What is Joe Biden Thinking?
Climate change threatens to upend civilization. Has anyone told him?
We all know candidates for political office make promises they can’t, or have no intention of keeping. However, Joe Biden’s broken pledge to halt drilling on federal lands stands out as possibly the most consequential ever, as we experience the beginning of massive, catastrophic, climate change. As I write, fires are raging, some of which encompass hundreds of thousands of acres, in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. A massive heat dome settling in threatens to break hundreds of temperature records in western states. The heat wave and extreme drought in the Southwest are the result of a climate change feedback loop. The hotter it gets, the drier it gets; the drier it gets, the hotter it gets.
“No More Drilling on Federal Lands. Period. Period. Period.”
These were the words of presidential candidate, Joe Biden, a promise delivered to voters in New Hampshire, in February 2020. However, in April the president broke that pledge, announcing his administration would resume selling new leases for oil and gas drilling.
The Interior Department stated it planned to auction off over 2000 drilling leases, on 145,000 acres of public land in nine states. Public land, that is supposedly yours and mine, held in trust, so that we will always have places of beauty to fill our souls and for wildlife to flourish, not for the wallets of Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil.
This foolish action will have no effect on prices at the gas pump for Americans, or help Europe in their war jeopardized addiction to Russian gas and oil. They are merely permits. The oil is years away from being pumped out of the ground. The high prices we’re paying are the result of blatant corporate profiteering from misery; literally the rape, torture and murder of people in a faraway land. How about holding them accountable, Mr. Biden? That would be presidential.
What extending leases on oil will do, however, is drive another nail in the coffin called climate change, hasten the massive species extinction biologists are telling us of and create conditions for the collapse of human civilization. Yes, we’re talking about the collapse of human civilization, Joe. Have any of your advisors mentioned that to you?
We have been warned repeatedly, by climate scientists, for decades and done nothing. Some of those scientists, ironically, worked for ExxonMobil in the 1970s. They thought their well-funded research would be used by the company to develop new energy technologies to avert disaster. Instead, their findings, which are known to be truth inside the industry, were twisted as questionable and used as an argument to do nothing. Sophisticated disinformation was fed to the public, by a handful of executives concerned with only with profit, and aided by the best PR and advertising money could buy. A massive campaign was launched falsely claiming dire job loss in transitioning to clean energy. Public pressure and an equally misled and likely oil money corrupted Senate, doomed the Kyoto Protocol in a 95 to 0 vote in 1998. Joe, you were part of that Senate, what’s your perspective today? Kyoto would have been the first global effort to reduce CO2 emissions and avert the catastrophe killing people today.
The ice caps, the earth’s air conditioner, are melting at a far faster rate than climate models predicted, revealing unexpected, vast pools of methane buried deep in the earth. Methane is a shorter lived, but more potent greenhouse gas that will be released with the loss of polar ice. As the reflective ice recedes, heat absorption rises, as do sea levels, adding moisture to hotter air that carries more water, creating ever more destructive hurricanes. Are you aware of this demonstrable science, Mr. President?
Remember Australia, Joe? The Amazon Rainforest?
Canada perhaps?
Let me jog your memory, sir. In 2019 and 2020 Australia experienced its worst drought in decades. December was the driest spring ever recorded. A heatwave broke the record for the highest nationwide average temperature, ranging from 113 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (45 to 49 degrees Celsius).
Wind fueled fires raged and made daily international news. The images were terrifying. They looked like hell on earth. The conservative estimate for land destroyed was 46 million acres, an area the size of the entire state of Washington. Nearly 6,000 buildings were burned to the ground, including over 3,000 homes. Thirty-four people died. The Australian fires consumed more land than even the stunning blazes of the Amazon rainforest in 2019. There, 121,000 fires raged, destroying some of the densest, most magical biodiversity on the planet. Acreage, reduced to smoldering cinders, was equivalent to an area the size of the state of New Jersey. Sadly, most of the fires were ignited by human error. Do you know why, Joe? It’s because indigenous people in the Amazons have been forced to abandon their sustainable way of life, to support the unsupportable, the American fast food industry. To survive, people there must slash and burn their forests to the ground, to raise cows for McDonald’s and Burger King and grow soy for cattle and KFC chickens. Do you think this is moral, commander-in-chief?
