This year ClimateDog will keep on about ways to protect families and communities from the growing costs and damage of climate change.
But this year is different. We have a special tool — the ballot box!
The stakes will be sky high in November, and many of us have heard what the Republicans plan to do if they win the White House. It’s all laid out in their 900-page Project 2025 blueprint. It aims, among other things, to prevent the federal government from reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by
repealing the Inflation Reduction Act (a landmark law offering US$370 billion for clean technology), closing programs at the U.S. Department of Energy, and encouraging allied nations to use fossil fuels. The blueprint supports Arctic drilling, declaring that the federal government has an "obligation to develop vast oil and gas and coal resources," and reversing a 2009 finding from the Environmental Protection Agency that determined that carbon dioxide emissions are harmful to human health. [Wikipedia, Project 2025]
I’m thinking ClimateDog should spend 2024 helping Americans understand what a Republican win on November 5th would mean to each of us. Maybe I could persuade a few voters that the Democrats’ approach - based on laws and regulations - is far, far better for us. The logic goes like this:
The scattered voluntary actions we’ve been taking, no matter how earnest or inventive, haven’t come close to what’s needed.
Fighting climate change will require widespread, strong, and concerted action to reduce emissions and build protections against damage.
Effective measures can only be concerted if we’re all required (or heavily incentivized) to take them.
Democrats almost universally favor climate regulations that reduce emissions and build protections.
Republicans are against these, a stance that will doom Americans to severe costs and damage.
We need to vote for Democrats this year, in our towns, our states and in Washington. But especially for President!
It’s ‘freedom’ I need to steer clear of
But in writing about this reasoning I’m up against a big definition of what it means to be an American: Freedom! In many climate policy debates, it’s this concept of freedom that lies just below the surface.
"Biden's 'climate crisis' is just the latest excuse for the Left to abuse executive power to push an anti-American, anti-freedom agenda." [Dan Bishop, North Carolina GOP congressman]
Conservatives use the word freedom a lot. To them it means individuals living with lots of choice and opportunity for initiative and invention. It means freedom from interference and pressure from ‘others,’ and the preservation of their way of life. To Republicans, rules and regulations are what weaken these freedoms in their lives. President Trump summed it up:
They want to bury our economy under suffocating, relentless landslides of Washington red tape like we had before I got here. We must never return to the days of soul-crushing regulation that ravaged our cities, devastated our workers, drained our vitality, and thoroughly crippled our nation’s prized competitive edge. [President Trump]
Sure, many of us grew up learning the theory, based on Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand,’ that the pursuit of individual interests always leads to the general good. Most of us also grew up seeing how untrue it is.
Liberals use the word far less, but they do seek and cherish other personal freedoms - freedoms from hunger, poverty, ignorance, physical danger, discrimination, inequity, and other human conditions. To Democrats, rules and regulations are what strengthen these freedoms in their lives.
Freedom is a matter of emotion, tradition, belonging. In trying to fight climate change, I don’t want to get anywhere near the concept.
So what should I try instead?
In this big election year, how might a writer help voters see that they’ll suffer far more climate damage to their lifestyles and their wallets if the Republicans get control in Washington in November?
I have a few ideas on what I might write about - and where - over the coming months. I’ll bounce some of them off you soon. In the meantime please let me have your suggestions, by sending a comment below or emailing me (dstookey at gmail.com).
It’s not fair of me to imply that Conservatives are always against regulations. After all, they favor life-altering rules when it comes to conception and pregnancy. Liberals, on the other hand, want the freedom to choose when to have a child. After birth the roles reverse. Democrats favor regulations that help meet the needs of infants and children - like food aid, health aid, child care, and early learning. Republicans oppose almost all government programs that help support children after conception.
The Republicans, backed up by the fossil fuel industries, will never change their minds about climate change. All they want to do is Drill, baby, Drill. So government could produce big tax incentives that would penalize drilling in favor of developing alternative sources of energy--wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, new nuclear (small reactors vs. big reactors: https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/01/climate/nuclear-small-modular-reactors-us-russia-china-climate-solution-intl/index.html#:~:text=SMRs%20%E2%80%94%20which%20are%20smaller%20and,to%20build%20and%20sell%20them.)
That is, the deniers of climate change have to be shown how business is beneficial with alternative fuels. And I like Greg Gerritt's suggestions below regarding a climate justice economy. Good luck, I hope you get some good ideas.
Well said David. Fortunately we still have the freedom to vote!