Is Washington Governor Jay Inslee hot? That is the second-biggest question plaguing the world right now (after who to vote for). The website Splinter broke open this issue with a post last night titled “Someone Needs to Say It: Jay Inslee Is Hot.”
Hate to burst your bubble with a factcheck, Splinter, but the scientifically bulletproof data of The Stranger’s sex survey is very clear: Out of eight candidates put to the test, Jay came in last place on fuckability scale, behind even Biden, Sanders, and Yang. Sure, he’s got two eyes and a big square head, and unlike some people, he doesn’t look like his glasses are a prop to make him look smart, and he’s classically handsome in that college quarterback way, even though he looks like the kind of guy who brings a guitar to parties. Still, most of his own constituents would rather jump in the sack with a man nicknamed “Creepy Joe.”
Anyway! Inslee got his revenge last night, when he had a standout moment responding to Biden’s milquetoast answer on climate change. (Biden wants more charging stations for electronic cars, wants to phase out fracking eventually, etc.). Here’s video of the exchange:
Here’s a transcript:
MODERATOR DANA BASH: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Just to clarify, would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?
JOE BIDEN: No, we would—we would work it out. We would make sure it’s eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those, either—any fossil fuel.
JAY INSLEE: We can’t…
BASH: Thank you, sir.
INSLEE: We cannot work it out. We cannot work this out. The time is up. Our house is on fire. We have to stop using coal in 10 years, and we need a president to do it or it won’t get done. Get off coal. Save this country and the planet. That’s what I’m for.
Bash immediately pivoted to Kamala Harris, who said she would achieve national carbon neutrality by 2030. Hot Jay’s moment was over. Still, climate change got a far amount of attention over the evening. Jay touted his plan (though he did not mention that the carbon tax in Washington state continues to be defeated) and said that environmental justice needs to be a part of the discussion, so I guess he read my Slog post yesterday.
Kirsten Gillibrand said that first thing she will do as President will be to “Clorox the Oval Office” (good one) and the second thing will be to reenter the US in the Paris Climate Accord. She also endorsed the Green New Deal and said she would put a price on carbon.
The question of how to solve the climate crisis next went to Tulsi Gabbard, who did not endorse the Green New Deal but did introduce this other thing that is like the Green New Deal but with less socialism. “As a member of Congress, long before there was ever a Green New Deal, I introduced the most ambitious climate change legislation ever in Congress called the Off Fossil Fuels Act,” Gabbard said. “That actually laid out an actionable plan to take us from where we are today to transition off of fossil fuels and invest in green renewable energy, invest in workforce training, invest in the kinds of infrastructure that we need to deal with the problems and the challenges that climate is posing to us today.” I suppose this act was called OFFA? Can’t say I recall hearing anything about it.
On to Cory Booker, who bragged about his rating from Greenpeace, a very popular and influential group in American elections, and said climate change needs to be tackled in a holistic faction. He was not talking about crystal healing. “We have to go to far advances and make sure that everything from our trade deals, everything from the billions of dollars we spend to foreign aid, everything must be sublimated to the challenge and the crisis that is existential, which is dealing with the climate threat.”
And then there was Andrew Yang.
Andrew Yang, the out-of-nowhere candidate who endorses universal basic income and has captured the heart of people who spend a lot of time on Reddit, got pessimistic and kinda made it sound like there’s no point in trying. Here’s his, uh, plan to defeat climate change:
…the United States was only 15 percent of global emissions. We like to act as if we’re 100 percent, but the truth is even if we were to curb our emissions dramatically, the earth is still going to get warmer.
And we can see it around it us this summer. The last four years have been the four warmest years in recorded history. This is going to be a tough truth, but we are too late. We are 10 years too late. We need to do everything we can to start moving the climate in the right direction, but we also need to start moving our people to higher ground.
And the best way to do that is to put economic resources into your hands so you can protect yourself and your families.
Uh, Andrew? While I appreciate the realism here—no, the US cannot fix this alone, and, yes, some communities will need to be moved to higher ground—lowering carbon emissions both nationally and globally is a moral and practical imperative. Climate change isn’t going to wipe out the species (for a while) but it will make life difficult if not impossible for billions of people on this planet, and that cannot be fixed by giving Americans $1,000 a month and telling them to spend it on stilts.
Resilience and relocation should be a part of any climate agenda, but transitioning to renewables (and fast) is necessary too.
So if you care in the slightest about the future of the planet, the least electable—and the least fuckable—person on that stage last night was Andrew Yang.
