Paul Krugman wonders if Obama can get it together to act in time to avert economic near-term disaster or long-term ecological catastrophe: If not now, when?

[Op-Ed Columnist - Boiling the Frog - Creeping Disasters for the Economy and the Planetby Paul Krugman]

”[…] if the consensus of the economic experts is grim, the consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models — not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome — is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time.

But it isn’t, because climate change is a creeping threat rather than an attention-grabbing crisis. The full dimensions of the catastrophe won’t be apparent for decades, perhaps generations. In fact, it will probably be many years before the upward trend in temperatures is so obvious to casual observers that it silences the skeptics. Unfortunately, if we wait to act until the climate crisis is that obvious, catastrophe will already have become inevitable.

And while a major environmental bill has passed the House, which was an amazing and inspiring political achievement, the bill fell well short of what the planet really needs — and despite this faces steep odds in the Senate.

What makes the apparent paralysis of policy especially alarming is that so little is happening when the political situation seems, on the surface, to be so favorable to action.

After all, supply-siders and climate-change-deniers no longer control the White House and key Congressional committees. Democrats have a popular president to lead them, a large majority in the House of Representatives and 60 votes in the Senate. And this isn’t the old Democratic majority, which was an awkward coalition between Northern liberals and Southern conservatives; this is, by historical standards, a relatively solid progressive bloc.

And let’s be clear: both the president and the party’s Congressional leadership understand the economic and environmental issues perfectly well. So if we can’t get action to head off disaster now, what would it take?”

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And it makes me wonder why we, the people, aren’t screaming at the top of out lungs, demonstrating, pounding the tables, picketing. People seem happy to mildly whine. It’s like the majority of people in emergency situations, like a train wreck, or being taken hostage: they freeze, go limp, dormant.

We can’t afford that now, and we can’t afford to let Obama and company delude us with sideshows, like posturing with Iran, or meeting with Putin on arms control. Sign a new treaty and get it over with: we’ve had nuclear weapons pointed at Russia for over 50 years, and vice versa, and no one’s blow up anything. Can we get back to the imminent destruction of civilization on this planet, please, Mr President, or at least the 3M+ citizens who are going to loose their homes?