-- tucked into an infrastructure bill. Now it's an infrastructure bill without any climate change content. The "progressives" say they want a "reconciliation bill" also. But do they? Politicians are not to be trusted.

The Biden administration's shift to "bipartisanship" has not occurred unnoticed by the mass media. Unnoticed, however, is the fact that not even the best of these bills will mitigate climate change. To actually mitigate climate change, fossil-fuel production has to end. That's a minimum requirement. It's never going to happen politically with the current arrangement. That's why there must be a revolution.

As I've pointed out before, capitalism is organized to create climate change and to deter and squash all efforts to mitigate it. Fossil fuel production will continue indefinitely under capitalism until all the fossil fuels are used up. "The market" will, rather than making fossil fuels obsolete, protect their business. What is extracted will be burned. Nice rich people using solar panels to power their electric cars will make it possible for poorer people in "developing" countries to consume the fossil fuels not consumed by the nice rich people. Nobody will be mitigating climate change when everybody is spending the whole of their lives chasing "value," defined as that which is to be bought with money.

This, then, is the problem. All claims to mitigate climate change are merely alibis except for those which promise a transition out of capitalism. We therefore need another idea,one to go to when we get tired of demanding things which won't work. That is, if we survive the period in which we continue to demand things which won't work while the "leadership" pretends it cares. Please see my 2016 paper to that effect (Password: AddletonAP2009).

Meanwhile, Brazil looks like it might collapse of drought, searing temperatures are melting the Siberian permafrost (and releasing methane clathrates), and the Pacific Northwest looks to burn to the ground as its temperatures this weekend exceed those in Phoenix, Arizona.

If you want a fun summary of the Biden administration so far, start here: