Carbon is a key component of all known life on Earth, representing approximately 45-50% of all dry biomass. Complex molecules are made up of carbon bonded with other elements. We are carbon based life forms. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young got it in their rendition of “Woodstock” in the refrain – “we are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year old carbon and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.” Strangely it seems that Joni Mitchell never wrote the part about billion year old carbon but it is in the CSNY version. Maybe Joni was already upset with carbon and wanted to decarbonize years before Ocasio-Cortez. The fact that an idea like decarbonizing an economy like ours is even entertained is a sign of the deterioration of our politics, education and general milieu.
I talked about this before as an incipient dictator approach to campaigning and electioneering. This concept of control is quite amazing to watch. To hear the banter during a debate that the American people don’t want to watch a food fight but want to know “how we are going to put food on their tables” was a shock. I thought we had grown out of the sad eyed orphan stage of our life where we looked to Washington D.C. with an empty gruel bowl and begged “please can I have some more”. My parents could have done that and their parents may have, but I thought we had gotten to a point not to place to much faith in an organization that can’t keep one prisoner in jail from killing himself, or a sick waif who had been identified as dangerous at least fifty times from killing others.
So we have been hearing for a while that these positions that are wild eyed lunacy everywhere except in the political arena are really meant to secure a base and will then be “modified” after the primary. If the politico is elected we can expect them to be modified again. So positions that are modified at least twice don’t really meet the definition of a position, or at least they wouldn’t in a sane world. Modifying positions can be a sign of growth as you begin to get more information and begin to see other influences come together that change things. But to tell everyone before hand that what you are saying is to feed a rabid base, and that you will change later is an admission that you are a liar, and you hold those whose votes you covet in contempt. The wink, wink, nod, nod, “inside baseball” commentaries that we hear everyday don’t help either. If one steps back and thinks about some of these comments the whole political game is a farce. To make a huge statement that you plan to decarbonize the US economy in ten years is meant to appease a rabid base infers that the remaining voters ae not paying attention to what you are saying now, but will after you get nominated. Then the inference is that they will vote for you after you modify your position and you will be elected. This relies on the concept that the rabid voters will forgive or hopefully not remember your original promises, or it they do they will hold their nose and vote for you anyway. The whole thing is cynical and sad and smells like a big game. It gets better. A political campaign has one purpose and that is to give the politician face time and a platform to speak. Now we are told that one of the major politician’s campaign staff has developed the strategy to keep the politician hidden as much as possible from the public. Think about that one.
How many billions of dollars will be spent on political campaigns that never end? A campaign only exists to set forth positions. If the positions are lies to begin with and everyone knows it what sense does it make? So instead of decarbonizing the US, let’s de-campaign politics. One of these incipient dictators should run on the platform that political campaigns can only commence 3 weeks before an election an no adds or electioneering can take place before the commencement of the campaign. News outlets, consultants, publicity firms and pundits will throw a fit, so my guess is that would be a tough one to not modify. We can only hope. In the meantime watch out for that decarbonization.
