I like Joe Romm, the founder of Climate Progress, who has done a lot to attempt to bring attention to the most threatening crisis of our times, climate change, and our political failure to address it. Unfortunately, he has a serious blind spot in his analysis of how our two major political parties view the issue.

Like may liberals, he's either under the mistaken impression that Democrats actually give a damn about taking steps to address anthropogenic global warming and the climate disruption it is causing, or he has chosen to deliberately ignore that Democrats, despite the lip service they occasionally pay the matter to pander to environmentalists while continuing to accept money from the fossil fuel industries and do the least possible to address what is now literally a worldwide "hair on fire" situation, one in which warming is accelerating at a rate unforeseen even by the climate scientists themselves only a few years ago.

This bias in favor of Democrats who are as much to blame as any institution for the currnt failure of our government and society to take climate disruption seriously, is on view in his latest essay posted at Medium, "Warming crushes global records again in 2016", in which he takes dead aim at Trump and the GOP, while failing to acknowledge that the record of Democrats regarding climate change is hardly any better, and in some respects, worse, since they give the impression they actually care about doing something when the truth of the matter is that most of them are in bed with Big Oil and could not care less.

Here's an excerpt from Romm's piece to make my point:

The [worst case scenario in which warming accelerates and causes severe climate disruption] case is especially likely if Donald Trump and his team of deniers and pro-Putin Big Oil shills follow through on his promise to destroy the Paris climate deal, the world’s last best hope to avoid climate collapse. [...] Only very aggressive cuts in carbon pollution could plausibly save our major coastal cities and avoid a trillion-dollar housing bubble crash. And only the unanimous Paris pledge of ever deeper CO2 cuts by the nations of the world can save the America’s breadbaskets in California and the Great Plains from Dust-Bowlification that is irreversible on the timescale of centuries. Turning these regions into Dust Bowls will create endless failed states, violence, conflict, and multiple refugee crises that dwarf Syria’s.

The flaw in Romm's argument are his stated belief that (1) the Paris agreement on climate was a major accomplishment (it's not), and the implication that (2) the Democrats, had Clinton won the White House, were prepared to take the "very aggressive cuts in carbon pollution" to prevent turning much of California and the Great Plains into a Dust Bowl on steroids. In fact, nothing in the record of the Obama administration or Clinton's record as Obama's Secretary of State provides any support for that leap of faith. Quite the contrary.

For that reason, here is the comment I left in the thread on Romm's brief polemic, to make exactly that point - that when it comes to our two major parties and their positions on taking action to save the planet from the catastrophic climate disasters heading for humanity like a freight train with no brakes, there's not much difference between the two when it comes to their actions rather than their rhetoric:

I agree we are in deep shit on climate change. The question remains, however, whether either of our two major parties offers policies that must be implemented immediately if we are to avoid the worst case scenario. The Democrats, for all the talk among some of the more progressive members of Congress, are also deeply beholden to Big Oil. Why else was Hillary Clinton promoted fracking around the globe while Secretary of State? Why was natural gas and clean coal still be touted by many Democrats as “transition/bridge” fuels to a carbon free energy system? In some way, I prefer the outright denial by Republicans when they are in power, because it energizes opposition to the the deniers and activists get more coverage in the media regarding the damage done by the extraction and refining and burning of oil, methane and coal. For all the plaudits we gave President Obama for the Paris accord, the truth of the matter was that the Paris Agreement was more a PR stunt than real progress toward limiting climate change and ensuring a sustainable, renewable energy future. Under Obama drilling offshore and onshore continued at a rapid pace — more drilling and extraction of oil and gas happened under his watch than under George Bush — until the last minute of his lame duck term, when he banned by executive order further drilling operations in the Arctic and Atlantic, a ban too late to accomplish much, since Trump might very well have the legal authority to reverse that order and, as Obama himself noted, drilling in those areas was uneconomical anyway. Until the major media outlets honestly report on the scientific consensus that climate change is not only real, and not only man-made, but also accelerating at a rate far beyond what the scientists only a few years ago predicted (a crisis they still fail to report upon much at all, much less honestly), and the public demands accountability from both parties regarding this crisis, nothing in this country will change regardless of who sits in the White House.

I doubt that it will do much to change the minds of people like Romm, who are embedded in the Democratic establishment, and thus unlikely to wander outside their comfort zone to criticize the Democratic Party. Think Progress (and thus Climate Progress, as well) is "a project of the Center for American Progress (CAP)," an liberal establishment "think tank" whose board of directors and executive staff read like a Who's Who of the Democratic elite. Indeed, CAP's CEO and President is Neera Tanden, a Clinton advisor and loyalist, who often gave good advice to the Clinton campaign (advice it usually didn't follow) but who showed no desire to do anything else but tie herself to Hillary's wagon for all it was worth.

And now, after the devastating electoral defeat engendered by the outdated triangulation strategy of the Democratic establishment, she remains an establishment loyalist. Just check out CAP's current front page today in which it promotes the red-baiting and cold war era brinkmanship that is not only wrong headed and dangerous, but also representative of the Democrats refusal to address the real problems that led to their defeat.

And while I agree that Trump is certainly bad news for America in terms of his policies on climate change, I find it naive, at best, and disingenuous, at worst, to pretend the Democrats would have done anything to reduce carbon emissions significantly under a Clinton administration.

In fact, both Obama and Clinton were avid supporters of the TPP and other trade deals. These deals (as do current ones such as NAFTA) would have permitted corporations to override our current environmental laws and protections in secret tribunals staffed by corporate friendly judges and lawyers.

Not surprisingly, I find the entire premise that Democrats would have done anything to advance the goals of the Paris climate agreement both ludicrous and deceitful. One need look no further than Clinton's choice of Tim Kaine, a known free trade and TPP supporter, as her running mate, and the actions by the Clinton campaign to "steamroll" Sanders' appointees to the platform committee when they tried to get provisions rejecting the TPP inserted. Add to that the fact that at the Democratic National Convention, Sanders' delegates protesting the TPP were aggressively censored, and you have all the evidence you need to know about what the Democratic elites really think about protecting the world from our ongoing climate crisis.

After all, it was Clinton herself, in the middle of her campaign that said "environmentalists need to get a life" in a private meeting with labor leaders. Trump, at least did not hide his opinion of climate change and, more importantly, what he plans to do to promote fossil fuels. Clinton would have delayed implementation of anything to advance the "pledges" set forth in the Paris accord, and lied all the while about her desire to support the planet while she did so. At least with Trump in office, the Democrats publicly will actively advocate for a pro-environmental agenda in reaction to Trump, rather than surreptitiously support an anti-environmental one had Clinton won the Presidential election and their party achieved legislative majorities in one and/or both houses of Congress.

So, Joe Romm, yes, Trump is bad news for the planet. But so are the current Democratic power elites. I will take you seriously when you also publicly come out and demand real change from the Democratic establishment in addition to merely writing click bait screeds against Trump and the GOP. Anyone can do that in their sleep. It takes real courage and conviction to come out against the secret pro-fossil fuel agenda of the people who are signing your paycheck, as well. I'll be waiting.