I had a good time the other night talking about climate change policy and politics with Amanda Little on The Hyperbole Hour. We’re on the same wavelength. (You can download the show as an mp3 file and listen in from around 29 minutes.)
One of the points we made was that we really need to sell the case in the US for why cap-and-trade and clean tech are the only way to fly. In response to an FT analysis on Copenhagen I noted the other day, there was a good letter that reinforces this point from two worthies at the UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research. They say “…the politics of climate change are tough.” (That’s an understatement.) They go on to note “This calls for an urgent reframing of the issue in terms that matter to people now: less dependence on oil, investment in renewable energy, renewed economic growth as a result of innovation, jobs, and security.” That’s all true.
Beyond that, there are the costs involved in ignoring the issue. How is it possible for the elected representatives of people in the Gulf Coast and Texas, in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, or for that matter, representatives from farm states, who are going to be crushed by warming, to vote against Waxman-Markey? It’s possible because we’re not yet making the case convincing enough, particularly in the face of dogmatic opposition by some as well as subterfuge from special interests.
Andrew Leonard notes one lonely Republican voice in the Senate, Lindsey Graham. Graham is even pushing back on President Obama’s recent display of reticence on bringing cap-and-trade forward this year. Graham’s remarks, courtesy of Grist, indicate some fight that may be lacking among the Democratic caucus in the Senate and at the White House. “You don’t have to believe that Iowa is going to become beachfront property to want to clean up carbon,” says Graham. “It is not about polar bears to me, it’s about jobs. I like the polar bears as much as anyone else but I want to create jobs.”
Why aren’t Barack Obama, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and the truly sterling Obama cabinet appointees blistering the airwaves and the hustings with this message?
