Who Knows How To Get To Net Zero Emissions? Joe Biden Does.
During an extensive interview on Pod Save America, Joe Biden, America’s next president, said global heating is the most important issue of our time and constitutes an existential threat to humanity. “It will bake then planet,” he said. That is diametrically opposed to the namby pamby drivel leaking from the lips of the incumbent and his weak kneed followers. Their only response is to say scientists disagree and we should continue doing what got us into this mess in the first place, namely extract and burn every molecule of coal, oil, and gas we can find. Never mind that doing so will bake the Earth and threaten its ability to support human life. The free market should decide and if that market decides to kill us all, then so be it!
It’s hard to imagine a more illogical mind set than that. Reactionaries claim they are worried about workers but that’s a lie. If they were worried about workers, they wouldn’t have passed a $1.5 trillion dollar tax cut that benefited wealthy donors and left the rest of Americans to swim upstream against a rising tide of income inequality.
Saying there’s a problem and doing something about it are two different things. On the podcast, Joe Biden made it abundantly clear he understands the issues and knows how to solve them. The breadth and depth of his knowledge is amazing. One of the sectors that will be affected directly by his policies designed to address a warming planet is farming. Whether it’s raising crops or breeding animals, farming contributes enormous quantities of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere while adding millions of tons of pesticides and fertilizers to the land. The nitrogen and phosphates contained in those pesticides and fertilizers percolate through groundwater and wind up in rivers and streams before finding their way to the oceans.
During the Pod Save America podcast, Biden demonstrated he knows more about these issues that his opponent, who only knows what he is spoon fed by Heritage Society stooges. He spoke passionately about how pollution from chicken farms on the Delmarva peninsular is contaminating the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed. He apologized for being boring, then went on to detail exactly how new technology can capture the methane that results from the excrement created by all those chickens, then pelletize it and reuse it as sustainable fertilizer. The same goes for waste products from pig and cattle ranching.
Actually, he wasn’t boring at all. He demonstrated that he has a deep, abiding interest in listening to scientists when formulating government policies. He also suggested paying farmers to add their fields to a land bank that would be used to plant crops with deep roots that will restore the land and capture large amounts of carbon dioxide. He made the bold suggestion that agriculture could be America’s first net zero industry.
Have you ever heard the unstable lunatic in the White House say anything about agriculture except to propose giving farmers billions in tax payer dollars to make up for the train wreck his trade war with China has created? “Trade wars are easy to win,” he bragged but the truth is American farmers have suffered horrific losses as a result of Trump’s ineptitude.
The Biden Agenda
Asked about his agenda for a second term, the incumbent said his first priority was establishing a permanent human colony on the moon. His second priority is sending humans to Mars. Biden’s says his first priority will be getting control of the pandemic, because rebuilding the economy will be difficult if not impossible so long as the virus is raging from sea to shining sea. His second priority is investing in American infrastructure, especially environmentally responsible opportunities for underserved communities — the places where chemical factories, oil refineries, plastics plants and other high pollution industries like to locate because the people who live there have little political power.
Buy products manufactured in America by Americans is Biden’s goal. The federal government buys over $600 billion worth of goods and services each year. Biden’s plan is for most if not all government purchases to come from US sources that use American workers. If we do that, he says, we will create millions of good paying new jobs.
A study by Ernst and Young earlier this year found that in Australia, every dollar invested in renewable energy can create three times more good paying jobs than a dollar invested in the fossil fuel industry. Biden understands that job creation potential and wants to put it to work for Americans. If that study is correct, who in their right mind would squander precious funds to get a 67% lower rate of return? Trump would, but he is not in his right mind, so that may not be a fair question.
To bolster the American economy, Biden wants to expand scientific research. Previously, the US invested about 2.8% of its GDP in research, mostly at public colleges and universities. Today, under the failed Trump administration, that number is down to 0.6%. A country that does not does not invest in basic scientific research is on a a glide path to obscurity. It goes without saying that many research scientists are from other countries. America’s current obsession with immigration means many of the brightest minds, especially from Asian countries, have soured on coming to America, which will ultimately leave the US unable to compete in the global economy.
Vote!
With one week remaining before Election Day, Biden is encouraging people to vote. If you have already voted, help others get to the polls or volunteer to be a poll worker yourself. Encourage your parents, children, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends to vote. The reactionaries have made it more and more difficult for minorities and people with little political power to vote. They are terrified of democracy. What if all those black and brown people and immigrants actually went to the polls? Can you imagine the horror that would cause?
To navigate through the web of confusing rules and regulations, Biden encourages people to go to IWillVote.com to find out how to obtain a ballot and how to vote. If a voter encounters a problem at the polls, he or she can call 1-800-DEM-VOTE to speak with a trained attorney or report acts of intimidation. A big part of the reactionaries’ plan is to steal the vote by scaring people away from the polls. “Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated,” Biden urges. Vote!!!!!
Global Leadership
Finally, Biden notes how vital it is for America to reassert its leadership among the nations of the world. Without the US leading the way, the pledges contained in the Paris climate accords may go unfulfilled. Without American leadership, other nations may decide cutting carbon emissions is just too hard a job. We need Joe Biden’s leadership to restore America to its position of prominence on the world stage and to get the Paris climate agreements implemented as quickly as possible.
He says he wants America to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. America’s reactionaries scream about how impossible and expensive that goal is, yet Japan today came out with a similar plan and the European Union has adopted virtually the same goal for its member nations. The incumbent says it will cost $100 trillion. Actually, the Biden plan
Biden points out that 6 American generals who worked in the current administration have spoken publicly, saying Donald Trump is unfit to serve as commander in chief of the military. Perhaps in dangerous times like these, it would be useful to remember the words of Joseph Welch in the US Senate on June 9, 1954, words that finally put an end to the antics of the despicable junior senator from Wisconsin, the infamous “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy, with these 6 words: “Have you no sense of decency?”
How ironic that Joe McCarthy was advised by an ugly little man who later went on to counsel Richard Nixon and Donald Trump — Roy Cohn. He was a proponent of scorched earth tactics that elevated innuendo and smear tactics to a high art. Most Americans are not aware how powerful an iotrenfluence Cohn has had on US politics. Today the same can be asked of Donald Trump: “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” For Trump, the answer is clearly “No.” From calling for the execution of 5 innocent black men in New York to issuing pardons to convicted murderers, to telling white supremacists to “stand down and stand by,” Trump has not one shred of decency, something Joe Biden has in abundance. America cannot afford a president for whom decency is an alien concept. Vote!!!!!
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