Elections have consequences

It does not really surprise nor shock me that neither my adopted country nor the old country is really doing anything about climate change.  Both are DINOs--democracies in name only.  But, at least they are DINOs and not anything worse!

I have no say in what India does or does not do; that's up to Indians to worry.  I am pissed off at the US that apparently cannot be bothered about climate change.

Bill and Melinda Gates write about the challenge of climate change in their annual letter.  And they refer to a summary by IPCC:

Source

I am not a big fan of all this "philanthropy" work that rich people do.  They hire an army of accountants and lawyers to figure out how to avoid paying taxes.  They also hire lobbyists to advocate to lower taxes for the filthy rich.  These taxes are what society needs in order to address our collective problems--from homelessness to higher education to ... yes, climate change too.

After such immoral but legal tax avoidance, these rich dudes then prioritize whatever they want to prioritize--over which society has no influence whatsoever.  I mean, for instance, when was the last time you heard about billionaires donating big money to struggling public universities that serve the underprivileged, and how many times have you heard about billionaires donating to elite universities that serve the privileged? On the other hand, had they paid their fair share of taxes, public universities and colleges won't be in such shit streets.  The tragic irony is that after subjecting public universities to such a financial crunch, they point their fingers at those same public institutions as failures!

I digressed.  At least I got that out of my system!

Now that there is Democratic control over the people's chamber of the Congress, there is at least a little of reason, logic, science, and evidence, that is being brought into climate change discussions.

The Science Committee hosted its first climate hearing of 2019 on Wednesday, after two other House committees had already held theirs. In sharp contrast to recent past Science Committee climate hearings, there was bipartisan agreement that climate change is real, human-caused, and harmful. The hearing brought up a number of possible policies to help America reduce and prepare for global warming, and participants aired their differences regarding the best way forward.

"bipartisan agreement that climate change is real, human-caused, and harmful."  "participants aired their differences regarding the best way forward."

Elections have consequences.

The 63 million who voted for climate change denialism--after all, this is a hoax, according to their deal leader--are unhappy with Democrats, especially the young and the fearless women, going after these pressing problems, I guess.  I wish we could make them even more unhappy, and real soon.

ps: More than six hours later, I read this commentary by Joseph Stiglitz, in which he writes:

Apple, Google, Starbucks, and companies like them all claim to be socially responsible, but the first element of social responsibility should be paying your fair share of tax. If everyone avoided and evaded taxes like these companies, society could not function, much less make the public investments that led to the Internet, on which Apple and Google depend.

Amen!