Andrew Yang’s UBI proposal will appeal to those who believe we can prevent capitalism from eating the lifeforms who support it. Incremental extraction/manufacturing/waste can’t go skyrocketing on forever. It is wishful thinking to hope it could.

One of the 9 Cuyahoga River fires before the Clean Water Act of 1969.

I’ve been following climate science as it matured ever since I lived in then smog-hidden LA and the evening news showed curiosities like the Cuyahoga River fires. The science says we’ve already blown well past any hope of limiting warming to the 2°C (3.6° F) goal set in the Paris Climate Accords. Returning greenhouse emissions to their pre-industrial revolution level today would still leave 4°C (7.2°F) “baked into” the upper atmosphere. That’s enough warming to ensure human extinction. Our only hope is to rapidly invent some technology that does way more good than harm.

The Green New Deal being pushed by Bernie and Elizabeth Warren at least solves the poverty problem and puts a massive labor force to work trying to find a solution to warming. It’s our only chance to avoid mutually assured destruction.

What will not solve our dilemma is drastically boosting rampant consumerism. Yang’s plan is equivalent to taking an AX (Assured Extinction) to the Tree of Life.