Top Tips for Touring the Apocalypse

PRESENTED BY DREAMS OF FIRE AND PLASTIC CLOUDS

Legislators, get your amendments in for the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act by 4 pm and the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act by 5 pm today!

The House originally wasn’t scheduled to be in session until October 17th, so there aren’t many House hearings this week (Ways and Means is marking up a small wildfires-and-East-Palestine disaster relief bill tomorrow). Floor votes on amendments to the energy and water appropriations bill are expected to begin this afternoon.

The House is also going to vote today on Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) attempt to oust House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for not shutting down the government, and all the House GOP are trying to put Green New Dealer Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) in jail for going through an emergency door, so if you care about high-school-grade politics, that’s sorta fun, right?

Gotta love the New York Times for its coverage on how to enjoy your time on the Titanic as the deck chairs are being rearranged. Tour the Climate Apocalypse!

Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball and The Big Short, seems to have put his brain in a jar for his new book about the Ponzi crypto-grifter Sam Bankman-Fried, who spent millions trying to take over the Democratic Party with anti-climate candidates. Lewis’s new book, Going Infinite, is stuffed with clunkers:

As longtime Hill Heat readers know, the Judgmental Monkey ruled against Bankman-Fried back in April 2022. Mikey, you should have subscribed.

If you happen to be working on a tech-billionaire hagiography and need some help figuring out whether they’re going to save the planet, let us recommend a Hill Heat subscription.

Tomorrow, there will be a “gala” at the National Portrait Gallery celebrating the fifty-year anniversary of one of the most successful Koch-backed climate-denier schemes, the American Legislative Exchange Council. ALEC connects corporations and right-wing billionaires with Republican state legislators, pushing out model legislation across the country.

Thanks to vigorous campaigning by activists, particularly against ALEC’s stand-your-ground and anti-climate bills, the organization is a shadow of what it was ten years ago, when companies like Amazon, State Farm, and Procter & Gamble, and Google, Microsoft, and Facebook were active members.

However, ALEC is still backed by corporate trade groups which include those companies, such as PhRMA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the tech group NetChoice. The few major companies willing to directly sponsor Wednesday’s wan affair include Alibaba, United Parcel Service, and the tobacco giants Philip Morris and Altria.

The ALEC Extinction Watch protest rally outside ALEC’s party, organized by Greenpeace, People for the American Way, and others will probably be a lot more entertaining.

ALEC’s star has been eclipsed by organizations such as the Republican Attorneys General Association, a similarly extremist group backed by giants like Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot.

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on airborne microplastics in cloud water.”

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. Don’t touch it.”

“Today it is almost physically impossible to buy olive oil.”

“I changed his name so I could be as honest about him and his nipples as possible.”

Thanks for subscribing and spreading the word. If you’ve got job listings, event listings, or other hot news, I want to hear it. Connect with me—@[email protected] and @climatebrad.hillheat.com on BlueSky

1 What, are these huts underwater?

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