You Should Be More Afraid Of Steve Bannon Than Climate Change, Says Bill McKibben

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Originally published on RedGREENandBlue.

We knew that if Republicans took control of the government, it would be a disaster for the environment. Bill McKibben (and RedGREENandBlue) are disappointed at what’s coming out of Washington, but not surprised.

Writing in The Guardian, McKibben says, “The assault on the environment and working people is wrong, but predictable. What’s coming from the Oval Office, though, is unprecedented.”

…Last week, for instance, [Congress] managed in one morning to both end rules which sought to prevent coal companies from polluting streams and regulations which made it harder for oil companies to bribe foreign governments.

There are dozens of these changes, all of them with hideous consequences: people will suffer and die as we roll back environmental laws and prune budgets for housing and medical care. But these are, more or less, the changes we were going to see if, say, Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush had gotten elected with a pliant Congress: they are straight from the Koch Brothers/Heritage Foundation wishlist.

But he’s terrified of the Trump/Bannon axis, which he describes as “…less the White House than the Black Tower, sending out its Breitbartian orcs and alt-right winged harpies to poison the politics of a nation.” (And… they have trolls.)

…The Bannon/Trump administration …has audaciously targeted the main pillars of a civilized nation in a way we’ve rarely seen before …the attack on climate science is, in fact, an attack on science itself, on the enterprise that undergirds modernity … Prepare for attacks as well on tradition and on common sense, since these too are bulwarks against the kind of personality cult that tempts Trump and Bannon.

This is a very big deal. And if you’re not terrified, you’re not paying attention.

Up until now, we’ve been dealing with climate change as the most important issue facing humanity. But this changes everything. Trump and Bannon don’t want to get block action on climate — they want to block action on science. They want to block the discourse that can lead to science — and progress — and democracy.

It’s already clear that the federal government will be doing nothing to help with global warming (Trump’s cabinet choices made that evident in their confirmation hearings.) But if the administration actually withdraws from the Paris climate accords, it will turn its back on the most painstaking scientific process humans have ever undertaken, a half-century global effort to understand what we’re doing to our atmosphere and what that will do to our future.

The good news: Resistance is mobilizing. People are rising to this unprecedented challenge in an unprecedented outpouring of unity and action. So let’s keep it going.

We don’t have to wait two years — we can start taking back Congress NOW. There’s a special election coming up in GA-6.  Send a few dollars to Democrat Jon Ossoff.

(Cartoon by Pia Guerra)

Reprinted with permission.


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Jeremy Bloom

Jeremy Bloom is the Editor of RedGreenAndBlue.

Jeremy Bloom has 40 posts and counting. See all posts by Jeremy Bloom