 According to the IPCC's new report on global anthropogenic climate change, climate change is going to be catastrophic and that's inevitable. It's unavoidable at this point, but what we are capable of controlling is how bad it gets. We can still mitigate the worst of what climate change will bring us to an extent, but we still have to equip ourselves with the capability of adapting. So it's really important that we have leaders in power currently that one, acknowledge the severity of anthropogenic climate change and two, actually respond to it with the urgency that is necessary to stop more catastrophic levels of climate change than is already upon us. But unfortunately, individuals like Joe Biden will talk a big game to an extent, but when it comes to their actions, essentially it's indistinguishable from the likes of actual climate change deniers. So this is discussed by Kate Aronoff in a fantastic article for the New Republic where she explains that Joe Biden is effectively a climate denier at this point and he is engaging in what is the new climate denial, which is the soft denialism, a denial of the seriousness of climate change. So she writes, the Biden administration is now on track to approve more oil and gas drilling on public lands, activity that accounts for a quarter of US greenhouse gas emissions, than any administration since George W. Bush. Climate envoy John Kerry has balked at the idea of committing the US to a coal phaseout. Politicians who call themselves climate hawks are still going out of their way to make clear that there's a vibrant future ahead for the companies that funded climate denial, whose business model remains built around burning up and extracting as many fossil fuels as possible. Administration officials, meanwhile, have talked repeatedly about the need to cap warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is climate denial. These politicians don't dispute that the climate is changing, but they are absolutely in denial about what curbing it would entail. Rhetorically, the administration has emphasized electric vehicles, in particular, as being at the core of its climate agenda. With the right incentives, the thinking goes, the US can transform a historically important sector into an engine of green job creation and decarbonization. So what is the White House doing to make good on its promise of sparking an electric vehicle revolution? Last week, the White House announced that it had reached a non-binding deal with the country's biggest automakers that half of their new vehicles would be electric, plug-in hybrid or hydrogen electric by 2030. That target, in fact, falls short of what car companies themselves previously pledged, and the funding for the goal is pretty meager too. Electric vehicles and buses only get $7.5 billion each in the bipartisan infrastructure plan to be parceled out over 10 years in the form of incentives rather than direct spending. There might be $20 billion more over a decade for electric vehicle rebates in the reconciliation package advanced on Monday, but not much else. The American automobile industry, specifically Ford and GM, have known for over half a century about the threat their products posed to the habitability of the planet. They responded by funding climate denial. The Biden administration is offering these companies free advertising and voluntary incentives to change cores. That isn't treating climate change as a crisis so much as a business opportunity for its favorite sectors. And Kate's overarching point is that our planet is going into new, uncharted territory, and we will be experiencing unprecedented changes to the environment due to climate change that is man-made. But yet, in spite of all of this, all of these details and the evidence that we're aware of, while our politics hasn't changed, it hasn't adapted to meet what is necessary to stop not just like catastrophic climate change because that's inevitable but worse than catastrophic levels of climate change. I mean, climate change is already here and we need to at least consider adapting what we're going to do to establish an infrastructure needed to take in the refugees as a result of more cities around the globe either being submerged in water as ocean levels rise or being uninhabitable because they're just catastrophically hot. I just don't think that there is any way out of this mess short of an overthrowing of global capitalism. And I know that that sounds really, really hyperbolic and that's basically a lost cause because it ain't going to happen. But I mean, our lawmakers, they talk about how climate change is essential and they'll tweet out the IPCC, but yet there's just, there's not enough energy that suggests that they're serious about it. Like this is a hair on fire, sky is falling moment and they're not treating it as such. And so it's great to have people in power like Joe Biden who at least don't deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change like Donald Trump. But if his actions are going to be no different or insufficient, then there's no difference. Young people aren't going to be encouraged to come out and vote for Democrats who purport to take climate change seriously if they're not actually going to stop climate change from being, you know, a greater threat to civilization than it already will be. So it's really frustrating. And part of this, I mean, I hate to blame voters, but if you voted for Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders in the primary when we had an opportunity to elect someone who actually took this seriously, you know, you have yourself to thank for basically subjecting future generations to an apocalyptic hellscape. All the liberals in the Democratic Party who chose to reject Bernie Sanders out of pettiness or just fear of the unknown, you have yourself to thank. And if you voted for Donald Trump either in 2016 or 2020, you know, you should never be able to live this down, right? I encourage people to change. But if you voted for Donald Trump, you know, you, you sacrificed crucial time that we didn't have all because you think that the Democrats are like too woke or something or you don't like taxes because you're mistakenly, you know, believing the bullshit about the Democratic Party and that they're far left. I mean, there's so much blame to go around. And ultimately, you know, it's on ourselves. It's on the lawmakers. It's on the, you know, 100 corporations that emit the overwhelming majority of greenhouse gas emissions. But either way, at the end of the day, you know, no matter how much blame there is to spread, it doesn't matter if we're all extinct at the end of the day. It doesn't matter. I mean, come 2100, come 2200. Who knows if the species will even exist by then? I mean, sure, I think that we're not going to go extinct by 2200. Obviously, I mean, I'm not going to be here to determine if we survive or not. But, you know, still even if we survive, the amount of devastation that climate change is certainly going to cause at this point. I mean, we have to acknowledge that there are people that are to blame for this, you know, and the people to blame are still in power. And the people who put them in power are still voting to put them in power. And they're to blame for this too. I think there's a lot of blame to go around. And I think that people should feel guilty because guilt should be a catalyst for change. If you feel guilty, hopefully you'll feel inclined to stop doing bad things, stop electing politicians who don't give a fuck about future generations, stop electing politicians who claim to care about climate change, but then do nothing when they get an office. Like if you feel guilty, make that be the spark that, you know, mobilizes or encourages you to mobilize and get involved and stop, you know, stop doing dumb things that, you know, jeopardize the future of the species. And I'm just rambling, but I mean, it's climate change. You know, so feeling this existential doom is important because if people don't take climate change seriously and at least feel somewhat worried or guilty, feel something, then nothing will ever change. So to feel anything at this point, in my opinion, is a step in the right direction. Because if we can get people to actually pay attention and stop feeling completely apathetic about climate change, then maybe just maybe we can start to take action to, you know, equip ourselves with the capability of surviving this absolute catastrophe that is now inevitable.