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The green party has such an opportunity in rural areas. I've never understood why they refuse to see any amount of trade-off. Living in a rural area for a major

The green party has such an opportunity in rural areas. I've never understood why they refuse to see any amount of trade-off. Living in a rural area for a majority of my life, I can tell you that (not to make a no-true-Scotsman argument, but) most people are very concerned about the environment. When you are constantly surrounded by reminders that the world is changing, it is impossible to refute that fact. That many still deny global warming while accepting that things are getting worse seems like bickering over semantics at this point.

netcan 5y ago
If you look outside of the US, Green parties can develop some tension between city and country greens.
InitialLastName 5y ago
Doesn't denial of anthropogenic climate change, rather than simply being a semantic issue, undermine support for any attempt at mitigation?
- Loughla 5y ago
  I don't think so. Again, that's focused very much on semantics. If you dive in and really ask questions, outcomes are seen as the same, even if inputs are seen as different. Pollution is a problem, in their views, even if it isn't causing global warming. The individuals (who I would note are actually very much in the minority) who steadfastly believe global warming isn't real, still identify that changes in species and/or weather patterns are happening. It's not a stretch from there to mitigation. While they may not believe global warming exists, they do still understand that we need to make changes to our consumption, travel, and lifestyle patterns in order to ensure their children and grandchildren can have a planet worth living on. I keep stressing global warming, because, in my experience, these individuals do not talk about climate change. They talk about global warming and how it's not a thing, even thought they identify that the weather is wetter and hotter sooner, then drier for longer periods of the year.
  - runako 5y ago
    Thank you for the thoughtful explanation. Do you have any explanation for why these folks pretty reliably choose representation that pledges to relax environmental protections? Is it possible that they are concerned about the environment, but not concerned enough to matter at any practical level (e.g. given their expressed actions)?
    - Loughla 5y ago
      Money, and a lack of understanding of the tragedy of the commons. That's the pure and simple of it. I need to be able to exploit [resource a] to be able to feed my family. For example, take fertilizing a field or crop. So it runs off into the water. Well, that has never been a problem on my farm. I don't have algae blooms and my pond is fine. They don't seem to understand that they are just one small part of the larger picture of all of the nitrogen and phosphorous flowing into streams, rivers, lakes, etc. Source: The Obama era watershed protections that everyone was up in arms about. They are very willing to express their concerns in their own backyard. Whether that is fostering native species, eliminating invasive species, or even adjusting farming/other practices to ensure the sustainability of their own soil. It just falls apart when it translates into policy across the board. I feel like it's a lack of common definitions and something basic, but I don't really get it, to be honest.
      - InitialLastName 5y ago
        I think this somewhat misses that pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are different issues with distinct (sometimes opposed) mitigations. Pollution, like runoff and smog can be _much_ more locally tangible, both in the "i can see that we're putting something into the air/water that wasn't there before" sense and the "I can see the damage this is causing relatively directly". Greenhouse gas emissions is much more ephemeral, since things like carbon dioxide are natural parts of the atmosphere and are released to some extent by natural processes, and they only have a tangible effect on a global scale and over long time-spans.
        5y ago
mywittyname 5y ago
Maybe they are concerned in an abstract sense, and definitely they are when it negatively impacts them. The problem is they offer little to no support for EPA, and red states have been gutting their state EPAs (or putting into place shills for mega-polluters) for decades now, because they are "bad for business". A few years ago I was reading about an issue with the cleanup of a coal fired power plant. The power plant owners collected a cleanup surcharge for the entire life of the plant, and put it into escrow. It was supposed to be used to handle site cleanup after decommissioning. For some reason, the company was allowed to sell the site, escrow, and all liabilities to some random 1-person LLC. This person then spent all the escrow funds paying companies he owned to do none of the work properly, and now the people in the region who are dealing with the effects of this botched cleanup have no recourse. Coal retention ponds are nasty, nasty things and because they weren't properly dealt with, its leaking into the water supply.
- Loughla 5y ago
  Yes. And the common thread is, it's a problem, but only when it impacts my life. It's like there's a vague unreality in that we are all connected, and what impacts one of us will eventually impact all of us, or an unwillingness or inability to be truly empathetic. I don't really know, to be honest.

netcan 5y ago

If you look outside of the US, Green parties can develop some tension between city and country greens.

