Sadly, the debate over climate change has become just another issue in our ongoing culture wars. Meanwhile, the earth is getting hotter. Here is Paul Krugman at The New York Times:
Understanding climate denial used to seem easy: It was all about greed. Delve into the background of a researcher challenging the scientific consensus, a think tank trying to block climate action or a politician pronouncing climate change a hoax and you would almost always find major financial backing from the fossil fuel industry.
Those were simpler, more innocent times, and I miss them.
True, greed is still a major factor in anti-environmentalism. But climate denial has also become a front in the culture wars, with right-wingers rejecting the science in part because they dislike science in general and opposing action against emissions out of visceral opposition to anything liberals support.
And this cultural dimension of climate arguments has emerged at the worst possible moment — a moment when both the extreme danger from unchecked emissions and the path toward slashing those emissions are clearer than ever.
Some background: Scientists who began warning decades ago that the rising concentration of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere would have dangerous effects on the climate have been overwhelmingly vindicated.
Worldwide, July was the hottest month on record, with devastating heat waves in many parts of the globe. Extreme weather events are proliferating. Florida is essentially sitting in a hot bath, with ocean temperatures off some of its coast higher than body temperature.
At the same time, technological progress in renewable energy has made it possible to envisage major reductions in emissions at little or no cost in terms of economic growth and living standards.
Back in 2009, when Democrats tried but failed to take significant climate action, their policy proposals consisted mainly of sticks — limits on emissions in the form of permits that businesses could buy and sell. In 2022, when the Biden administration finally succeeded in passing a major climate bill, it consisted almost entirely of carrots — tax credits and subsidies for green energy. Yet thanks to the revolution in renewable technology, energy experts believe that this all-gain-no-pain approach will have major effects in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But not if Republicans can help it. The Heritage Foundation is spearheading an effort called Project 2025 that will probably define the agenda if a Republican wins the White House next year. As The Times reports, it calls for “dismantling almost every clean energy program in the federal government and boosting the production of fossil fuels.”
Read the rest here.
My only critique of this column is that climate change has been a culture wars issue for several decades. On one level, there is little new here. But Krugman is correct to suggest the danger of climate change is more imminent today.