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It's humanity's game changer but we continue to stick our collective head in the sand.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-largest-polluters-strike-deal-to-curb-global-warming/
The United States will cut emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, a target the White House declared can be met "under existing law"—that is, without the need for Congress to pass legislation. China will peak its fast-rising emissions by 2030 at the latest, while also increasing its share of non-fossil energy to 20 percent in that same period.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/07/1685881/developed-nations-must-cut-emissions-in-half-by-2020-says-new-study/
As a result, the report finds that developed countries must reduce their emissions by 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 if we are to have a medium chance of limiting warming to 2°C, thus preventing some of climate change’s worst impacts.
...I had thought that the Great Recession would do that, but it hasn't. My guess is, it will take something like another stolen election, but even more blatant than 2000--something that shows practically everybody who isn't a member of the media class that the system is completely rotten. This is a horrible thing to say--waiting for a catastrophe--but it's how I see it. The fact is, the odds are against American democracy in the long run. A slow descent into a Disneyfied banana republic is much likelier...
but there is something harder to grasp that overlays it all. Keep thinking - I sure will!
that the rest of the state and country aren't? 
at its refinery a few years ago. and there is a tradition of liberalism in the bay area. the black panthers were founded here...the free speech movement...the hippies...bill graham and the music scene. i love living in a area with a bunch of raving liberals and progressives 
i will add: the chevron attack ads were really poorly made, and they went after THE PEOPLE's candidates: they are actually :gasp: progressive democrats 
you know, the kind some people claim cannot win.
here's precisely why the people want them to govern...not chevron or wells fargo:
Richmond's pioneering eminent-domain threat
Carolyn Said Updated 9:50 am, Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Taking a controversial plunge into uncharted waters, Richmond is poised to become the first city in the country to invoke eminent domain to address its foreclosure crisis.
"After years of waiting on the banks to offer up a more comprehensive fix or the federal government, we're stepping into the void to make it happen ourselves," Mayor Gayle McLaughlin said Tuesday.
On Monday the city sent letters to 32 banks and other mortgage holders offering to buy 624 underwater mortgages at discounts to the homes' current value. If the offers are spurned, the letter said Richmond may use the power of eminent domain to condemn the mortgages and seize them, paying court-determined fair market value.
The city would then help the underwater homeowners refinance into mortgages in line with their homes' current worth. City leaders said the goal is to stabilize the community and prevent foreclosures
Wall Street vehemently opposes the untested idea, claiming it violates property rights and would have a chilling effect on future mortgages in Richmond and could lead to years of costly litigation.
"We think it is unconstitutional, illegal and very bad policy," said Chris Killian, managing director of the Securities and Financial Markets Association, a trade group representing banks, securities firms and others.
Banks said future mortgages in Richmond would likely be much more expensive to compensate for the extra risk that the city could seize them. McLaughlin characterized that as "redlining" and said the city would fight it.
"Mortgage lending is a business, and lenders and mortgage investors have to say what kind of return they want and how much risk" they can tolerate, Killian said. "That's just the way markets work. If you buy a car and they say the brakes don't work all the time, would you pay full price?"
Wells Fargo, one of the largest mortgage holders in Richmond, said in a statement: "We believe this approach will harm mortgage investors, the housing market, and the communities and borrowers that its proponents claim they would be helping."
http://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Richmond-s-pioneering-eminent-domain-threat-4695857.php
One of my favorite human beings lives just a few blocks from the refinery. Imagine my surprise when I clicked on the teevee that evening and saw that instead of Big Bang Theory.
it's been true since, forever. Watching this for decades. hanging on to strands of "hope" since Jesse Jackson's run in the 80's.
I recently read The Tiger, very revealing look at the political machinations centered in New York's infamous "Tammany Hall from 1786 to 1961..
The existence of Tammany Hall itself may have "fallen"over a half century ago, in terms of the building and individuals, it continues to this day.
In other words, "democracy" was a failed experiment since it's inception.
Liberal is a term that many run from, but I am feeling fearless this morning, so here goes:
"I am MissDeeds and I am a proud liberal!"
I feel better already. Hang in there cali.
K&R
Done. I slammed you with an R!
That one prayer, The Serenity Prayer. The Genius prayer makes me LOL. But that serenity one has a wonderful way of allowing me to focus on what I can do as opposed to just being frustrated with what I can't. The Genius one, well like I said it makes me lol. 
Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things that I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Genius Prayer
God grant me the courage to change the things I can not accept,
serenity to accept the things I just changed,
and the wisdom to know that I am different.
BTW all my therapists have field day with me on that whole accepting thing. Yeah, I am probably nuts but that's ok, I usually have harmless fun. 
Go to a right wing council meeting and protest what the right wing city council is doing, go to the school board that wants to rip pages out of biology books, continue to make the facts be known, and eventually the media and the reporter will have to report what is going on, some one will pick up on this and get the real story and if not , rent a bill board, stand on a street corner with others that want change for the better, it only takes 1 hour or less
do something, its called the ground game and its time to take the ground and hold it and outflank these right wing jerks
, when civil rights for women or ethnic and racial minorities-to say nothing of LGBT rights, the accomplishments of which you so casually dismiss-were not even on the radar? When the party willingly and enthusiastically "purged" all socialists and Communists (late 1940s) during the height of the Cold War?
