keep Americans from noticing a disturbing little trend: democratic capitalism doesn't work. The angst should be flowing from the fact nothing can stop Capital from destroying earth's life support system. Or that millions are being sacrificed, doomed to a very unpleasant fate while others sip champagne and smoke fat cigars. Or the fact that Margaret Thatcher's little dictum is finally coming true: "there is no such thing as society". But Manchin was never going to save. Nor was the other Joe or David Brook's hypothetical perfect politician (one who embraces social conservatism and economic populism). Or any other freak who believes Capital can be coerced into a managed decline, or a "soft landing". Joe Sixpack isn't going to be much help either. The "working class", at least as it is defined by pollsters, is solidly in the resentment camp, searching for scapegoats to blame for the increasing chaos. Most angsty will be those idealistic young graduates with Environmental Studies degrees who were hoping to work for some climate non-profit funded by Build Back Better. They were all in for Bernie's "political revolution" but they thought the revolutionaries would come from the Left. Oops. Will they re-think their faith or double-down by occupying Nancy Pelosies office again? The increasingly pathetic 350.org is so outraged they are asking people to sign yet another worthless petition- this time DEMANDING that Shcumer remove Manchin from his chairman position. Or else! Yeah! Of course Trump or DiSantis or Clarence Thomas won't save us either. Not that anyone will ask them about wet-bulb temperature, but if they did they would just smile and say "It's the economy, stupid." When really it's the stupidity, economy.