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I'm discouraged that politics ever even comes into this. It makes as much sense as the left likes masks and the right doesn't like masks. I wish everyone could

I'm discouraged that politics ever even comes into this. It makes as much sense as the left likes masks and the right doesn't like masks. I wish everyone could admit this is an issue and move forward.

mort96 3y ago
Of course it's a political issue. Politics is fundamentally about a struggle for which interests should be given priority over other interests. There are lots of people with a whooooole lot of power who have a lot to lose from taking climate change seriously, how could it not become political?
acdha 3y ago
I’d remember that this didn’t happen by accident. The fossil fuel companies knew this was coming in the 1970s and poured billions of dollars into delaying action and securing their political power. You used to be able to find Republicans opposed to pollution and Democrats who were in the pocket of fossil fuel companies - Manchin is a relic of that era – but the fossil fuel companies managed to get enough control of the Republican Party to make it difficult for anyone opposed to pollution to remain a member. By the time Bush ran against Gore the contrast was stark: someone saying urgent action was needed and an oilman saying the scientists were all wrong and we needed more cheap oil. What really sealed our fate was electing Obama. I know a Republican lobbyist who used to work on various environmental issues, which wasn’t as oxymoronic as it sounds: he used to get the coalitions of hunting and fishing groups and sometimes farmers who were in favor of things like clean water and air, and ecosystems which were healthy enough to support game. As he describes it, once Obama was elected the Republican leadership were bitterly determined not to give him any wins and told their members that those old deals were off-limits. Their successors don’t even have a tradition of collaborating like that.
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
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mort96 3y ago

Of course it's a political issue. Politics is fundamentally about a struggle for which interests should be given priority over other interests. There are lots of people with a whooooole lot of power who have a lot to lose from taking climate change seriously, how could it not become political?

acdha 3y ago

I’d remember that this didn’t happen by accident. The fossil fuel companies knew this was coming in the 1970s and poured billions of dollars into delaying action and securing their political power. You used to be able to find Republicans opposed to pollution and Democrats who were in the pocket of fossil fuel companies - Manchin is a relic of that era – but the fossil fuel companies managed to get enough control of the Republican Party to make it difficult for anyone opposed to pollution to remain a member. By the time Bush ran against Gore the contrast was stark: someone saying urgent action was needed and an oilman saying the scientists were all wrong and we needed more cheap oil. What really sealed our fate was electing Obama. I know a Republican lobbyist who used to work on various environmental issues, which wasn’t as oxymoronic as it sounds: he used to get the coalitions of hunting and fishing groups and sometimes farmers who were in favor of things like clean water and air, and ecosystems which were healthy enough to support game. As he describes it, once Obama was elected the Republican leadership were bitterly determined not to give him any wins and told their members that those old deals were off-limits. Their successors don’t even have a tradition of collaborating like that.

Slava_Propanei 3y ago

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