Paul Krugman: The Axis of Climate Evil
"Where does climate denial come from?":
The Axis of Climate Evil, by Paul Krugman, NY Times: ...At this point the evidence for human-caused global warming just keeps getting more overwhelming, and the plausible scenarios for the future — extreme weather events, rising sea levels, drought, and more — just keep getting scarier.
In a rational world urgent action to limit climate change would be the overwhelming policy priority for governments everywhere.
But the U.S. government is, of course, now controlled by a party within which climate denial — rejecting not just scientific evidence but also obvious lived experience, and fiercely opposing any effort to slow the trend — has become a defining marker of tribal identity. ...
So where does climate denial come from? ... The answer, I’d argue, is that there are actually three groups involved — a sort of axis of climate evil.
First, and most obvious, there’s the fossil fuel industry — think the Koch brothers — which has an obvious financial stake in continuing to sell dirty energy. And the industry ... has systematically showered money on think tanks and scientists willing to express skepticism about climate change. ...
Still, the mercenary interests of fossil fuel companies aren’t the whole story here. There’s also ideology.
An influential part of the U.S. political spectrum — think the Wall Street Journal editorial page — is opposed to any and all forms of government economic regulation; it’s committed to Reagan’s doctrine that government is always the problem, never the solution. ...
Some conservatives ... support market-friendly intervention to limit greenhouse gas emissions. But all too many prefer simply to deny the existence of the issue — if facts conflict with their ideology, they deny the facts.
Finally, there are a few public intellectuals — less important than the plutocrats and ideologues, but if you ask me even more shameful — who adopt a pose of climate skepticism out of sheer ego. In effect, they say: “Look at me! I’m smart! I’m contrarian! I’ll show you how clever I am by denying the scientific consensus!” And for the sake of this posturing, they’re willing to nudge us further down the road to catastrophe.
Which brings me back to the current political situation. Right now progressives are feeling better than they expected to a few months ago: Donald Trump and his frenemies in Congress are accomplishing a lot less than they hoped, and their opponents feared. But that doesn’t change the reality that the axis of climate evil is now firmly in control of U.S. policy, and the world may never recover.
Posted by Mark Thoma on Friday, August 11, 2017 at 09:34 AM in Economics, Environment, Politics |
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