InitialLastName 5y ago

Doesn't denial of anthropogenic climate change, rather than simply being a semantic issue, undermine support for any attempt at mitigation?

Loughla 5y ago
I don't think so. Again, that's focused very much on semantics. If you dive in and really ask questions, outcomes are seen as the same, even if inputs are seen as different. Pollution is a problem, in their views, even if it isn't causing global warming. The individuals (who I would note are actually very much in the minority) who steadfastly believe global warming isn't real, still identify that changes in species and/or weather patterns are happening. It's not a stretch from there to mitigation. While they may not believe global warming exists, they do still understand that we need to make changes to our consumption, travel, and lifestyle patterns in order to ensure their children and grandchildren can have a planet worth living on. I keep stressing global warming, because, in my experience, these individuals do not talk about climate change. They talk about global warming and how it's not a thing, even thought they identify that the weather is wetter and hotter sooner, then drier for longer periods of the year.
- runako 5y ago
  Thank you for the thoughtful explanation. Do you have any explanation for why these folks pretty reliably choose representation that pledges to relax environmental protections? Is it possible that they are concerned about the environment, but not concerned enough to matter at any practical level (e.g. given their expressed actions)?
  - Loughla 5y ago
    Money, and a lack of understanding of the tragedy of the commons. That's the pure and simple of it. I need to be able to exploit [resource a] to be able to feed my family. For example, take fertilizing a field or crop. So it runs off into the water. Well, that has never been a problem on my farm. I don't have algae blooms and my pond is fine. They don't seem to understand that they are just one small part of the larger picture of all of the nitrogen and phosphorous flowing into streams, rivers, lakes, etc. Source: The Obama era watershed protections that everyone was up in arms about. They are very willing to express their concerns in their own backyard. Whether that is fostering native species, eliminating invasive species, or even adjusting farming/other practices to ensure the sustainability of their own soil. It just falls apart when it translates into policy across the board. I feel like it's a lack of common definitions and something basic, but I don't really get it, to be honest.
    - InitialLastName 5y ago
      I think this somewhat misses that pollution and greenhouse gas emissions are different issues with distinct (sometimes opposed) mitigations. Pollution, like runoff and smog can be _much_ more locally tangible, both in the "i can see that we're putting something into the air/water that wasn't there before" sense and the "I can see the damage this is causing relatively directly". Greenhouse gas emissions is much more ephemeral, since things like carbon dioxide are natural parts of the atmosphere and are released to some extent by natural processes, and they only have a tangible effect on a global scale and over long time-spans.
      - 5y ago

mywittyname 5y ago

Maybe they are concerned in an abstract sense, and definitely they are when it negatively impacts them. The problem is they offer little to no support for EPA, and red states have been gutting their state EPAs (or putting into place shills for mega-polluters) for decades now, because they are "bad for business". A few years ago I was reading about an issue with the cleanup of a coal fired power plant. The power plant owners collected a cleanup surcharge for the entire life of the plant, and put it into escrow. It was supposed to be used to handle site cleanup after decommissioning. For some reason, the company was allowed to sell the site, escrow, and all liabilities to some random 1-person LLC. This person then spent all the escrow funds paying companies he owned to do none of the work properly, and now the people in the region who are dealing with the effects of this botched cleanup have no recourse. Coal retention ponds are nasty, nasty things and because they weren't properly dealt with, its leaking into the water supply.

Loughla 5y ago
Yes. And the common thread is, it's a problem, but only when it impacts my life. It's like there's a vague unreality in that we are all connected, and what impacts one of us will eventually impact all of us, or an unwillingness or inability to be truly empathetic. I don't really know, to be honest.