EVERYTHING SEEMINGLY IS SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL. Pope: Market capitalism has failed in pandemic, needs reform.
That’s an AP article at Fox Business. Also recently at MarketWatch, another Murdoch-owned platform: We need to act boldly now if we are to avoid economy-wide lockdowns to halt climate change.
As COVID-19 spread earlier this year, governments introduced lockdowns in order to prevent a public-health emergency from spinning out of control. In the near future, the world may need to resort to lockdowns again—this time to tackle a climate emergency.
Shifting Arctic ice, raging wildfires in western U.S. states and elsewhere, and methane leaks in the North Sea are all warning signs that we are approaching a tipping point on climate change, when protecting the future of civilization will require dramatic interventions.
Under a “climate lockdown,” governments would limit private-vehicle use, ban consumption of red meat, and impose extreme energy-saving measures, while fossil-fuel companies would have to stop drilling. To avoid such a scenario, we must overhaul our economic structures and do capitalism differently.
Presumably presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden (I may or may not have reversed the order of the ticket there), economic advisor Bernie Sanders and environmental advisor AOC are reading these articles as how-to guides. As Bryan Preston wrote last year at PJM, after the Democratic presidential candidates’ apocalyptic-themed “climate change” town hall on CNN, “If you like Venezuela, voting for any of them will bring you a whole lot of Venezuela. Thank you, CNN, just for letting these people talk. Do it again next week? Please?”
And it might just happen depending upon President Trump’s health: Biden ready to meet Trump for second debate, campaign says.
(Classical AP election year reference in headline.)