In Australia, wildlife decimation was documented in a report commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Three billion animals died, including 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs. Many endangered species were driven to extinction. In Sydney, the air quality index measured twelve times what is considered hazardous to human health. 57% of Australians breathed the smoke. Economists estimated that the bushfires cost over $1.3 billion (U.S.) in property damage and economic losses. Can any country recover from such losses indefinitely?
Let’s not forget our friends to the North. In Canada, the province of British Columbia set record heat temperatures that shouldn’t exist at that latitude. Last year, 1,250 wildfires charred 4,560 square kilometers of bush. This as compared to a ten-year average of 658 fires and 1,060 square kilometers burned. The town of Lytton, home to 1,000 people, was wiped off the map. In November, the hideous fires were followed by epic flooding and land slides, made possible by the vegetation burned away just a few months earlier.
What About California, Mr. President?
Well, that’s Australia, Brazil and Canada. Maybe California is of more interest to you, sir. Last year, drought conditions in the Golden State (now known as the Scorched Earth State) resulted in 8,835 fires that consumed over 2.5 million acres and 3,629 buildings. The 2021 fire season exceeded the record setting destruction of 2020, burning three times as much acreage through July 21. The haze of the California fires grayed the skies where I lived, 2800 miles away in upstate NY.
The problem Mr. President, in case your advisors missed this one, too, is snowpack on the Sierra Nevada Mountains is disappearing from decades of drought, due to higher overall temperatures from that pesky global warming. This in turn is drying up the critical reservoirs of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, water supplies for tens of millions in western states. The Colorado River is under siege, Mr. President.
Additionally, the Glen Canyon dam at Lake Powell also generates electricity for millions in California, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico. Water storage levels there have fallen to historic lows, not seen since the reservoir was filled in the 1960s. Projections show that as early as 2025, water levels may be too low to provide power. No power means no air conditioning. In the face of record setting heat that will only rise as we fail to address global warming, unnecessary deaths will be inevitable. I hope your advisors put that in your calculus.
If human life isn’t compelling enough, let’s talk money. With 76,400 farms and ranches, as of 2020 California agriculture was a $54 billion industry. California is our largest producer and exporter of agriculture, dairy products and fruits and nuts. Over a third of our vegetables and two-thirds of our fruits and nuts are grown in there. Agriculture generates at least $100 billion in related economic activity. In total, California’s economy generates $3.4 trillion a year. As such it is the fifth-largest economy in the world, exceeded only by China, Japan, Germany and of course, us, the good old United States. What happens to California matters to everyone. Can we afford to lose California's climate to your “plan” for more drilling?
By the way, are you aware that many farms are resorting to hand pollination, because bees are disappearing from pesticide use? Pesticide manufacturing depends on fossil fuels, as does chemical fertilizer, which invades our bodies with carcinogenic compounds. No bees means no pollination, which means no food. Will you be campaigning on the merits of a dwindling food supply and cancer, Mr. President?
Joe, climate change is the story of our lifetime and quite possibly our death. This existential threat to civilization and survival is unfolding daily before our eyes. Where is your galvanizing rally cry as we witness the death and displacement of thousands from climate change? As in WWII, why are we not asked to make sacrifices to save each other? Why is there no practical guidance on what we should do? Why are we still subsidizing big oil and encouraging new drilling? Why isn’t the Defense Production Act being used to leverage industry into building life-saving infrastructure? Where is your leadership on the most pressing issue, ever?
End the filibuster and take charge. It’s now or never for humanity. The riskiest action you can take, is not taking risk.