Most powerful man in the world? Hope not.
As I watched President-Elect Donald Trump become embroiled in a twitter flame-war with China, it struck me that we are indeed entering a period of genuine uncertainty.
I am vaguely hopeful that my general cynicism about US politics and democracy is validated; that the president actually has little or no real power; that Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex will simply keep trundling towards catastrophic climate and resource wars in much the same way its been doing for the past 50 years; and President Trump will essentially become the world’s most embarrassing reality TV show for the next 4 years. The Pentagon’s Court Jester.
Because the alternative… that the guy will actually be responsible for substantial shifts in US policy, that he will set directions and the US behemoth will follow them… that’s honestly quite terrifying. His position on Climate Change alone — if translated into active policy changes — will make him the most damaging president in recent US history. I’m not saying current US policy is anything short of disastrous on this issue… but Trump’s anti-science stance has culminated in threats not just to ignore existing climate research but to veto any further research being carried out by US government organisations. This is very worrying (hint: remove NASA, the EPA and the USGCRP from climate research and you deal a very serious blow to the entire field that will cause lasting damage).
Bizarrely, I find myself sincerely hoping that American democracy is fundamentally broken. That the president is an ineffectual figurehead who will be deftly handled and manipulated by the Illuminati, or the Rockefeller Foundation, or the Gnomes of Zurich, or the Zionist conspiracy, or the the Liberal Elite, or The Greys, or the Milk Marketing Board… to essentially keep everything exactly the way it is.
Normally when a politician gets elected I hope they shake things up; that they challenge the system and turn against the establishment. Not so with Trump. The man is a menace.
Did you read this?
December 19th, 2016 | 10:07am
by Gyrus
Yeah, I’ve been reading a fair bit about the Carbon Bubble (for anyone who hasn’t, the link provided by Gyrus is an excellent primer). But I’m not entirely convinced.
Er… I wrote a quite lengthy comment explaining why I’m not entirely convinced but at some point it started to read like a post-apocalyptic screenplay… so instead let me just point out that I believe we in the wealthy industrialised nations will go to insane lengths to hold onto the benefits we reap from burning carbon-based fuels.
We won’t legislate that away* (IMO), and the price will therefore remain buoyant for a long time to come.
* We may make half-hearted attempts (of course).
December 19th, 2016 | 12:10pm
by Jim Bliss
Incidentally I’m still a stubborn peak-oiler. I think there’s a whole cheap oil / fresh water / climate change nexus about to happen that will be an unparalleled shit-storm.
I don’t know what’s to be done. In fact, I’m kind of convinced we rather missed the opportunity to do anything significant about it. We needed to have started in earnest 15 or 20 years ago. So my horribly selfish question becomes… for how long will my geographical good-fortune insulate me personally (and the people I care about) from the effects of this shit-storm?
The answer is most certainly not “forever”.
December 19th, 2016 | 12:16pm
by Jim Bliss