TOM THE DANCING BUG: What Will Be the Biggest Political Story of 2032?

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• [Walter Guyll]

  Bit too subtle. Throw in a fat cat capitalist smoking a cigar or an anthropomorphic globe with a black eye. 

  • [wysinwyg]

    Apparently it was too subtle.  You seem to have missed it.

    Have you seen the fnords?

    • [SoItBegins]

       ”That planet? ‘e’s not dead. ‘e’s pining for the fnords.”

• [dagfooyo]

  Sadly this is too true to be funny.  Every bill that passes congress might as well be named the “Fiddling While Rome Burns Act of 2012″

  • [Sagodjur]

     More like the “Wanking Off the One Percenters While the Titanic Sinks Act of 2012.”

    • [Kimmo]

      Yeah, I think I like that one more.

  • [greenberger]

    This was going to be my comment, exactly. Except for the Nero reference. I’ve always been able to laugh at pretty much anything humanity has cooked up (no pun intended.) But this time… Jesus, we’re in real trouble here. I wish I could say satire can change people’s minds, but… I feel like we’re fighting a losing battle. Not sure what the fuck could wake people up now- our daily routine is full of actions damaging our future. How do you get a human brain to break from such fundamentally-ingrained patterns? The problem is so overwhelmingly in our face, people don’t want to hear it anymore. “Just let me keep digging my own grave and shut up already,” seems to be the response, even if they agree with the science. Makes me so thrilled for our kids…

    • [millie fink]

      Just let me keep digging my own grave and shut up already.

      I really need to find a good custom bumper-sticker site.

    • [wysinwyg]

       We’ve lost that losing battle.  Shut up, dig your grave, and enjoy the slide.*

      *Just riffing off your post, not intended to be dickish.

• [Smoobly Renfrew]

  Whoa, another real thigh-slapper.

  • [royaltrux]

     Some say that your thighs do that on their own.

• [Ian Kerr]

  I agree with the sentiment here, but this is a bit too alarmist for me.  Or, maybe, I’m just a hopeful 25 year-old hoping that none of these comic panels come to fruition by that time…

  • [millie fink]

    And your evidence to the contrary is . . . ?

    • [max00]

       The worst case scenario in the IPCC report is about 2 feet of sea level rise by 2100.

      So the comic is at least plenty exaggerated (2 feet would cause some problems in D.C., it wouldn’t flood the Capitol Building, or Hawaii).

      • [Robert Drop]

        So the only exaggerated bit is the amount of sea level rise?  Yeah, that sounds about right, unfortunately.

        • [max00]

           Har.

        • [millie fink]

          heavystarch said, “ Luckily these changes occur slowly enough for mankind to adapt rather easily.”

          Jeez, you sound like an oil CEO. 

          In a speech on Wednesday, [Exxon Head] Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt. . . . ”We have spent our entire existence adapting. We’ll adapt,” he said. “It’s an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution.”

          http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/28/exxonmobil-climate-change-rex-tillerson 

          At least you acknowledge in the end that your whole comment is bollocks.

  • [penguinchris]

    I thought I was a hopeful 25-year-old, but I see no reason to hope that anything will substantially change. It’s already too late and they (and you know who “they” are) just won’t see it.

    • [Kimmo]

      As a 38yo, I can look forward to saying, I told you fuckheads so in the bloody 90s, without having to put up with too much calamity, hopefully.

      Although I’m bumming that I won’t be rich enough to afford healthcare when I’ll need it (as an Australian, I anticipate most of the horrible crap from the US to eventually infest my reality, thanks for that, Chicago School of Economics), and I’m really going to miss seafood. And toilet paper.

    • [l337n00b]

      There are absolutely reasons to be optimistic.  If it’s already too late then why are we even having the discussion?

      Recognizing that climate change is a big problem that we should be addressing and believing in our collective ability to find solutions are not incompatible.

  • [wysinwyg]

    “too alarmist for me”
    Helpful hint: cartoons often employ hyperbole.

    • [max00]

       This one works it nearly to death.

      • [wysinwyg]

        If you think so then you’re probably missing the point.

      • [ocker3]

         the death of lots of people, animals and plants is what many people are afraid will happen, and those are the optimists

• [Stonewalker]

  heh

• [xzzy]

  He forgot the panel about Alberta’s controversial legislation making it a crime for Americans to visit the province without documentation certifying they are allowed to be there. 