As far as corporate control of the political process goes-that is nothing new. Read about the Gilded Age. The only reason that that was ever counterbalanced was because of decades of labor organizing that was outside the formal electoral process. The primary beneficiaries of unions were white men, who enjoyed higher wages than working-class women and minorities for a long time. Ever notice how it was RACE that fractured the Democratic Party in the 1960s, along with issues relating to sexuality and gender roles (white evangelical Protestants began organizing politically as a Republican-voting bloc soon thereafter; many of them had been Democrats, but that changed when the Democrats became associated with feminists, the pro-choice movement, the gay rights movement, as well as expanding civil rights for racial and ethnic minorities). And of course, who could forget all the support the Democrats lost over Vietnam?
Ever notice that Reagan was elected with a lot of votes from white people-particularly, white people with higher than average incomes? That wasn't a coincidence. The people who voted for Reagan voted for anti-union, pro-corporate, anti-choice, anti-gay, and anti-worker policies-even though, amazingly, many of those voters said in exit polls that they did not support Reagan's expressed policies!. But it was never a majority of people, even if it was a majority of voters. Turnout wasn't particularly high in the 1980s.
A lot of what we are dealing with now has to do with this history. Political and social history is never neat or clean, and progress is NOT linear. There's no guarantee that progressive policies will win. Don't take anything for granted.
Most of the money. You are safe by a long shot.
I could add more myself. As a very long time activist who felt if enough people came together "we the people" were able to have our voices heard, and we DID have some success. Plus the Democratic Party had a lot more unity even though there was a lot of diversity.
Today, it's almost impossible to to get much attention regardless of what we do. I know this country has gone through tough times, revolution, upheaval and a long list of situations, but too many people just aren't paying attention. However, that's not the worst of it. For me it's amazing how LITTLE people today simply don't have a clue about how our government works, don't know who the Vice President is, any Supreme Courts Justices, how the House works vs the Senate and then what a President can and can't do. On the state and local level it's even worse, many don't even know who their Governor is, which party controls legislation, don't even know who represents them nationally or in their own district at the state level. Many have no idea who their mayor is! AND, they don't even care! I've had to give up trying to educate others, too many just don't have enough time to listen. We know this list could go on and on ad infinitum, but the real slap in the face is when they ask you "don't you ever have anything else to talk about?"
As the Repukes play the game, if you tell a lie over and over and enough, there comes a time they believe the lie as TRUTH!
Throw in how many of us feel that the Democratic Party we belong to really won't fight back! We really are an Oligarchy, which is another kettle of fish... people don't know what an OLIGARCHY is!
So it seems we're dealing with a very uninformed, indifferent society which is EXACTLY how politicians want it to be. We can blame our own citizens for this ignorance, but our leaders who are elected by so few people should be doing their real job. They should be promoting democracy, but they really want to keep people listening to the lies so they can keep playing games and playing hooky from THEIR CLASS room! Their greed knows no bounds.
Really didn't intend for this to be so long, but this is just the tip of the iceberg! So I agree with you and am one very, very fed up citizen who would love to "believe" that the whole of America is included and those in power give a rat's ass!
Minimum wages in this country have never gone down by an act of law. Not under Ronald Reagan, not under George W. Bush, never. You can complain that they slip against inflation while governments fail to act, but that's a pretty weak complaint to justify apocalyptic moaning.
And marijuana legalization, my God, is there amnesia in the air? It was the linchpin of the War on Drugs - the "hippie" symbol that caused Nixon to launch persecutions nationwide, and the subject of Reagan's demented propaganda campaigns telling teenagers that if they smoked a joint they'd be turning tricks on the street for a heroin fix by the next weekend. The whole War on Drugs house of cards has begun to collapse.
Yes, Republicans are in control of Congress - which gives them the ability to continue obstructing progress a little while longer, nothing more. They face demographic annihilation and they know it.
Yes, there is greater corporate control now, whereas in the past we were controlled by far more delightful characters - the military, the Mafia, the Ku Klux Klan, and the WASP prep school elite.
You think we're worse off now because corporate executives buy favorable policies than we were when policies were largely fictional because real day-to-day authority was held by gangsters, terrorists, and soldiers? Think our politics are more exclusionary than when they were controlled by Mayflower descendents who considered anyone whose family came to America after 1750 a "suspicious immigrant"? Any of these "banksters" we get so hyperbolic about throw anyone in a river in pieces or firebomb the property of people who are late on payments?
As for energy, you're talking about an instant slice in time, and I'm talking about trends. You tell me what this graph says to you about the future:
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Solar is not a competitor for fossil fuels. It's the asteroid coming for the dinosaurs.
But you are absolutely correct. To put it in my favored American slang, "we're fucked".
Screwed, Blued, and tattooed!
Meanwhile don't be too glum. We've come a long, long, LONG way since 2008, more than we know, and we stand a good chance of winning the WH again in 2016. Demographics are on our side whether we get voting fixed or not but we'll turn blue a lot faster if we do.
And more voters tried to vote than they're telling us, and more would have, had they not been disenfranchised. Don't believe the lies you hear on TV. The electorate is not stupid, just dis-empowered. That will change.
Every word of your OP rings true from beginning to end.
