The frustrating thing about the handling of COVID is watching the climate change story play out at lightning speed. Deny the problem exists, politicize the science, eventually admit the problem but say there's nothing we can do about it, etc.

It's almost like there is a playbook for this that just gets applied to things like asbestos, cigarettes, lead gasoline, DDT, sugar, climate change, COVID ...

There's no playbook here. It may look like there is, because we keep seeing the same thing happening, but it's not coordination - it's the outcome of everyone caring primarily about their own personal interests over those of everyone else. We've built an economy and a culture that demands this kind of selfishness.

COVID-19 gives solid evidence that there is no playbook involved: in terms of political and business processes, the pandemic happened in a flash. And yet every country mismanaged the reaction in roughly the same way, for roughly the same reason. This wasn't coordinated, it's the default way we fail to solve global problems.

I think COVID is different. There have been coordinate disinformation campaigns emanating from vested parties in the past. Tobacco and fossil fuel companies actively invest in tamping down regulation and sponsoring fake science to support their goals. There is no pro-COVID lobby in any corner of the world who wants people to die to protect their profits. Trump has made some ham-fisted attempts to pretend one exists, but in general companies big and small are treating it as very real and very dangerous to their bottom lines. Small businesses and brick and mortars are pushing to relax restrictions with the express intent of trading health for wealth. I see a really disturbing trend among American Conservatives to just decide there's nothing to be done about the pandemic and whoever dies, dies.

If anything, I think the US election has emphasized how the idea that humans can come together, globally, to solve a problem that will require worldwide shared sacrifice for benefits that are largely at least one lifetime in the future is a pipe dream. Humans (and in fairness, most creatures) are fundamentally too selfish as a species to implement this kind of collective action.

Unstoppable severe climate change is coming, if not already here. Emissions continue to go up and up and up every year, the best you get is a slight pause in a year, while we need emissions to go to zero, fast. At this point the only slight hope is geoengineering, and even then I wouldn't bet on it.

How has the US election emphasized that?

It's not "half the country". In a recent Fox news (yes, those Fox news...) poll, they found that 72% of people were either "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about climate change.

What is true that none of the presidential candidates is taking the crisis seriously: Trump denies it, Biden pays a bit of lip service to it but has done very little about it with Obama, and will probably not do much about it if elected.

Noting down your concern on a poll isn't the same as taking action - even the least action, voting for someone who is not a climate change denier, was beyond half the country. And if this sort of political action is what 73% produces? Then that figure isn't worth the poll paper it's printed on.

By that argument, both halves should have voted for the Green Party candidate, Hawkins. I guess the half-the-country you like isn't taking climate change that seriously, either, right?

Exactly. The poll does not dictate any action - you might as well ask people if they like puppies. Sure, most people like having an environment, but they also like sitting in an air-conditioned SUV on their trip to Wal-Mart to buy a gallon of milk. Polls like this are how you get people who are absolutely in favor of better public education, but every bond measure for the last 8 years has failed. They're useless as a policy dictating measure.

Saying they take it seriously and then putting parochial concerns ahead of it at the polls every single time. And there's a vast gulf between Obama/Biden not doing enough while Trump and the GOP are running us backwards as fast as they can. Just look at the last two administrations positions on vehicle mileage standards. Obama pushed for a huge increase and got car manufactured onboard pretty enthusiastically. Trump just undid it completely and the auto companies are actually upset. That's just unconscionable.