Hasnain says:

I still find it unconscionable and scary that a lot of the holdup on the bill is supposedly attributed to saving the jobs of some 30k coal workers (whose jobs are already dying a war of attrition) in one state - when so many others globally are suffering. One surprising statistic I learned today: there are more people employed in Broadway theater than all coal workers across the US. We don’t hear about protecting their interests though.

Also relevant: Manchin gets 500k/year from coal companies in WV, primarily from his son’s. But it’s infuriating how this doesn’t get called out more.

“But what have they concretely accomplished? For all its climate-destroying coal plants, China still installs more solar power than any other country, sells more electric vehicles than any other country, and operates a weak but expanding carbon market. Trans-Atlantic strategists worry that the European Union, which also maintains a carbon price, could eventually fuse its system to that of its largest trading partner, China. For the U.S. to fail to follow through after so much blabber would suggest, as China’s leaders reportedly believe, that our democracy is too sclerotic to meet the current crisis. That is a mortifying conclusion for the country, and a potentially dangerous one for the world order. If the U.S. cannot pass one of these policies, cannot bring itself to actually reduce carbon pollution, then it will strengthen the perception that American democracy is fundamentally sick, dying, unable to act on an issue on which its leaders’ credibility and its international stature rides. We will look like a decadent, soul-sick nation, too feeble to govern our basest instincts. And, well, aren’t we?”

Posted on 2021-10-16T18:38:14+0000