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GELFAND’S WORLD - I want to talk about the Democratic convention, a chilling remark by Nancy Pelosi, and a seemingly unrelated article about global warming. But they all connect. I promise.
Let's start by citing the article, by Jeff Masters in Yale Climate Connections, and titled "Will climate change turn life in the U.S. upside down?" You can find it here.
I'd also like to warn you that this article is long, but I think we can summarize the gist in one short paragraph:
Global warming is real, it is here, and we are in for a long period which is, at the moment, largely unpredictable. We are already seeing the effects in terms of home insurance costs going through the roof and in terms of the observed increasing violence of storms. Depending on how badly the carbon dioxide buildup continues, the results will range from the merely dire to the nearly unimaginable.
Next, we have the remark that Nancy Pelosi made a few nights ago here in Los Angeles. She mentioned that the current congressional Republicans have come to reject science. She talked about a lot of other things, but that one remark was truly chilling, at least to this scientifically trained listener. Whether the objection to science is heartfelt or just opportunistic, it gives Republicans the excuse to ignore problems such as global warming in order to kiss up to Donald Trump and to their industrial supporters.
As several of us here on CityWatch have pointed out repeatedly, we've lost three or four decades in the global warming battle so far, and we can't afford to lose another.
The Democratic convention, rousing speeches, and a movement for the humdrum
There is a connection here. (Be patient.)
I've not watched the whole convention, but I caught some of the highlights. The best speech that I have seen so far was by Oprah Winfrey. You can catch it here. Barack Obama was more cool and a bit intellectual, but (as usual) made some excellent points.
Everybody was waiting to see how Tim Walz would do, considering that this was his first real shot on the international stage. I think everyone (Republicans included) would conclude that Walz is an effective speaker who has contributed some effective words to the conversation. I don't know if "weird" is what I would have thought of to describe the Republican approach, but in practice, it resonates with voters. My own favorite Walz contribution is "Mind your own damn business." It wouldn't have been appropriate during the civil rights era, but it fits perfectly with the current movement for reproductive freedom.
It's curious that on paper, Walz and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance are roughly similar. Both are midwestern college graduates and military veterans -- Vance actually had some combat experience -- and both have been successful in their chosen careers, including business or education and then politics. Short of the presidency, Senator and Governor are about as high up as you can go in our political system.
So why the difference in public perception between the two? Walz has gained instant celebrity status, whereas Vance has become something of a joke. Polling shows that he is doing worse than Sarah Palin at a comparable time in the campaign. In watching Vance answer questions, I don't see him as personally all that strange. He answered questions about his "cat lady" remark in an acceptable fashion and even tried to do a joke. No -- it is his politics that is so weird, and I suspect that the public is indeed reacting in response to his political positions, not to the personality. Yes he is creepy, but because of the content of what he says, not because of his haircut.
Yes, the humdrum
Some of us remember how Donald Trump, as president, liked to hit us with surprises. He started a trade war with China, did his best to destroy the North Atlantic alliance, and basically acted like the rude bully that he is when attending overseas conferences. He also kissed up to the world's worst dictators and (to borrow from Obama's speech) has this obsession with crowd size.
Mainly, Trump created a level of uncertainty about everything he was doing. He just doesn't seem to have a second gear in his transmission.
The 2020 presidential election was, as much as anything, about a return to normalcy, an attempt to bring back the humdrum. And in this, Biden succeeded. If you really think about it, he has done some radical things. One truly radical act he committed was to announce to the world that our intelligence sources predicted the upcoming Russian invasion of Ukraine. Less radical, but diametrically opposed to Trump's approach, was to rally the NATO allies and to send military aid to Ukraine at their moment of worst peril. He also presided over the creation of legislation that gave the economy a needed boost in our post-Covid economic slump.
But it was all done with a rather quiet efficiency. There was persistence and willingness to push the envelope, but it was not done in the theatrical way of his predecessor.
Humdrum.
In spite of the Harris smile and adoption of Joy as the campaign slogan, this newly formed Democratic campaign retains the promise of sticking to the same humdrum. Considering the political and ethnic diversity of the coalition she will have to assemble in order to win, how could it be any other? There are a couple of common themes, the most important being the long-overdue assertion of women's rights, and the second being a need for reform in the medical and pharmaceutical sectors. But these are continuations of movements that have been going on for all of our lives. We can hope for some quiet methodical efficiency in developing on these themes if that giant blue wave election manages to manifest itself.
(It all comes down to a very few senatorial races in places like Montana and Ohio. But that is another story.)
Coming full circle
We began with the discussion of global warming. It is starting to manifest itself as a true crisis, both economically and in terms of human life. At a continent-wide level, climate change threatens to result in mass extinctions.
The word Existential is increasingly bandied about when serious people talk about global warming.
The essay cited up top concludes that global warming will increase through all of our lives, but may start to come under control around the beginning of the next century. But that depends on the world doing some serious things along the way. Our eventual switch away from burning fossil fuels is among the most important, but we seem to be making progress in moving to a solar economy.
But this all depends on a political system which takes the problem seriously. It became obvious during this convention that Democratic policy is to take it seriously. We already know that Republican policy is the opposite. Donald Trump has repeatedly denied the science behind the finding of global warming, in spite of the fact that it is irrefutable. For some reason the recognition of global warming is a threat to coal and oil interests, and that, apparently, is all that Trump needs to maintain his level of denial. The November election is therefore an existential choice.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected].)
