I’m surprised that it’s not going up!
I mean, it is going up. Every year that goes by when that chart is above the 0 mark, is additional damage when the systems are already to their breaking point. We’re still hitting the patient every day with a hammer. We’re not healing him. We’re just hitting a little less hard, but not by much, as the days pass and pass, and he’s already shattered.
So many things got put into place under Obama and Biden that our emissions are actually reducing, and thank God for that. But it’s not enough for them to go slightly down. It’s a sliver of morphine, maybe, once a month as his bones are still splintered.
That’s good news tbh. But undoubtedly the guy will do his best to make that number go up
I believe when we talk about emission related to the US we shouldn’t take into account only the emissions inside the country, but also those created by the US elsewhere, from its military for example. And this is a problem that dates way back, long before the last couple of elections.
The US military is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases of any institution on Earth, generating an estimated 636 million metric tons of CO₂ equivalent (a standardised measure of greenhouse gas emissions) between 2010 and 2019.
If it were a country, this would make the US military rank 47th globally in emissions, ahead of nations like Sweden and Portugal.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. These figures only include what’s known (…)
So according to what we know, out of the 5,000 million metric tons of CO2e we put out every year, there’s 63 million tons that’s from the military. I mean, that’s not a small deal by any means (which isn’t surprising since the military is one of the largest parts of the biggest single human organization on the planet that’s ever existed), but also I don’t see how it’s completely relevant to the idea that we fucked up on saving 1,000 million metric tons per year by letting Trump come to power.
Reposted it just so I could paste this comment, the original was in a place I am banned from:
They’re not the same, but if you look at the big picture, like a livable vs an unlivable biosphere, then the slightly-lesser evil is still omnicidally evil (and helping with a genocide).
Record oil and gas drilling, multi-time failure to codify Roe, redlining, gave away the public option, Manchin’s removed, Bibi’s removed, tricked Warren to betray Bernie for nothing, fascist crackdown on peacefully protesting college kids, ancient dinosaur who’s out of touch. I could go on.
There are other options aside from red and blue, and as a swing state voter, I’ll be taking them.
Biden oversaw the largest expansion of oil drilling in American history. Have US CO2 emissions declined under Biden’s term? He also put up huge tariffs on Chinese EVs, batteries, and solar panels. He chose to put American business interests ahead of helping the environment. A few days ago, as a lame duck, he grabbed headlines by barring oil drilling in a bunch of US waters. But he only banned drilling in areas that the oil industry has no interest in operating in anyway. The coastal areas that actually have a potential for future drilling expansion? He left those alone. All style and no substance; it’s the Biden way.
Him giving a bit of relief to problems he created doesn’t make him good. Him throwing money at corporations doesn’t make him good. Biden has done some good things, but his achievements are overstated, inflated, and are far away from what would be considered good overall.
These are quotes from various idiots, before the elections. It’s worthwhile to study the form of their super passionate arguments here – notably, the extreme emotional tone about it, and also the hyper-focus on particular aspects, and catchy arguments. It sounds like it makes sense. But none of it is “here’s a chart of the overall impact of Biden’s term, and here’s what will probably happen under Trump.” Which would be, you know, the actual picture, like this image.
