The Atlantic

<em>The Weekly Planet</em>: What 2020’s Bizarre Economy Taught Us About Climate Change

U.S. carbon pollution hasn’t been this low in decades—that’s the bad news.
Source: George Frey / Getty

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Hello! Many things have happened since we last spoke. The most significant of them, for our purposes, was probably that Democrats won the Georgia runoffs, giving the party a Senate majority. Democrats have achieved a governing trifecta—winning control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency—only twice since the advent of modern American climate politics in 1988¹; each time, they have tried and failed to pass legislation to reduce carbon pollution. This is their third opportunity.

But I say probably because this development was not, somehow, last week’s biggest news. On Wednesday, a partially armed mob incited by President Donald Trump attacked Congress with the goal of overturning the presidential election. The insurrectionists killed a Capitol Police officer and injured more than 50 other officers. They erected a gallows near the Capitol building and chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” It was a humiliating day to be an American, and everything we know suggests that it was supposed to be worse.

The march that led to last week’s riot was by a group called the Rule of Law Defense Fund. The fund was

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