The Problem Of Climate Change... We Are So Screwed

-by Woid

Like other late night hosts, David Letterman has always been an equal-opportunity basher, taking shots at politicians of both parties. But over the past couple of years, it’s become unmistakable where his sympathies lie. There’s a nightly gag called “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches” which runs two eloquent clips from the likes of JFK, FDR, LBJ, and even Reagan, always followed by our little Bushie being an idiot. Talk about an easy target. Even Jay Leno, whose sympathies obviously are with the Replicants-- he’s had McCain as a guest dozens of times, and allowed Schwarzenegger to announce his candidacy on the show-- has no problems plucking the low-hanging fruit of Bush’s stupidity for laughs.
 
But Letterman has gone way beyond that, regularly referring to Our Leader as a “dope” and similar sad but true nouns. And with this campaign, he’s occasionally been making little speeches like the one he did on Monday night.
 
Following the usual opening stand-up with its snappy jokes, Letterman always takes his place behind the desk and talks about the evening’s guests. On Monday, one of those guests was (the horrible) Thomas L. Friedman, there to flog his new book Hot, Flat, and Crowded. Friedman, as NY Times readers know, has recently realized that we’re in a climate crisis, and is now acting like he’s the canary in the coal mine rather than the previously oblivious bloviator he’s always been. Letterman mentioned what the book is about, and then, surprisingly, went off on a long monologue about his own views on climate change. It was jokey, of course, but he kept returning to this mantra: “We’re screwed!” The audience laughed nervously throughout, as if they weren’t sure how to react, but it was clear that in spite of his light tone, Letterman is seriously worried about our future.
 
He moved on to talk about something else, but then did a sudden U-turn and added one more thing: that it’s clear to him that the Replicants are hopeless on the subject, and that they won’t do anything to help us. I don’t think he mentioned McCain or Obama by name, but it was clear what he was implying. It was as close to an endorsement of Obama as we’re likely to hear from him, and it was startling.
 
I stayed tuned when Friedman came on, though I would normally avoid him (until I finish inventing the e-pie, which will let us all pie the likes of him through the TV set). I wanted to hear how Dave would conduct the interview. And in fact, he continued in the same vein, asking Friedman to confirm that the Reps don’t offer any answers. Friedman concurred, saying that their solution is “Drill, baby, drill,” and wittily (I must admit) comparing that to greeting the arrival of the internet by saying “More carbon paper! More typewriters!”
 
After some talk about the massive change in direction we need, Letterman zeroed in on what I think was the moment he’d been setting up all along. He asked Friedman “Let’s say Barack Obama is elected. Will he do it? Let’s say John McCain is elected. Will he do it?” It was like a batting practice pitch, slow and over the plate. And Friedman fouled it off.
 
The obvious answer is “If anybody will, it’s Obama.” After all, he’s come down behind Al Gore’s goals for slashing CO2 levels over ten years, and he’s made renewable energy a centerpiece of his campaign starting way back at the beginning, which seems like 20 years ago. McCain, of course, has been his usual weaseling self, in the pocket of Big Oil while giving lip service to alternative energy only recently. (Another comic, Bill Maher, proposed this New Rule last Friday: over a clip from a McCain ad showing a wind farm, he said “You can’t put a windmill in your ad if you’ve voted against every single bill that might lead someone to actually build one. As long as you’re sending a camera crew to a farm, why not take a picture of actual bullshit?”)
 
But Friedman responded with his own bullshit. “Certainly if you listen to them today, they aren’t preparing the public for that. Everyone’s ready to say ‘I’m gonna throw this amount of money at it. I’m gonna throw 150 billion at it. No, I’ll throw 200 billion at it.’ But it really isn’t, Dave, about throwing money at it... Which part of [this] don’t people understand?”
 
Before Friedman could start quoting Chinese taxi drivers to support his drivel, I was already at the Times web site finding his email page so I could rant at him.
 
What a perfect example of the “balance” of the media elite. Asked a leading question-- I had no doubt that Letterman was prompting him to come down on Obama’s side-- he equates the two sides as if there were absolutely no difference between them.
 
After a commercial break, Letterman took another shot, again posing a McCain vs. Obama question. And Friedman came back with the very same bullshit, saying that “having a vision” for the future is really a hallucination unless you back it up. That was even worse, sounding like a slam at Barack.
 
Well, hey, what did I expect? Friedman’s a billionaire (by marriage), who only cares about making a few more bucks by plugging his latest book of bloviations. Doesn’t matter to him who’s elected. He’ll be just fine.
 
But the rest of us? With attitudes like that defining the so-called debate, to quote Mr. Letterman, “We’re screwed.”