We’re Heading Toward a Very American Climate Tragedy

I try to avoid despair when writing about climate change. Having covered the topic for five years, I’ve learned that a game of telephone shapes what eventually enters circulation. Case in point: Last week, scientists presented satellite data showing that a floating piece of ice off the coast of Antarctica was beginning to splinter. That is concerning and surprising, but not catastrophic. Yet by the end of the journalistic rinse cycle, the concern had become a threat that the entire ice sheet was on the verge of collapse. And we don’t know that yet.

So: I try to avoid despair. But sometimes despair is the right emotion.

The United States is on the verge of a massive, history-rewriting failure. On Sunday, Senator Joe Manchin, the Democrats’ linchpin vote, told Fox News that he couldn’t vote for the Build Back Better Act, the vehicle for much of President Joe Biden’s legislative climate policy.

If that decision holds,the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and not a follow-up climate bill, Manchin and other Democrats are essentially subsidizing Chinese industrial supremacy.