XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.atheism, alt.politics.socialist.nazi   
   XPost: alt.global-warming   
   From: zed@is.dead   
      
   Americans don't deserve clean water or lands.   There is no right to clean   
   water or clean air in the constitution.   If this means more dead red state   
   Americans suffer from natural disasters made worse by the big global   
   warming hoax, so be it!  Americans should never listen to the experts when   
   they can listen to conservative politicians  who are servants to polluters   
   for their large donations.   
      
   A polluted America is a prosperous America!  More profits!   Coal emissions   
   already kill 40,000 mostly red state Americans per year, but that's not   
   enough.   
      
   Red states will be hit hardest by climate change – but Republicans don't   
   care   
      
   In America's screwy political system in the post-truth era, Republican   
   politicians typically rail against climate spending and even climate   
   science, writes David Callaway   
      
   The culture wars era we are leaving behind will soon be viewed as a   
   ridiculous time of apathy and stagnation as the political debate shifts to   
   who gets saved and who doesn't   
      
   The climate world celebrated the passage of President Biden's Inflation   
   Reduction Act this week as the largest US investment to fight global   
   warming in history became law, triggering $369bn (£312bn) in new spending   
   on clean energy strategies.   
      
   But Republican opposition to the law – not one politician in either chamber   
   of Congress voted for it – stood out as a singular, petulant, flip off to   
   Mother Nature just as she begins to exert the full force of her   
   environmental devastation. Much of it in their red states.   
      
   Even as Biden signed the bill into law, the federal government was imposing   
   drastic water cuts in the American west and Mexico from the depleted   
   Colorado River, targeting traditional red states Arizona and Nevada   
   (despite their recent election record of voting for the Democrats).   
      
   A new study by the non-profit First Street Foundation also came out   
   claiming that in less than 30 years a "heat belt" will settle over the   
   midwestern US, from Texas to Wisconsin, where temperatures will routinely   
   hit 100 F (37.8C), and at least one day a year hit 125F (51.7C). The belt   
   is expected to cover a dozen states in the centre of the country, 11 of   
   which are red states.   
      
   Yet in America's screwy political system in the post-truth era, Republican   
   politicians typically rail against climate spending and even climate   
   science as a progressive extravagance set to take their jobs and kick   
   inflation higher with more spending.   
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   Flash floods have deluged the Northeast. Climate change will only make them   
   worseFlash floods have deluged the Northeast. Climate change will only make   
   them worse   
      
   The audacity it takes to put one's political interests ahead of the visible   
   effects of that position on their home and constituencies is staggering.   
   Yet now that we are moving from the era of climate culture wars to active   
   defensive measures against global warming, the emotional politics employed   
   by the party will be severely tested.   
      
   Even with the drought in the west, heatwaves in the south and east, and   
   indiscriminate flooding across the country in places from Las Vegas and   
   Death Valley to Kentucky and Missouri, climate change ranks poorly in voter   
   priorities. That hasn't changed this midterm season.   
      
   While it is mentioned more – often in bizarre references such as Rep   
   Marjorie Taylor Greene's (a Republican congresswoman for Georgia) assertion   
   that solar and wind energy don't work at night, everything pales, including   
   abortion, to the traditional No. 1 issue of the economy as far as voters   
   are concerned.   
      
   But here's the rub. Global warming is becoming an economic issue, not just   
   for the Feds and states, but cities, towns and individual neighbourhoods.   
   The water cuts out west will impact $15bn (£12.7bn) worth of agriculture,   
   reducing irrigation to farms and causing shortages of crops of all kinds.   
   Water rationing, already in California and many western states, will soon   
   become the norm.   
      
   Flooding and wildfires will soon leave vast amounts of homeowners without   
   insurance, forced to depend on their states' underfunded insurance rescue   
   plans or the federal government for relief. In Europe this summer, facing   
   unprecedented heatwaves, air conditioning is being rationed in Spain,   
   hosepipe bans have been enacted in the UK, and energy production to   
   electric grids in Germany and France frantically kicked up ahead of   
   expected winter shortages.   
      
   The transition taking place now will move us from a 50-year period of   
   debating the existence of climate change and the affordability of fighting   
   it, to a period of real-world loss of resources and sacrifice, what experts   
   call mitigation, the actual fight. While the Biden plan bets heavily on   
   technologies such as electric cars, offshore wind, and carbon storage and   
   removal to help us reduce future greenhouse gas emissions, the damage from   
   the emissions we've already released is beginning to hit hard.   
      
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   The culture wars era we are leaving behind will soon be viewed as a   
   ridiculous time of apathy and stagnation as the political debate shifts to   
   who gets saved and who doesn't and what to do with climate immigrants.   
   Voters will scramble to reset their priorities.   
      
   It's not for nothing that Sen Kyrsten Sinema (a Democrat for Arizona)   
   bargained for $4bn (£3.4bn) in drought relief for her state as part of her   
   deal to approve Biden's plan. That relief will get more and more precious   
   as the coming disasters add up.   
      
   Scientists have argued for years that the cost of climate mitigation will   
   be far higher in the future than it would be if we approved clean energy   
   spending now. This past week, we reached an admirable goal in approving   
   some of the spending needed over the next eight years to cut emissions by   
   40 per cent from 2005 levels.   
      
   But the environmental tab for the time we've wasted since Congress first   
   rejected Rep Henry Waxman's (a former Democrat congressman for California)   
   climate bill 13 years ago during the Obama years is coming due, and it's   
   going to be far worse than thought, paid for in lives and livelihoods. Once   
   Republican voters realize how bad they've been duped by their leaders, it   
   will already be too late.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)