Open thread for night owls: No, French protesters aren't opposed to better climate policies
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Like much of the media, Donald Trump used the occasion of hundreds of arrests of “yellow jacket” protesters in France on Saturday to tweet that the month-long expressions of violence catalyzed by an increased fuel tax prove that people aren’t intereOpen thread for night owls: No, French protesters aren't opposed to better climate policies
Like much of the media, Donald Trump used the occasion of hundreds of arrests of “yellow jacket” protesters in France on Saturday to tweet that the month-long expressions of violence catalyzed by an increased fuel tax prove that people aren’t interested in environmental protection, particularly policies to address climate change. He and the shallow media reports have it wrong mistaken. On that same Saturday tens of thousands of supporters of climate action peacefully demonstrated in the streets of Paris and were joined by numerous yellow jacket protesters. Stéphane Mandard of Le Monde wrote that one of the yellow vests was emblazoned with a slogan that seemed to offer one answer to the two struggles: “Make the rich pay for the environmental transition.” Emily Atkin at The New Republic writes—France’s Yellow Vest Protesters Want to Fight Climate Change: Trump isn’t the first to characterize France’s protests as a populist uprising against environmentalism. [...] Writing in The Spectator, Brendan O’Neil praised the Yellow Vests for taking a stance against “eco-elitism.” “This is a people’s rebellion against the onerous consequences of climate-change policy, against the politics of environmentalism and its tendency to punish the little people for daring to live relatively modern, fossil-fueled lives,” he wrote. [...] Everyday people in France want to fight climate change; they are more worried and outraged about the impacts of global warming than their European neighbors, according to the last European Perceptions of Climate Change report. They just don’t want low- and middle-income people to have to pay for solving a problem caused by multinational corporations. According to the report, most French people oppose raising electricity prices, or raising taxes on fuel, as a method of fighting climate change. The French government’s fuel tax—written into law before Macron took office—is exactly the kind of policy citizens have indicated they do not support. But the French do support other climate policies. Significant majorities support the use of public funding to subsidize renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, the report showed. Large majorities also support the Paris climate agreement, contrary to Trump’s tweets. In fact, the report shows that 69 percent of French people support “high economic penalties for countries that refuse to be part of this agreement.” There are lessons to be learned from France’s protests. “People will riot in the streets if you try a carbon tax” isn’t one of them. The Yellow Vest protests show the importance of crafting equitable climate policies that don’t make life harder for people who are already struggling. Those type of policies exist—and if they were implemented, fossil fuels would decline at a remarkable rate. Only Trump and the Wall Street Journal would be rioting then. TOP COMMENTS QUOTATION “A respect for the rights of other people to determine their forms of government and their economy will not weaken our democracy. It will inevitably strengthen it. One of the first things we must get rid of is the idea that democracy is tantamount to capitalism.” ~~Eleanor Roosevelt, Tomorrow Is Now: It Is Today That We Must Create the World of the Future (1963) TWEET OF THE DAY xYou can be fired for saying a lot of things but «Let's destroy the climate and threaten human survival so polluters don't have to be slightly less rich» is definitely not one of them, yet.— LOLGOPð (@LOLGOP) December 10, 2018 BLAST FROM THE PAST On this date at Daily Kos in 2002—Americans hijack Iraq weapons doc: As if the US wasn't already losing the PR war in its mad rush to war against Iraq...Diplomats and U.S. officials said Monday that after an intense lobbying campaign, the United States received an early and uncut copy of Iraq's 11,807-page weapons declaration and whisked it to Washington for analysis. The United States was then put in charge of making duplicates for its four fellow permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, China, France and Russia -- on grounds that Washington had the best photocopying capabilities. [...] The Security Council had previously agreed to leave the report with U.N. inspectors until it was screened for material that might aid others in making weapons. All five permanent members are nuclear powers. The decision upset several of the 10 non-permanent members of the 15-member Security Council, including Norway and Syria, as it overrode what the body had decided Friday. And why would the Americans want first dibs at the document? Because it would allow it to scrub it clean of the names of foreign corporations that helped Iraq build its WMD programs. Of course, there's an easy solution to this whole mess. Iraq should simply leak the document to the press. If the Bushies are insistent on starting this war, then I want to know what role American companies played in building Iraq's arsenal. On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Greg Dworkin and Armando catch us up on the wild (il)legal weekend for Trump. Also, things happened in the rest of the world! But, back to us: People are writing about the i-word! Indicting a POTUS. Maybe the Constitution is a suicide pact after all. x Embedded Content RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube|Patreon|Square Cash (Share code: Send $5, get $5!) Read more