Hi tejek; Re: "However, we do know that burning fossil fuels can lead to the degradation of the environment and hurt humans. So then, even though we are not 100% sure that GW is upon us, we do know that humans will benefit if we reduce the burning of fossil fuels. So why not do it for that reason? ";
How do you "know that humans will benefit if we reduce the burning of fossil fuels"?
Fossil fuels harm human life and they also benefit human life. The question is one of balance. I get the impression that you're not looking at the benefits.
Someone who visits the 3rd world will see that a lack of economic development is very damaging to the environment. And right now, with the US in a tiny economic downturn (relative to the usual situation in the 3rd world), the American public puts regard for the environment down on the least of their concerns. In short, even a slight economic downturn is politically damaging to the environmental cause and eventually, if it lasts long enough, it becomes damaging to the environment.
Deny it or not, the reduction of fossil fuels is damaging to the economy and this eventually puts the Republicans into power. A great example of this is what happened when fuel prices exploded around the time of the Carter administration. It's happening even now in Europe:
Right Wing's Surge in Europe Has the Establishment Rattled
Andrew Higgins, NY Times, November 8, 2013
As right-wing populists surge across Europe, rattling established political parties with their hostility toward immigration, austerity and the European Union, Mikkel Dencker of the Danish People’s Party has found yet another cause to stir public anger: pork meatballs missing from kindergartens.
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It is also Europe’s new reality. All over, established political forces are losing ground to politicians whom they scorn as fear-mongering populists. In France, according to a recent opinion poll, the far-right National Front has become the country’s most popular party. In other countries — Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland and the Netherlands — disruptive upstart groups are on a roll.
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“History reminds us that high unemployment and wrong policies like austerity are an extremely poisonous cocktail,” said Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister and a Social Democrat. “Populists are always there. In good times it is not easy for them to get votes, but in these bad times all their arguments, the easy solutions of populism and nationalism, are getting new ears and votes.”
In some ways, this is Europe’s Tea Party moment — a grass-roots insurgency fired by resentment against a political class that many Europeans see as out of touch. The main difference, however, is that Europe’s populists want to strengthen, not shrink, government and see the welfare state as an integral part of their national identities.
The trend in Europe does not signal the return of fascist demons from the 1930s, except in Greece, where the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn has promoted openly racist beliefs, and perhaps in Hungary, where the far-right Jobbik party backs a brand of ethnic nationalism suffused with anti-Semitism.
But the soaring fortunes of groups like the Danish People’s Party, which some popularity polls now rank ahead of the Social Democrats, point to a fundamental political shift toward nativist forces fed by a curious mix of right-wing identity politics and left-wing anxieties about the future of the welfare state.
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Built on the ruins of a chaotic antitax movement, the Danish People’s Party has evolved into a defender of the welfare state, at least for native Danes. It pioneered “welfare chauvinism,” a cause now embraced by many of Europe’s surging populists, who play on fears that freeloading foreigners are draining pensions and other benefits.
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nytimes.com
The above article is incorrect in saying that this is the rise of tea parties in Europe. The US tea parties are against welfare while the above "new right" parties are in favor of welfare and also in favor of getting rid of immigrants. That's the same bargain that the Nazis made, nationalism and socialism.
As the US becomes more and more like the Europe in its welfare, it will also be subject, more and more, to the same political divisions that you see now in Europe. The Nazi party is also possible here, but only after the left and right both agree on welfare. This won't be for another 20 years but really, you should think about what is inevitably happening over the long term. No democracy has ever survived the transition to a welfare state for more than a couple hundred years. They *always* collapse into totalitarianism. This is human nature that was observed in the ancient Greek republics and it was well known to the founders of the US. They built our country with a strict separation between the branches of government and restrictions on the power of government that have been steadily eroded. Now there's little difference between us and the Weimar republic. The final transition is when only the Nazis (or their equivalents) are able to keep rioters off of the streets and they do it by other than legal means. Where you see Europe going now is where the US goes 20 or 30 years later. And that new Europe won't give a damn about the environment. In fact you can see the environmental regulations being dismantled there every month if you bother to read the NY Times.
The worst of the European countries is the first to make the evil transition. That would be Greece. Here's the latest news from them:
Greek Supreme Court Allows Golden Dawn to Run in European Elections
May 12, 2014
Greece's Supreme Court has allowed neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn to participate in upcoming European Parliament elections, a party lawyer said on Sunday.
The authorisation came despite an ongoing criminal probe against the political party, six of whose lawmakers including its leader are in prison awaiting trial.
Nearly all the party's 18 lawmakers are under investigation by Greek justice over serious crimes allegedly committed by the once-fringe party over the past two years, during its rise to prominence.
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The party took around seven percent of the vote in the 2012 Greek election. It now polls at around eight percent, compared to around 18-20 percent for the main parties.
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ekathimerini.com
The European elections are May 18 and 25th.
-- Carl |
