XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.global-warming, alt.atheism   
   XPost: rec.arts.tv, alt.survival   
   From: elonx@protonmail.com   
      
   Republicans Move to Gut Climate Funding Amid Heatwaves, Floods, and Smog   
   Storms   
      
      
   Ted Cruz and his Republican colleagues want to defund efforts to stop   
   climate change, even as their constituents suffer.   
      
      
   Millions of Americans have been enveloped in throat-scratching smog, have   
   lost their homes and livelihoods in catastrophic floods, and have been   
   facing extreme heat bubbles that have left people collapsing and even   
   dying. Meanwhile, Republicans are working even harder to defund efforts to   
   stop climate change.   
      
   While most of the conservative political establishment has proven wholly   
   disinterested in even pretending to care about climate change—at the   
   behest of their big fossil fuel and transportation corporate   
   donors—Senator Ted Cruz and his Senate Commerce Committee GOP colleagues   
   are leading a new charge to roll back climate funding in Biden’s proposed   
   2024 budget.   
      
   Fox reports that the Republican senators are pushing a memo to reject   
   funding provisions focused on “equity” and “environmental justice” at   
   agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),   
   National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institute   
   of Standards and Technology (NIST), and National Science Foundation (NSF).   
      
   Equity and environmental justice are the kinds of goals you may imagine an   
   admirable comic book superhero pursuing (and there are indeed examples!),   
   not something that elected American officials should be railing against.   
      
   But perhaps that helps clarify who society’s villains are.   
      
   NOAA’s goals, for instance, like building a “climate-ready nation” that   
   can support underserved coastal communities—and ensure that people of all   
   stripes are taken care of—was apparently too much for Cruz. The out-of-   
   touch senator called such basic objectives “ancillary progressive causes,”   
   revealing his disdain for millions of Americans.   
      
   The Republican-led memo also railed against NASA’s DEI office and its   
   Earth Science program’s interest in helping the aviation community reach   
   net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 (a bare minimum goal for pretty much   
   every industry if we still want to have a healthy planet for our   
   children).   
      
   “NASA should not become a plaything for anti-fossil fuel   
   environmentalists,” the senator aka corporate puppet wrote in the memo.   
   “The Committee would like to see funding for these missions targeted at   
   worthy scientific enterprise and not the advancement of political   
   agendas,” he added, while advancing Republicans’ own corporate-friendly   
   political agenda.   
      
   Cruz’s committee also attacked funding requests to support agricultural   
   practices that decrease emissions. In other words, they’re standing in the   
   way of the government supporting farmers and ranchers in decreasing their   
   impact on the very same environment their livelihoods depend upon.   
      
   And the Republicans also couldn’t stand the idea of investing into   
   affordable, more environmentally-friendly housing, or sustainable clean   
   water or transit systems, saying that the goals apparently have “virtually   
   nothing to do with NSF’s statutory responsibilities.”   
      
   The NSF was established by Congress seven decades ago to promote the   
   progress of science; advance the nation’s health, prosperity, and welfare;   
   and secure the national defense. All goals directly related to climate   
   resiliency and environmental protection. But no surprise Cruz cares little   
   about any of that.   
      
   As of writing, there are over 113 million Americans—more than a third of   
   the country—under extreme heat alerts. A heat wave in Florida has had the   
   ocean reaching the hottest level on record, with some waters clocking in   
   at hot tub-like temperatures.   
      
   Over the past month, before the planet reached the hottest week recorded   
   ever, at least 25 Texans have died in the sweltering heat (all   
   constituents of Ted Cruz, who is fighting tooth and nail to turn the heat   
   up more). That death toll is likely just the beginning of the damage we   
   may experience in the weeks to come.   
      
   The drastic heat comes while thousands of homes and businesses have been   
   swept away by disastrous flooding in Vermont and New York—with rainfall   
   coming in at a faster rate than even Hurricane Irene.   
      
   All of which has followed an ominous smog storm induced by climate change-   
   aggravated wildfires. The omnipresent smog cloud, which enveloped most of   
   America, seemed to be a foreboding warning of all the aforementioned   
   disasters—and what else might be next.   
      
   But rest assured, amid all this, Ted Cruz and his Republican colleagues   
   are doing everything they can to make it all worse.   
      
      
   https://newrepublic.com/post/174310/earth-hotter-ever-ted-cruz-republican-   
   solution-gut-climate-funding   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)