Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
Georgina Gustin at Inside Climate News writes—With Biden’s Win, Climate Activists See New Potential But Say They’ll ‘Push Where We Need to Push’
Even before Joe Biden won the presidential election on Saturday, climate activists and environmental groups began vowing to push the new president for aggressive action on climate and strategizing for a Biden administration.
"We've seen that Biden, in his final debate speech, committed to a transition off of fossil fuels. We're excited to hold a Biden administration accountable to that promise," said Emily Southard, a campaign manager with 350 Action. "We'll push where we need to push."
If the Senate remains in Republican hands, the chances of passing transformative climate policies are slim, worrying many advocates who say any compromise on policy will be insufficient to tackle the deepening climate crisis.
But with time running out for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, every possible action—from local green ballot initiatives to a new federal position of "climate czar" to financial regulatory reforms—is on the advocacy agenda. Already, climate advocates are celebrating a shift in momentum.
"Simply because we have a Republican Senate that isn't representative of the majority of Americans who want action on climate change, doesn't mean that things like a Green New Deal aren't happening already," Southard said, noting that green ballot initiatives passed in several cities. "The Green New Deal isn't just a piece of legislation; it's a vision for an economy that moves us off of fossil fuels. There's a lot Biden can do, from stopping the Keystone Pipeline to banning fracking on public lands."
Environmental groups issued a list of actions on climate that the administration can take—without Congress—within days of taking office, including declaring a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act.
But flipping the Senate to blue remains a huge priority.
THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING
The Social Media Managers Are Not Okay, by Marta Martinez. They’re on the front lines of a relentless and overwhelming news cycle that is pushing them to the edge.
How We Got Here, by Sophie Novack. Texas’ health system has been underfunded, understaffed, and unprepared for years. Here, COVID-19 found the perfect place to spread.
Biden’s COVID Response Should Center on People, Not Just “Bugs and Drugs,” by Kiera Butler. Epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves learned lessons from the HIV/AIDS epidemic that are useful today.
“Before the military coup in Chile, we had the idea that military coups happen in Banana Republics, somewhere in Central America. It would never happen in Chile. Chile was such a solid democracy. And when it happened, it had brutal characteristics. And it lasted 17 years.”
~~Isabel Allende, Interview with Bill Moyers (2003)
TWEET OF THE DAY
At Daily Kos on this date in 2010—Republicans don’t do bipartisanship:
While the Broders of the world continue their partisan game of calling for Democrats to be bipartisan, it's obvious to anyone paying attention that they really only intend for a unilateral Democratic capitulation. It was obvious from the moment President Obama took office that his sincere desire to work across the aisle would only be taken advantage of, and that it would be seen as a sign of weakness. After a year of Democrats negotiating down their health insurance plan until it most resembled Romneycare or the 1993 Republican plan, for which the Republicans gave it not a single vote and now call for its repeal, nobody any longer should be buying into the myth of bipartisanship. While the president continually calls for bipartisan cooperation, the Republicans continually make clear that they will not compromise, will continually try to move the goalposts, and that despite the Democrats having not investigated any of the many horrendous crimes of the Bush-Cheney administration, there now is nothing about the Obama administration the Republicans won't obsessively investigate. As I've been saying for some time, it shouldn't surprise anyone if they send a fact-finding team to Kenya to search for the "real" birth certificate. The Democrats need to stop buying into a myth that means but their own destruction.