Pirate's Cove

Conservative Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, is not helping by telling the reality of the issue, but, really, Democrats won’t listen in the first place

For the Democrats, Climate Is a Trap

The more the climate debate changes, the more it stays the same.

Polls show that the public is worried about climate change, but that doesn’t mean that it is anymore ready to bear any burden or pay any price to combat it.

If President Donald Trump claws his way to victory again in Pennsylvania and the Upper Midwest, his path will likely go through abortion and climate change, two issues on which the Democrats are most inflamed, confident in their righteousness and willing to embrace radical policies that appeal to their own voters much more than anyone else.

Climate is a watchword among the Democratic presidential candidates — and an enormous downside risk. Once everyone on your own side agrees about an issue, and once you are convinced that you are addressing a planet-threatening crisis that will become irreversible in about a decade’s time, prudence and incrementalism begin to look dispensable.

There’s no doubt that climate is a top-tier issue for Democrats. In a CNN poll, 96 percent of Democrats say it’s very important that candidates support “taking aggressive action to slow the effects of climate change.” Its doubtful that mom, baseball and apple pie would poll any higher.

It’s also true that the public is adopting climate orthodoxy. According to a survey by climate change programs at Yale and George Mason, 70 percent believe that climate change is happening, and 57 percent believe that humans are causing it.

It’s easy to overinterpret these numbers, though. While a big majority of Democrats see climate change as a problem, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found only 15 percent of Republicans and — more important — just 47 percent of independents do.

What those polls never note is how much is being caused by Humanity. I’ve noted many times that I think Mankind bears a small burden, mostly having to do with land use and the urban heat island effect, with another small part being from various greenhouse and other gases. Anyhow

Of course, saying climate change is a problem doesn’t cost anyone anything. An AP/University of Chicago poll asked people how much they were willing to pay to fight climate change, and 57 percent said at least $1 a month, or not even the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Other surveys show people aren’t willing to pay more than $10 a month to solve Hotcoldwetdry.

The political experience of other advanced democracies is a flashing red light on the climate. In Australia last month, the opposition lost what was supposed to be “the climate change” election, against all expectations. In May, the New York Times ran an article headlined, “Australia’s Politics May Be Changing With Its Climate.” Polling showed that about 60 percent of Australians called climate change “a serious and pressing problem,” and thought the government should address it “even if this involves significant costs.”

It turned out that it was one thing to tell that to pollsters and another to vote to make it happen. The opposition promised a 45 percent reduction in carbon emissions with no serious pain while the conservative governing coalition focused on the cost, and won.

It was, again, the second time this decade where voters destroyed the party pushing ‘climate change’ policies, the other being the Queensland elections in 2012. Further, Lowry mentions the yellow vest strikes and riots in France when the government attempted to jack up the cost of fuel even more. BTW, that movement is still going strong.

After going through a bit more, Lowry writes

All this should counsel caution rather than apocalyptic rhetoric and policies, although Trump has every reason to hope it doesn’t.

Caution is not something Democrats are known for, nor the Cult of Climastrology. Just like with abortion, they will over-reach, and when they start accidentally explaining just how much their ‘climate change’ policies will cost and how much choice and freedom will be lost, it’s going to be pretty ugly.