Is the Historic Climate Bill Enough to Save the Planet?

Is the Historic Climate Bill Enough to Save the Planet?

Last week, after more than a year of drama and deal-cutting, the Senate passed a complicated piece of legislation called the Inflation Reduction Act. Its name notwithstanding,  it’s being celebrated as the most important piece of climate legislation in the history of this country. And that is “a pretty low bar,” the staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert tells David Remnick, “because they’ve never really passed a piece of legislation on climate change.” While far smaller than the proposed Build Back Better legislation, Kolbert says, the bill includes significant tax credits that will incentivize the adoption of lower-carbon technologies. But the name of the bill, which seems to recognize that the mass of voters care more about the price of oil than a habitable planet, suggests that the political headwinds have not slackened. “George Bush famously said back in the early nineties [that] our way of life is not up for negotiation,” Kolbert notes. “Well… our way of life may not be compatible with dealing with climate change.” She mentions the recent devastating floods in Kentucky, a red state; “Is Kentucky now going to go vote for people who are firmly committed to climate action? I sadly don’t expect that to happen.”   Kolbert is the author of books including “The Sixth Extinction” and “Under a White Sky.”

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Naftali Bennett and the New Hard Line in Israeli Politics

Naftali Bennett and the New Hard Line in Israeli Politics

In 2013, David Remnick published a profile of Naftali Bennett.  He wrote that Bennett was something new in Israeli politics, a man who would “build a sturdy electoral bridge between the religious and ...

21 Kesä 202113min

Merrick Garland's Impossible Job

Merrick Garland's Impossible Job

Merrick Garland made his legal reputation as a temperate moderate dedicated to keeping politics out of the justice system. Yet in the past few years, he has found himself at the center of two of the m...

17 Kesä 202117min

A Rift over Racism Divides the Southern Baptist Convention

A Rift over Racism Divides the Southern Baptist Convention

Next week, the Southern Baptist Convention will hold its annual meeting. It’s the largest Protestant denomination in the country, and, as the group gathers to elect a new president, it is facing a cri...

14 Kesä 202115min

Naomi Osaka and the Rights of Professional Athletes

Naomi Osaka and the Rights of Professional Athletes

Last month, Naomi Osaka, the second-ranked women’s tennis player in the world, announced that she would not speak to the press during the French Open. The referee fined her fifteen thousand dollars, a...

11 Kesä 202120min

The Early Days of ACT-UP, and Its Lessons for Today’s Activists

The Early Days of ACT-UP, and Its Lessons for Today’s Activists

Sarah Schulman is a novelist and playwright as well as a well-known activist and documentarian. She was an early member of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, and, for twenty years, she and the filmm...

7 Kesä 202117min

Biden’s Plan to Reshape the American Economy

Biden’s Plan to Reshape the American Economy

A semblance of pre-pandemic life has resumed across the country, but the economic signs are mixed, even after the strong jobs report for May. Supply chains are bottlenecked, unemployment is just under...

4 Kesä 202119min

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