Only sometimes?

What the fuck was the “Trump messaging”?!

I already said:

He asked people if they felt like they were better off today than they were four years ago

The Trump messaging was really pretty brilliant. Despite its simplicity, it was incredibly effective. He asked people if they felt like they were better off today than they were four years ago, a majority said no, and that’s all it took.

Preventing any climate change was never really an option. The climate is going to change, it already has. The goal has always been to limit the change as much as possible to keep it within the most stable and least harmful range possible. It was decided that limiting warming to 1.5C was our optimum target. We will not meet that target.

So, the best case scenario is no longer on the table, but we can still limit warming, and the harm caused by rapid, anthropogenic climate change as much as possible. Every degree, every tenth of a degree of warming that we are able to prevent will reduce harm. Therefore, we should still be working diligently to reduce human GHG emissions to net zero as quickly as possible, even if we will not be able to meet the Paris climate goals.

Make no mistake, however, it’s going to be bad. Even at 1.5C it was going to be bad, it would have just been the most manageable level of bad that we felt was achievable. I’m all for hope and optimism but we need to understand that bad things are coming so that we can adequately prepare and try to mitigate the impacts as much as possible. Just how bad things get depends on what we do, and by “we” I mean all of humanity.

But while there is a floor for how bad things will be, there’s also a ceiling. I think the chances of near term human extinction or the total, permanent collapse of human civilization are essentially zero. Climate change isn’t going to bring on the apocalypse.

There are a lot of things that are just universally beneficial, like healthcare, environment, education.

Ok, so let’s focus on that stuff, then. My point is, maybe we can’t achieve perfect justice and fairness for everyone, so let’s just try to like make rent more affordable and make it so people don’t have to stress as much about paying their bills and maintaining a decent standard of living.

It’s all too much. The Democratic party wants to be a big tent party, the party of all. That’s just not possible. Every group wants the party to prioritize their issues. Blacks and whites, straight people and gay people, men and women, young and old, religious people and atheists, owners and workers, cops and criminals, leftists, moderates, and conservatives, etc, etc, etc. We can’t give everyone what they want.

I’m sorry, I really am, but we can’t make everyone happy. Especially since a lot of these groups do not like each other. Look, it would be great if all these different groups could come together in one big rainbow coalition of peace, join hands and sing Kumbaya but it ain’t gonna fucking happen. Stop trying to please and appease all these people and instead try to materially improve the lives of as many people as possible.

Stop trying to achieve perfect justice for every identity group and just focus on making housing more fucking affordable for as many people as possible, and healthcare, and a decent education, and so forth.

How exactly can a political party address what is for men essentially a collection of toxic culture issues?

I don’t necessarily know, and neither does the Democratic party, which is at least part of the reason why Trump just got reelected.

I can see why some young men might feel like the Democratic party is prioritizing women’s issues over those affecting men, especially young men. In fact, it might seem like the Democratic party is not only indifferent to struggling young men, but hostile to them. I can understand why someone might not want to vote for a party that thinks of them as deplorable, pathetic losers.

In theory, geoengineering should slow down the rate of warming while we transition away from fossil fuels. Since the transition to a zero GHG emission global civilization will inherently take more time than we have, to prevent warming beyond 2.0C, we could use geoengineering to buy us some time. In theory, it makes perfect sense, but I am leery. I’m concerned about potential unintended consequences and side effects, but I’m even more concerned that geoengineering will make people complacent, slowing down the transition. Even theoretically, geoengineering only works if we are rapidly transitioning at the same time, otherwise it’s just like throwing more and more dynamite onto a pile, and all it would take is for us to stop geoengineering, for whatever reason, for the dynamite to explode.

On average, pay has risen faster than prices in recent years.

Fuck the average. Incomes vary far, far too much for the average to mean much of anything.

Everyone, from small business owners, to the self employed and independent contractors, to hourly wage earners who have not seen their income increase at a rate that is at least equal to the rate of inflation, every year, have had a pay cut. I can’t say how many of these people there are, but I would estimate they number in the millions.

I smell another cheap cartoon crossover.

By 2030? Not going to happen, then.

You’re right, that would be virtually impossible. I should have said that we need to decommission the fossil fuel powered machines as quickly as possible, to have the best chance of reducing global GHG emissions by >45% by 2030. But, we do need to have all fossil fuel powered machines that have GHG emissions that can’t be offset by things like carbon capture and sequestration, decommissioned by 2050, to meet the Paris climate agreement goals. That gives us a couple more decades, but even that will be extraordinarily difficult.

with urgent, decisive action, we still can avoid unmanageable outcomes

But not just any urgent, decisive action, it must be the right action. The wrong action could be insufficient at best, and actively harmful at worst.

To meet the Paris climate agreement, we must reduce global GHG emissions by 45% to 50%, from current levels, by 2030. To achieve that, we must begin decommissioning all existing fossil fuel powered machinery, from power plants, to manufacturing, transportation, and agricultural equipment, and replace them with net zero emission alternatives, as quickly as possible. I don’t think anyone really knows how best to do that, at least not on a global scale. It’s not something we’ve ever done before.

Even a dead bird can be turned into a sexy Halloween costume.

Aren’t black and gold the colors of anarcho-capitalism?

I don’t think anyone really hates Jo Millionaire. Jo, the master electrician that lives down the street and employs 5-10 electricians from apprentice to employee-master is a millionaire and contributes positively to their local community.

I think that’s true, but some Jo millionaires get rich enough to become part of the billionaire aristocrats. That’s the goal, isn’t it? Don’t most business owners want to grow their business and their wealth, seemingly indefinitely? Maybe that’s why the millionaires are such strong supporters of the billionaires: because they ultimately aspire to be among them. Obviously, most won’t be able to achieve that, but they aspire to it nonetheless.

Consumption of world’s wealthiest people also making it increasingly difficult to limit global heating to 1.5C

We’re not going to achieve the 1.5C target. It’s just not going to happen. Yes, it might (might!) still be physically possible to limit warming to 1.5C, but it’s not economically, politically, or socially possible. The only way we could achieve 1.5C at this point would be if there was some major economic collapse or some other major crisis. There’s no real way we can reduce GHG emissions at the rate necessary to achieve 1.5C while the global population, global economy, and average per person consumption rates continue to grow at their current pace. Some might say it is theoretically possible, but I don’t really care if it is. We’re not looking for theoretical solutions, we’re looking for actual solutions, and I think the actual solutions get us somewhere between 2.5C and 3C.

Sometimes.

Edit: I really enjoyed the third quarter. That was excellent. The rest of the game was kind of up and down.

Well, we won. That’s good. With all the injuries, we need to win every game we can if we want to have a chance to make a run when some of our injured players come back. Still, injuries are not our only problem. Too many drives ended by penalties, dropped passes, and turnovers or near turnovers. Against a better team, those would really hurt us, and could be the difference between a win and a loss.

I thought our defense played really well, overall, though there were some missed assignments or something in that fourth. Ceedee got wide damn open multiple times, and that allowed the cowboys to get back in it.

At full strength, I think we could compete for another Superbowl. But, I’m still not sure how good Purdy is. I think the best part of his game might be picking up first downs with his legs. He’s good against a lot of zone looks, but he struggles against man. He also puts the ball in harms way too much. It didn’t matter in this game, but if we hadn’t recovered his fumble, that could have really hurt us, and he was nearly picked off, again.