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> but allowing climate action to become a political issue What the hell are you talking about? What?!? This entire issue was a solved problem with a simple car

by scoofy 9mo ago

> but allowing climate action to become a political issue What the hell are you talking about? What?!? This entire issue was a solved problem with a simple carbon tax (which is a conservative leaning policy) and then one party decided their strategy was going to be deny, then delay, then pose it as a fait accompli. I was pretty damn conservative on a lot of issues when I started college... as it became more and more clear to me -- from taking earth science classes -- that climate change was very obviously happening and that we've known about it since the 1960s and that no serious person trying to suggest that it's not being made worse by human activity, that's when I started to thing that the Republicans were not going to take this issue seriously, ever. Any centrist or conservative person who takes the issues seriously has no idea what to do because on party just decided to just say "lol, who cares." How in the hell is that environmental movement's fault!?! You look at the UK and environmentalism is not a partisan issue. Here, we have idiots holding snowballs in congress trying to score cheap political points.

GMoromisato 9mo ago
I think what you're saying is conservatives should have support climate action (like a carbon tax). Obviously, they did not, however. The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support? The problem wasn't getting liberals to support action, it was getting conservatives to support it. Therefore, we needed to do something to appeal to conservatives.
- scoofy 9mo ago
  >The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support. Literally nothing. Environmentalists can have done literally nothing different. If an entire party is going to take it upon themselves to make "climate change is a hoax" and their constituents are going to go along with it, you just have a large section of the electorate making terrible decision that will make us all poorer. This isn't something that's a negotiation. The leftist solutions were rejected, the liberal solutions were rejected, the conservative solutions were rejected, and even the right-wing "end our dependency on foreign powers" was rejected. This was a deliberate policy choice by the right, and it was an asinine one.
  - GMoromisato 9mo ago
    This is anger and hatred, not logic or strategy. I don’t blame you, honestly. And there are many who feel exactly the same way. But this is why we won’t stop global warming. Because beating our enemies is more important than saving the planet.
    - scoofy 9mo ago
      We can be kind, and do our best, and also call a spade a spade: https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=XwOG5FQ8qZ1AUBi5 https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=XwOG5FQ8qZ1AUBi5
      - GMoromisato 9mo ago
        I don't agree that EVs are worse for the environment than ICE cars. But I don't want to digress. My point isn't about a specific policy (carbon tax sounds reasonable to me, and I agree that it is/was a conservative idea). My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservatives can agree on. I still believe that if the West had built proportionally as many nuclear power plants as France, we would be in much better shape. But environmental activists fought them and here we are. I think Elon going to the Trump side was another tragedy, mostly because of what it did to EV adoption, but also because it empowered the Republicans who deny climate change and reject solutions. I don't think you can claim that Elon's turn was good for liberals or for climate action. These are two examples of climate action advocates pushing for policies that made the climate worse.
        scoofy 9mo ago
        >My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservatives can agree on. You can't. Liberals aren't going to kowtow to the American right (I don't even want to use small "c" conservative here because fighting climate change is a conservative position). At every point along the way it's made sense -- long term -- to fight climate change, and at every point the right has veto power Look, I've always defended Elon Musk, even after he aligned himself with the hard right. By making EV's "acceptable" to the right, he changed the political alignment on the carbon issue, and he deserves credit there. Even in blue states, with people assert that they are concerned about climate change we have much of the left states doubling down on sprawl as housing policy. We have people doing everything they can to signal that they care about climate, without being willing to give up their gas stove when given subsidies. We're not even winning the argument very well with our allies. Politics is hard, even when people are open to being reasonable.

by scoofy 9mo ago

GMoromisato 9mo ago

I think what you're saying is conservatives should have support climate action (like a carbon tax). Obviously, they did not, however. The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support? The problem wasn't getting liberals to support action, it was getting conservatives to support it. Therefore, we needed to do something to appeal to conservatives.

scoofy 9mo ago
>The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support. Literally nothing. Environmentalists can have done literally nothing different. If an entire party is going to take it upon themselves to make "climate change is a hoax" and their constituents are going to go along with it, you just have a large section of the electorate making terrible decision that will make us all poorer. This isn't something that's a negotiation. The leftist solutions were rejected, the liberal solutions were rejected, the conservative solutions were rejected, and even the right-wing "end our dependency on foreign powers" was rejected. This was a deliberate policy choice by the right, and it was an asinine one.
- GMoromisato 9mo ago
  This is anger and hatred, not logic or strategy. I don’t blame you, honestly. And there are many who feel exactly the same way. But this is why we won’t stop global warming. Because beating our enemies is more important than saving the planet.
  - scoofy 9mo ago
    We can be kind, and do our best, and also call a spade a spade: https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=XwOG5FQ8qZ1AUBi5 https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=XwOG5FQ8qZ1AUBi5
    - GMoromisato 9mo ago
      I don't agree that EVs are worse for the environment than ICE cars. But I don't want to digress. My point isn't about a specific policy (carbon tax sounds reasonable to me, and I agree that it is/was a conservative idea). My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservatives can agree on. I still believe that if the West had built proportionally as many nuclear power plants as France, we would be in much better shape. But environmental activists fought them and here we are. I think Elon going to the Trump side was another tragedy, mostly because of what it did to EV adoption, but also because it empowered the Republicans who deny climate change and reject solutions. I don't think you can claim that Elon's turn was good for liberals or for climate action. These are two examples of climate action advocates pushing for policies that made the climate worse.
      - scoofy 9mo ago
        >My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservatives can agree on. You can't. Liberals aren't going to kowtow to the American right (I don't even want to use small "c" conservative here because fighting climate change is a conservative position). At every point along the way it's made sense -- long term -- to fight climate change, and at every point the right has veto power Look, I've always defended Elon Musk, even after he aligned himself with the hard right. By making EV's "acceptable" to the right, he changed the political alignment on the carbon issue, and he deserves credit there. Even in blue states, with people assert that they are concerned about climate change we have much of the left states doubling down on sprawl as housing policy. We have people doing everything they can to signal that they care about climate, without being willing to give up their gas stove when given subsidies. We're not even winning the argument very well with our allies. Politics is hard, even when people are open to being reasonable.