[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The good news from America

[Bill Totten]

Most environmentalists are indeed leftists who support the
redistribution of wealth and believe in a simpler lifestyle

by Mark Lynas

New Statesman (February 14 2008)


I'm in a darkened room, my face plastered with make-up, somewhere in
Manhattan. With powerful lights on all sides, all I can see is the
camera lens. My earpiece crackles and the first interviewer comes
through, from a TV station in Minnesota. First the pleasantries, then
the lead-in to the question: "Some scientists say this global warming is
just another natural cycle . . ."

Welcome to the US climate-change debate. I was a guest of National
Geographic, which has produced a ninety-minute documentary film based on
my book Six Degrees. Certainly, there was interest: I spent an
exhausting twelve hours a day on the phone and on camera in a wide
variety of radio and TV stations nationwide. I fielded callers on West
Coast phone-ins, spoke to drivetime DJs in Midwestern cities and spent
an hour webchatting on a social networking site. Every time, the same
question came up: "Some scientists say . . ."

The answer is easy, but that is not the point. While scepticism about
climate change is now a minority view - and in most interviews, once the
obligatory question was out of the way, we had fascinating discussions -
it is clearly a deep-seated social and political phenomenon, tapping in
to a complex well of psychological fears and anxieties. One of the most
persistent seems to be the identification of climate-change concerns
with a "liberal" political viewpoint. You can see how this happened.
Most environmentalists are indeed leftists who support the
redistribution of wealth and think a simpler lifestyle would be better
for all. Conservatives had nowhere to go. For them, global warming could
not exist. The divide became rigid under the Bush administration, whose
rejectionist approach to climate change confirmed that you could be
either an environmentalist or a conservative, but not both.

This may come to be seen as a grave strategic error by the right. By
spending years in anti-scientific denial, this lobby has lost the chance
to set the international negotiating agenda and advance free-market
proposals for tackling greenhouse-gas emissions. Instead of wasting time
arguing that nothing need be done about global warming, conservative
economists should have been using their expertise to design trading
systems to manage the problem efficiently and in a growth-oriented way.
In the meantime, the general public got used to the idea that tackling
carbon emissions was about piety and self-sacrifice rather than about
being successful or aspirational.

This is why John McCain has been important. Despite being an out-and-out
conservative on economic and social issues, he has a track record of
advancing efforts to promote global warming mitigation. In 2003, he and
the Democratic senator Joe Lieberman introduced the first ever climate
bill in the Senate. The legislation was voted down, but helped set the
agenda for the great shift in US public opinion that has taken place since.

This is why the virtual coronation of John McCain as Republican
presidential candidate is so important. Whoever wins the election (both
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have policies on climate that are
tougher than McCain's), there will be a decisive shift in US policy.
Business is already preparing for a mandatory, US-wide "cap and trade"
system; states such as California are competing to be the first to
design it.

With Bush history, a new administration will be in place by the time the
negotiating process launched in Bali completes in December 2009 in
Copenhagen. Scientifically speaking, this is probably the world's last
chance to set a long-term emissions-reduction path that will keep the
planet within the target of a two degrees Celsius increase in warming.
With the Americans onside, it will be possible to get that deal.

For the first time in years, I am optimistic.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200802140023

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