Friday, November 19, 2021

COPout26


I have been surly this week, as you may have noticed, and the pending demise of all Terran species by our hand is the biggest reason.

Oh, I won't live to see it.  But your children, grandchildren, great grands, and my nieces and nephews and their children surely will.  And it's going to be bad, and it's coming sooner than anyone thinks.


More on down the post on who's to blame (basically all of us) and what can be done at this point (pick your poison).  We've been building to this moment all my life and long before, essentially ever since we started burning coal and then petroleum to light and heat our homes, then our offices, and move ourselves and our commerce around.


But the people we elected to be watchdogs took payoffs to look the other way while the wealthy got ever more greedy.  Thus it has always been with capitalism, sadly.


In case you missed it:


Here's a good question: which oil company do you think is the worst?


"Exxon tells 5th Circuit that SCOTUS ruling voids $14 million award from pollution violations at Texas facility"

"Toyota Named Third Most Obstructive Company Towards Climate Change After ExxonMobil, Chevron"

I spared Royal Dutch Kuffner (wait; I can't call him that anymore.  From now on he's just plain old Shelly) as much grief as I could.  His company, after all, talks like it's trying to do the right thing.  In the words of Master Jedi Yoda; "Do or do not. There is no 'try' ".

And we are all well aware that Texas isn't going to be the leader in this effort.  Quite the opposite.



"Oil production at Permian Basin set to hit new record"

Methane leaking from old wells.  Plastics filling the oceans.  Micro-pieces of plastic in our bodies. PFAS in our drinking water.  Mountains of "fast fashion" piled high in the Chilean desert.  Big banks like Chase funding pipeline projects like Line 3 in the face of the most civil of disobedience.  The slow death of the planet, and us, is everywhere you look.

No wonder people are suffering from 'climate depression' and quitting their shitty minimum wage jobs.

With a couple of local takes ...

Hope Osborn at Texas 2036 looks ahead to the day when Texas is no longer reliant on oil and gas taxes to fund public schools.  (Might be pretty far down the list of things to worry about, since public schools, and/or the roads to get to them, will be flooded in a few years.  I'm guessing home schooling gets to be a bigger thing as more Republicans clamor for their tax cuts, too.)  David Collins seems to be feeling a little down, having been affected by the AstroworldFest tragedy and Glasgow.  Socratic Gadfly blogged about the latest in Texas-New Mexico water rights issues and other environment and climate news, and his thoughts on Glasgow COP26 were ... well, about as angry as mine.

It's time -- waaaay past time -- to rethink everything.


I'm also going to start voting like the people I love's lives depend on it.  And not like Barack Obama meant it, either.

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