  • [millie fink]

    Say what now? Really??

• [YoDoe]

  Really there is only one political issue on Planet Earth and this is it.  All the rest is just people flapping their jaws.   Fixing the carbon problem is a social justice issue, it’s a religious issue, it’s an economic issue, it’s a military issue, it’s an education issue.    The carbon economy touches everything, and fixing the carbon economy changes everything.  

  I suspect that to solve the problem, people would have to be smart enough to grasp what it is not in their short term economic interests to understand.   That is way smarter than most people are probably capable of being.

  • [Kimmo]

    When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound good…

    And how about this: even if folks are smart enough to see the writing on the wall, that alone isn’t enough to change their behaviour if it’s part of some kind of addiction. And people can get addicted to anything.

  • [Walter Guyll]

    For some, there is always “only one political issue on Planet Earth.” A generation ago it was  usually runaway population; before that racial intolerance. These problems usually called for draconian action.

    And then there’s those, such as myself, with one general prescription for most problems: encourage wealth.

    The rich will handle climate change quite well. And as the rich prefer a clean, safe and comfortable environment, why not help everyone accumulate more wealth?

    Win win.

    • [Sagodjur]

       Epic sarcasm?

      • [Walter Guyll]

         Promoting poverty is the worst prescription.

        • [Sagodjur]

          Unless your general definition of wealth is different than mine, you seem to be pushing a false dilemma. I would neither promote poverty nor encourage “wealth.” I’d encourage obtaining enough to enjoy the higher tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs without wanting too much or seeking to control others. There’s a significant middle ground between wallowing in poverty and Mitt Romney-levels of wealth. But to imagine the self-interest of the wealthy will bring anything more than more corruption and absurdity seems naive and/or like a libertarian wet dream.

        • [Walter Guyll]

           Sagodjur, is it the rich countries or the poor ones that have cleaner environments?

        • [Antinous / Moderator]

          …is it the rich countries or the poor ones that have cleaner environments?

          The poor countries have worse environments because the rich countries bribe corrupt officials to let them dump their toxic waste there while strip mining the countryside.

          Nice try, though.

        • [Walter Guyll]

           So, we eliminate the corrupting rich or enrich the poor. I vote for more wealth.

        • [EvilTerran]

          And how do you plan to enrich the poor?

          “Voting for more wealth” isn’t an answer, that doesn’t mean anything.

    • [l337n00b]

      Here’s the problem: you are equivocating.  Economists use dollars as a metric for everything, which is handy because it lets us compare one thing to another.  But in the end, those dollars represent real things in the world.  Just because we use dollars as our unit of measurement doesn’t mean that the solution is more dollars.  Think of it this way: You measure your pig pen in square meters, but if you get more pigs you don’t need more square meters, you need more fence.

      Any rational assessment of the current wealth of the world would have climate change on the books as a significant liability.  Therefore mitigating climate change *is* increasing the wealth of everyone.

      So yes, the solution is more wealth, but that’s a tautology.

  • [billstewart]

     There are other issues of that scale.  Nuclear war used to be a popular one, though the military has found that they don’t need that threat to get funding, since terrorist Muslims are almost as good as Commies, and even conventional war is still significant.  Population’s a big issue (not that it’s that far separate from the global warming problem, especially since the best solution for overpopulation has been increasing prosperity so people don’t need to have as many kids.)

  • [l337n00b]

    I think this is a foolish exaggeration.  What would you be willing to give up to mitigate climate change?

    Rule of law?  Racial equality?  Human Rights?

• [BookGuy]

  Isn’t Oklahoma uninhabitable already?  (Ba-dum-dum.)

• [Red Pill Junkie]

  How about the passing of a law that would enforce mandatory use of bullet-proof vests and gas masks in order to be granted entrance to a movie theater?

  You know there are people on the Hill right now who are considering this.

• [Matthew Jones]

  What about the “Statute” of Liberty being recycled to keep pennies in circulation as the ONLY form of currency?

• [silkox]

  I should have commented when I first saw this: I wish bb did a much better job of covering climate change issues.

  • [humanresource]

    Perhaps such threads could be accompanied by links to groups that are actually doing something about these issues? Just a thought… but you know, there are a lot of clever and resourceful people who follow this site, and who knows what they’re capable of if they team up?