Links are at the end.
Yesterday we learned that the Biden administration had approved both an Alaska oil drilling project—which, while it falls well short of what is defined as a carbon bomb (a billion metric tons of global warming emissions across a project’s lifetime)1, will generate nearly 300 million metric tons of those emissions across 30 years—and the sale of five nuclear-powered submarines for use by U.S. Forward Base Australia.2
The administration projects that the ConocoPhillips Willow Project in Alaska will, once operating at capacity, “release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon pollution a year – equivalent to adding 2 million gas-powered cars to the roads.”3
That’s a lot, but extraction companies have more than 400 oil, gas and coal projects around the world each expected to meet the carbon bomb definition—more than three times what the Willow Project will produce—60 % of which are already in operation. The two largest projects by a wide margin, along with 20-some other, relatively smaller ones, are in the U.S.4
The nuclear-powered submarines are said to be quieter than conventional ones—although Israel has purchased several nuclear weapons-capable diesel-electric ones from Germany during the past 15 years, so who knows5—the better to sneak up on the insidious Chinese. Biden did insist that the new Australian subs will never carry nuclear weapons, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t. Insert Jeff Goldblum quote here.
So we have two nuclear powers, the U.S. and Russia, involved in a military conflict already, with the U.S mad-dogging a third in China, and a fourth, Israel, exhibiting increasingly fascist and genocidal tendencies under the latest Netanyahu regime. All of these countries have battlefield nukes, two of them have hypersonic nuclear-capable cruise missiles, and the other two are hurriedly developing them.
Of course if anybody gets into even a limited nuclear exchange, we’ll need those oil and gas projects more than ever. (If anybody gets into a less-than-limited exchange, we’ll all be eating glass so whatever.)
Is anybody stupid enough to do that? Well, we’ve already done it once and look at Japan—they’re just fine, within certain contexts of fine. No big deal, and to paraphrase Madeleine Albright, what’s the use of having all these excellent toys if we can’t use them?
“Today’s Medicaid recipient is tomorrow’s uninsured person.”
That’s Matt Bruenig writing in Jacobin about a common statistical error found in estimates of how many people in the country are uninsured.6
If the current most likely global-warming scenario is that we’ll be spewing billions of tons of nasty particulates into the air across multiple decades, we’ll be needing to address the medical needs especially of the people most exposed to that shit, who are the working poor and, particularly, their children, because they live closest to those kinds of projects.
(The same is probably true of a nuclear war, although that could be more egalitarian depending on the level of enthusiasm.)
Treating people could be problematic if, as is the case today, lots of people are uninsured and many others can’t afford to use the insurance they have. With some millions of people set to be kicked off Medicaid because pandemic rules are ending, that number will be increasing.
The Commonwealth Fund’s 2022 survey found that tens of millions of people last year were uninsured or underinsured.7
Forty-three percent of working-age adults were inadequately insured in 2022. These individuals were uninsured (9%), had a gap in coverage over the past year (11%), or were insured all year but were underinsured, meaning that their coverage didn’t provide them with affordable access to health care (23%).
Twenty-nine percent of people with employer coverage and 44 percent of those with coverage purchased through the individual market and marketplaces were underinsured.
Forty-six percent of respondents said they had skipped or delayed care because of the cost, and 42 percent said they had problems paying medical bills or were paying off medical debt.
Half (49%) said they would be unable to pay for an unexpected $1,000 medical bill within 30 days, including 68 percent of adults with low income, 69 percent of Black adults, and 63 percent of Latinx/Hispanic adults.
Sixty-eight percent of Democrats, 55 percent of Independents, and 46 percent of Republicans said President Biden and Congress should make health care costs a top priority in the coming year.
Emphasis ours. Victims of war, conventional or otherwise, and victims of our carbon policies will require consistent care to address what in many cases will be life-long medical conditions. The more we accelerate global warming, or the more we expand armed conflicts (or both), the less likely it is that victims of either will get the care they need.
As we aren’t doing much to ameliorate the burdens of global warming now, when we’re approaching what most climate scientists say is a tipping point, the prospect that we’ll do so after we tip seems to be receding.
And that’s our prosperity gospel sermon for the day.
♬ If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands ♬
CLAP HARDER, DAMNIT
Today’s pastoral music
Cherry Glazerr, “Stuffed & Ready;”8 KITTEN, “Personal Hotspots;”9 Young Ejecta, "Ride Lonesome."10
Young Ejecta is a synthesizer artist, but the other two are some more traditional form of rock-and-roll and, as our bylaws now require, all the principals are women. I couldn’t find a Young Ejecta live video with good audio, so her link is to an official video from her label.
And that, Comrades, is all there is.
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Take care, be well.