Can the Biden Administration Lead a Revolution to Avert Catastrophic Climate Change?
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2021
⏱️ 22 minutes
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Summary
On his first day in office, President Biden signed seventeen executive orders, including orders for the United States to rejoin the Paris climate agreement; to cancel the building of the Keystone XL oil pipeline; and to impose new restrictions on emissions, drilling, and many other threats to the environment. During Biden’s campaign, he promised a climate-change revolution. Two-thirds of the American public expresses support for government action on global warming, Democrats now control both houses of Congress, and activists are making significant headway in the fossil-fuel-divestment movement and other actions. Bill McKibben joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss how to shift the Zeitgeist and save the planet.
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| 1:11.6 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about politics. |
| 1:17.8 | It's Thursday, January 21st. I'm Dorothy Wickenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 1:24.6 | Yesterday, on his first day in the White House, President Joe Biden signed 17 executive orders. |
| 1:31.6 | Among them were orders recommitting the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement, |
| 1:36.8 | canceling the planned Keystone XL Oil pipeline, and ordering federal agencies to reinstate |
| 1:43.2 | regulations on greenhouse gas emissions, drilling, |
| 1:47.1 | and dozens of other threats to the environment. |
| 1:50.0 | As a candidate, Biden made the environment one of his central issues. |
| 1:54.5 | Though he has said he does not support the so-called Green New Deal favored by the progressive wing of his party, |
| 2:00.6 | he put forward his own |
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