I wonder how many fossil fueled flights Sheldon has taken between Rhode Island and D.C.? He could take the train. And all those flights elsewhere, including climate conferences overseas? Has he replaced his fossil fueled vehicles with EVs? Downsized his house? Keep the lights of in his office?
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: ‘Democrats have never taken climate change as seriously as they should’
For nine years, US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat representing Rhode Island since 2007, made weekly speeches called “Time To Wake Up” urging the Senate to take action on the climate emergency.
Whitehouse spoke about the devastating effects of global heating on different parts of the US as well as the world’s oceans. He also warned about the influence of corporate “dark money” undermining American democracy, including by fossil fuel companies resisting action on the climate crisis.
In January 2021, when Joe Biden became president, Whitehouse called a halt to his weekly speech ritual by saying: “The conditions are at last in place for a real solution” with Democrats controlling not only the presidency but both houses of Congress.
In February, Whitehouse reversed himself with his 240th Senate speech on the climate crisis.
The Guardian spoke to Whitehouse in early March, starting with the senator’s decision to bring back “Time To Wake Up”.
“I revived the speech series because I lost confidence in the momentum for a climate solution. There’s a legislation route. There’s a regulation route. There’s a litigation route. At the end of a year of this administration, we’ve made no visible progress on any of those fronts. So I went back at it.”
There’s a “practice what you preach” route, which Sheldon and the rest of his Comrades fail to implement
“The Democratic party has never taken climate change as seriously as it should. It has never put the energy into it that would create a public reaction of support that would then encourage more activity.
The climate cult has spent 30+ years spreading awareness. Democrats have realized that it is popular in theory: putting it into practice is not.
More specifically, we put all of our eggs in the basket of the big reconciliation bill (Build Back Better legislation), and the belief that everything was going to be made right by that. To the extent we needed to keep the caucus together for that piece of legislation, we weren’t going to do anything serious on regulation or on litigation lest it disturb the process. That was not the best way to go. We need to reboot. We need to do what we can through legislation but we also need to really push the throttle forward on regulation and on litigation.”
Tell you what: let’s start with implementing all sorts of climate cult measures on members of Congress and their staffs, starting with disallowing any use of fossil fuels. They’re good with that, right?
Less than two weeks ago, Mayor Eric Adams had a quick response to a heckler who implored him to drop the vaccine requirement that kept the Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving from playing in New York City.
Early warning systems to protect the entire world from extreme weather and climate disasters should be rolled out within five years, according to the UN.
Democrats once expected a thriving post-Covid economy to be their big strength heading into the midterms. Instead, the path to Election Day is littered with land mines for a party struggling to avoid annihilation at the ballot box.
Carbon dioxide emissions increased by almost 5% last year, meaning that the world now has a two-in-three chance of reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming over pre-industrial levels within the decade, according to 
President Joe Biden’s high-stakes summit with other NATO leaders on Thursday will be one of the most scrutinized meetings on the world stage in decades, and could have enormous implications for both the war in Ukraine and the global balance of power.
