I certainly have no objection to private citizens and organizations gathering together to listen to whatever crackpot speaker they choose, but this particular campfire kumbaya anti-Trump rally is being paid for by the Town of Greenwich and tax-dollar-supported Perrot Library. Is anyone over there in Town Hall minding the cash register?

Here’s HotAir’s John Sexton on the speaker who’ll be dining on Greenwich dollars tonight — you’ll be relieved to know that McKibben has added the AI hysteria to his standard stump speech.

The Left's Fear-Mongering Over AI Was Inevitable

“There's a pretty good example of this last point in today's NY Times. Eco-leftist Bill McKibben has an opinion piece adding AI to the number of things that progressives have to feel overwhelmed and depressed about.”

The climate crisis now consists of walls of water sweeping down Nepali rivers, obliterating entire towns in the blink of an eye, and wildfires that wipe out California neighborhoods in hours. And we’re confronting the birth and Bunyanesque growth of a new technology, artificial intelligence, that, according to some of its creators, is fairly likely to kill us all in the near future. We have to sit and listen as men worth unfathomable sums speculate about whether our species will survive their companies’ initial public offerings.
We definitely weren’t designed to cope with all this — our bodies, our nervous systems, our brains. Among all the other dangers these developments represent, they’re simply wearing us out. A lot of us would like politicians to offer, alongside their promises of affordability, even a glimpse of serenity.

“So if you feel down and...Liberal, that's how you should feel. That's how we should all feel. That's his pitch. If you ever wanted a clear peek into the mind of a Harvard-educated eco-progressive here it is.”

A kind of overwhelming weariness and even sadness is increasingly the default state of what, in living memory, were optimistic, get-up-and-go-ish fellow Americans. I think if we had some way of surveying Americans at 3 a.m., we’d find huge numbers of people awake, wondering what new strain might be in store come morning. I don’t think it’s fragility at work — how are we supposed to respond to the now almost daily news that roving bands of A.I. agents are up to mayhem, or that the onrushing El Niño will take temperatures to heights no human has ever experienced?
President Trump’s main response to our A.I. fear is to rename it “superintelligence”...
I hope we won’t choose quietism or escape. I’m hard at work volunteering in this fall’s midterm elections, for instance; we simply can’t tune out.
If we elect serious leaders who can take control of Congress and the presidency, they’ll have to work hard — we need all kinds of reforms to prevent a relapse of the sickness to which we’ve fallen prey...
I’d be happy to listen to Jon Ossoff or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for half an hour every Thursday if either of them runs for and is elected president. And then I’d be happy to think about something else that weekend; civic participation should be a part of life, not something that keeps you up at night.
It's almost impossible to live in America today and not be adversely affected by something the Trump Administration is doing. If you aren't feeling those effects then you are probably not paying attention. Unfortunately, many of our undereducated electorate are doing just that - not paying attention, not reading up on policy decisions, not following the details...or the money. Some people just don't care and don't see politics as anything they need to be involved in or pay attention to. That's partially why we are in this situation we find ourselves in today. Many people just vote a certain way because that's the way they've always voted...that's the way their neighbors vote. But are they paying attention?
The reason many of us, who are paying attention, feel so exhausted is because this is the first Administration in American history whose sole purpose is for destruction, to break down, to dismantle, to roll back environmental protections, science & medical programs at all levels, and to rule as if they were a King...with no regards to the rule of law.
And for the most part, they are getting away with it.
Dealing with at least 2+ more years of this is going to be hard.

(Much) more about this Middlebury College professor New Yorker contributing writer here.

*AI Overview

Bill McKibben’s speaking fee generally ranges from $20,000 to $50,000 for live, in-person keynote events.

Some booking agencies quote a narrower baseline range of $20,000 to $30,000, depending on the specific nature of the event.