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Topic Title: "What Conservatives Understand About Global Warming - and Liberals Don't."
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Created On: 06/26/2017 05:48 AM
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 06/26/2017 05:48 AM
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WG

Posts: 37257
Joined Forum: 03/10/2005

What I mean there is that the reason there is such widespread denial of the reality of climate change with power brokers in the Republican Party, and certainly within very right-wing, free market think tanks, is that they understand that if the science is true, then the political or economic projects they hope to advance, which is a radically deregulated market, must come to a screeching halt.

Climate change is true,
and so it does mean we need to intervene very seriously in the market. It does mean we need to regulate corporations in a way that governments have been unwilling to do for the last 40 years. We have to place severe limits on further expansion of the fossil fuel frontier if we're serious about this. It means we can't develop new fossil fuel reserves and we have to manage a transition away from fossil fuels with existing production. This requires managing the economy, it requires planning, it requires major investments in energy, public investments, major investments in public transit. These things go against all of the economic trends of the past 40 years where we've been defunding the public sphere on so many fronts.

I think the right understands this, and therefore chooses to deny reality. Whereas one of the things we see on the liberal side is, instead of denying the science, they deny the implications of the science. I would put the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman in this category, where he's written so many columns about how easy it is to deal with climate change. We can do it and we'll barely notice. I think people should understand that it is a more fundamental challenge than that.

For decades, there was a huge emphasis on these just small consumer changes that you can make. It created a kind of dissonance where you present people with information about an existential threat and then say, "Well, change your light bulb," or, "Drive a hybrid." You don't talk at all about public policy. And if you do, it's a very tiny carbon tax and that's going to do it.

Then I think there are some liberals who do understand the implications of climate change and the depth of change it requires from us. But because they believe humans are incapable of that kind of change, or at this stage in human evolution, I suppose, they think we're basically doomed. I think contemporary centrist liberalism does not have the tools to deal with a crisis of this magnitude that requires this level of market intervention. And I worry that can lead to a kind of a nihilism around climate change. "

Naomi Klein


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"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill
 06/26/2017 06:19 AM
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scombrid

Posts: 18020
Joined Forum: 07/24/2003

I don't think it necessarily requires a managed economy.

You put the breaks on the pollution and let the market sort out the details of coming up with alternatives. Central planning rarely works as well as setting solid ground rules and letting competitive innovation work within those rules. Rather than specify that cars be built to X-specification with attendent limits on innovation you set a rule that says cars will do no worse than Y-performance standard and you don't make a rule on how that performance standard is met. That makes it so you end up with lots of choices and neat ideas instead of the Trabant.

Problem is that the fossil fuel people don't want new rules because they have a vested interest in the status quo.



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 06/26/2017 06:23 AM
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SuperTeeBird

Posts: 2387
Joined Forum: 12/08/2016

Yeah.

I have been saying I want to get over the militant denial first, but apparently this is all coupled.

I'll have to read up on approaches within a "free" market. Free in quotes because do we even really have that and what is it? IMO, it's a concept in the abstract only.

 06/26/2017 06:26 AM
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WG

Posts: 37257
Joined Forum: 03/10/2005

I'm more with Krugman too, maybe because I don't think the sort of heavily managed energy economy she is calling for is remotely possible.
I think what IS needed is massive government investment in the technology that will get us there sooner.
I'm hoping that non-carbon energy of some form (or many forms) soon gets so much cheaper than fossils that no matter what sort of political crap the Koch's and their like take to secure their wealth, the market consigns it to remaining in the ground.

-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill
 06/26/2017 06:58 AM
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tpapablo

Posts: 43831
Joined Forum: 07/25/2003

I would say that Naomi is correct for the most part. I think some progs see exactly what the political/societal implications are and their real goal is to achieve those changes by means of the global warming scare. Our NSR progs? Nope, they're too dumb to see that.



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I :heart; Q
 06/26/2017 07:00 AM
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SuperTeeBird

Posts: 2387
Joined Forum: 12/08/2016

Yet somehow we understand science.

Go figure.

 06/26/2017 07:21 AM
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tpapablo

Posts: 43831
Joined Forum: 07/25/2003

No, you don't.



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I :heart; Q
 06/26/2017 08:47 AM
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SuperTeeBird

Posts: 2387
Joined Forum: 12/08/2016

Is this fishkiller? Is too! Is not!

If you wish to make an argument that I am among the uninitiated on science, I'm will to look at it. I have plenty of evidence to support the argument that I do understand applied science very well.

You should know it too except that you seem to have forgotten how it works.

 06/26/2017 08:53 AM
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WG

Posts: 37257
Joined Forum: 03/10/2005

He knows, he's just following the line to the end.

-------------------------
"The truth is incontrovertible.
malice may attack it,
ignorance may deride it,
but in the end,
there it is." -Sir Winston Churchill
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