DL Open Thread Monday, Dec. 4, 2023

This story came out a week ago and sank without a trace: The president of the United Nations’ annual climate summit planned to use the talks to lobby dozens of countries and business leaders to increase their use of oil and gas, a fact that’s a lot easier to understand when you know that Sultan Al Jaber, the president of COP28 is also the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Just before the summit started he claimed there’s “no science” that says we need to phase out fossil fuels. At the summit, Al Gore slammed the hosting UAE for increasing its emissions five times the global average last year, while the Biden administration announced new regulations forcing producers to find and plug methane leaks, which should make for nicely arranged deck chairs.

Israel’s resumption of what’s starting to look like genocide in Gaza still hasn’t convinced Biden to suspend aid. Joe is fond of quoting his mother. Didn’t she ever say “Enough’s enough”?

While the slaughter continues there, people in the U.S. are taking out their frustrations on both sides. An anti-Israel crowd staged a protest outside Michael Solomonov’s Philadelphia restaurant, despite the fact that he’s an outspoken peace advocate. This was just a couple of days after an anti-Palestinian partisan in Vermont shot three Palestinian students, leaving one paralyzed. I welcome any evidence that either incident changed anyone’s mind or had any effect on the ground in the Middle East. I suppose the idea is that if they’re fighting, we should be fighting too? I’m still waiting for evidence of this “higher intelligence” our species supposedly possesses. Fucking damn few signs of it.

Remember when Ron DeSantis was the guy we all had to worry about? He just lost three more top staffers as his presidential campaign approaches terminal velocity. I mention this as a reminder that the right-wing scourge of the moment always passes the torch soon enough.

The floor’s yours.