Climate Change? Nahhh ...

Progressivism, Democracy & Climate-Change Action Are Incompatible | National Review

On the matter of climate, progressives insist that President Biden must achieve his climate goals even if the democratically elected representatives in Congress disagree — even though it is Congress, not the president, that has the power to make law. Biden himself has threatened to act over and above Congress, the matter being, in his words, a “moral imperative.” Progressives such as Christy Goldfuss of the Center for American Progress argue that Biden should act “without Congress,” if Congress will not comply with his demands.

Why do we elected congresses and parliaments if not to make decisions of precisely this kind? The fact that progressives have not got their way on this issue is not an indictment of democracy — it is a reflection of the fact that different people have different priorities. Maybe Americans and Europeans and Japanese should have different priorities — but they don’t. This is a matter of stated preferences (“Go green!”) being at odds with revealed preferences (for inexpensive energy and the bounty that comes with it). The democracies have had plenty of time to adopt the more radical version of the climate agenda — and they have, for the most part, said, “No.”

 

This is an article from National Review. I do not believe they would make the same argument by that periodical if a Republican was sitting as President. The arguments for a stronger congress invariably come from the party that does not hold the Presidency.

 

Same here on the left side of the state line, although we've had two separate heat waves in the past month. First one lasted about two weeks and finally broke last week, to where we had one day in the mid-80s. Then this week it's been back around 95 with a 110 heat index. But considering it's normally about 93 and 102, it doesn't seem worth getting worked up over.
The late spring/early summer was remarkable cool. I think it was mid-June before we had a day over 90. We usually hit that by Memorial Day.

 

It's a pretty interesting column. And it doesn't deny climate change. What it argues is...democracies don't do much about it because it isn't a priority among voters.

 

No it isn’t a priority among major donors. Voters want action.

How Americans see climate change and the environment in 7 charts

 

I want to add a PS to my previous post on Afghanistan. I am old enough to remember that the Taliban ruled Afghanistan with cruelty and hatred for years before 9/11 and during that time the number of Americans who gave the slightest fuck about the awful situation was more or less zero.

 

Wrong thread perhaps?

 

It’s not hard to be for climate change initiatives.

The initiatives themselves are often non starters.

But the media has worked pretty hard on the public. Schools too. There was a nice little movement 5-10 years ago on plastic bags, and banning them, and parading little kids into city councils as moral props.

It was effective to some degree, the ban movement, although the pandemic slowed it down. It’s foolish - cloth bags take a proverbial zillion years to biodegrade - but it’s been effective.

Listen: Progressives are so close to having the world they say they want. When they have it they won’t think they do- it won’t be perfect enough, because humans make progressive utopias impossible - but most of the laundry list items will be checked off.

 

Cotton bags don't take a zillion years to biodegrade. Those reusable bags that are sturdier than plastic bags, sure. But actual cloth bags made of cotton, no.

 

Plastic not cloth takes forever to decompose. Cloth is organic.

Initiatives are nonstarters because we've become too dependent on certain things that destroy our planet. It's the fossil fuel companies that fight to kill such efforts with huge amounts of money and disinformation. They knew before the rest of the world climate change was happening and then started a campaign to convince everyone it was fake or efforts to slow it down were draconian.

OMG!!!!! We're going to lose jobs if we go green!!!!!
How about being the innovators of alternative fuels and making bank on the technology and IP and shut your yaps abut jobs?

OMG China!!!!!
Yeah, what about China? If we find a way to make money, they'll want in on the action. Also, when did Billy from down the street refusing to clean his room get you off the hook with your parents from cleaning yours?

OMG it's too hard!!!!
When has it's too hard ever stopped us?

And I'm sorry, but progressives want too much is a cop out. OK, so we set the bar at 11, but we can only get to 8. That is way the hell better than the 1 we're currently at. Humanity is going to have impacts on the world because we consume resources. We're not going to be perfect. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do better than we are now. But the deniers and ostriches of our country are doing their damnedest to prevent us from even having the conversation in a meaningful way.

 

Progressives by their very nature are never satisfied. That’s what makes them insistent on…progress. If a person is suddenly pleased with the state of world, they desire to conserve it, because progress would mean undesired change from perfect.

Now, that said, progressives have a point on climate change. There are things we can and should do that can also make our lives better.

Yet it’s not merely the burning of fossil fuels that drives the matter, but the consumption that drives the burning. And while consumption must be on the table as it relates to make a real impact, the natural fear will be leftists’ habit of making exceptions in their moral rigidity for cool, rich, powerful people or culturally cool movements. And as much as people laugh at me for writing “the cools” I’m telling you…it matters. Hell, it fueled bitter rivalries and feuds on this site for years. People - especially American people - can not *stand* being told to do X and feel Y while other, apparently better people don’t have to do or feel those things. And climate change is ripe for that kind of demoralizing double standard.

 

How much humility and begging and groveling do educated people have to do at the feet of the violent reactionaries of America before earning the right to declare “Fuck you Jobo, I do it myself?”