I believe that I have mentioned this before, but sometimes it feels like the entire world has changed, and is still embracing change, while here in the United States, we seem to have entered a mindset, at least politically, of complete and utter stagnation.
The Republicans, ever since Reagan, seem to want to turn back the clock several decades, to at least the fifties. Under Trump, this tendency is even more pronounced.
The mainstream Democrats, meanwhile, seem to keep wanting to drag us back to a time when one of their presidents was popular, particularly the nineties under Clinton, or more recently, under Obama. Presidential candidate Joe Biden, the alleged frontrunner in the Democratic field for the White House right now, keeps touting the accomplishments of the Obama/Biden years, and is apparently running on the strength of that record,
With both major parties, there has been a decided lack of progress. What progress we may have seen under the Obama years - and it was hardly overwhelming to begin with - is quickly and thoroughly being undone by Trump.
European nations have invested heavily in cleaner alternative energy development for years, and it is really beginning to pay dividends. Japan has done the same as well, and China is increasingly developing green technology and filling in the vacuum of American leadership ever since Trump first took office. India is trying to move in a more greenward direction, as well, as is so much of the rest of the world.
Even small and economically modest nations, like Costa Rica, are emerging as leaders in environmentally friendly policies and alternative energy investments.
In Europe, single use plastics are on their way out, as we have come to understand the damage that these wasteful products do to our environment. And as this New York Times article by Dan Bilefsky (see link below) suggests, Canada is also now joining the fight against single use plastics.
Here in the United States, Donald Trump and his administration have been very busy pulling the nation out of the Paris Climate Accord, and weakening environmental laws. Trump seems fixated on undoing any good that Obama did, and so what are referred to as "Obama-era regulations" to protect the environment are also relentlessly under attack.
The whole world seems to have accepted that human activity has indeed damaged the prospects of life on this planet, and that we need to get serious about taking responsibility and action to fight this, and to at least minimize our own footprints.
Meanwhile, we have elected an almost literal clown into the White House, and he is too busy praising and admiring himself and pocketing whatever corrupt money he can grab to give a damn about real problems in the world, thus assuring that those problems grow larger still.
Elect a clown, expect a circus. Shame on us, collectively, as arrogant Americans, too good to admit that we had a role in creating the climate crisis that we now face, and which is rearing it's ugly head everywhere, in myriad ways. And let's face it: no other country has contributed nearly as much to the greeenhouse gases that have accelerated climate change as the United States. Yet, we keep electing irresponsible imbeciles who deny the science behind it, and seem intent on making matters worse, instead of taking any steps to begin to seriously address this. We cannot be bothered to make even the smallest sacrifices. What have we become as a country? No wonder the rest of the world seems to be turning away from American values and a lack of leadership from our end. It is enough to make you believe that we, as a nation, deserve the fall that we are currently clearly under.
I applaud how the rest of the world is, at least, increasingly taking action to develop cleaner energy and government policies.
Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement by Dan Bilefsky June 10, 2019:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/canada/single-use-plastic-ban.html?fbclid=IwAR1GUPE6Rw-of0xvUdFKu8DPA0-aNKp0_yVpk-K7uWPSVT4UQ5vPPCwN0Os
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