Apparently, you’re either a card carrying member of the Cult of Climastrology or a heretic
The myth of the climate moderate
“There isn’t a middle ground between a livable and unlivable world.â€After months of discussion and debate, Democrats are at an impasse on a raft of infrastructure legislation that could make or break President Joe Biden’s effort to fight climate change. The rift, as it’s framed in countless news stories, is between progressives who want an ambitious social and climate spending bill and moderates who have protested the price tag.
But there’s a problem with portraying these disagreements as a conflict between moderates and progressives. This picture leaves out the unarguable scientific reality that pollution is warming the planet at an unsustainable and dangerous rate. There is nothing moderate or debatable about the catastrophic changes that global emissions are wreaking on the climate. In August, a panel of United Nations climate scientists called it “unequivocal†that humans have warmed Earth’s skies, waters, and lands.
If you’re calling a trace gas necessary for life on Earth a pollutant, you’re a member of a cult, one not interested in science. Good grief, I just trotted out a saying that is so 2012.
“It is possible to find middle ground in many areas of politics; I know, because I have done it,†Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), an advocate of swift climate action, said in a recent press conference. “But we cannot compromise on science. There isn’t a middle ground between a livable and unlivable world.â€
A narrative that pits progressives against moderates runs the risk of spotlighting climate deniers and centering fossil fuel interests. It arguably distracts from the substance of climate policies that a broad swath of Americans already support.
They may support them in theory, but, in practice, few make any changes in their own lives to match those beliefs. Anyhow, this is framing a “you’re either with us 100% or you’re an Evil denier”. Us vs them.
To take ambitious climate action, Senate Democrats need every single member of their party (plus two independents) to vote for a version of the Build Back Better agenda, a proposed budget that would, among other things, boost clean energy and reduce US emissions. That has put two holdouts, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, front and center in the negotiations, and gives them disproportionate power over the future of the country’s climate policy.
Policy battles like this show that Americans need a new way to talk about the politics of climate change, as a range of strategists, pollsters, and lawmakers told Vox. Instead of focusing on “centrist†or “moderate†politicians, they said, political observers should distinguish between the many Democrats who support addressing the crisis at hand and the few who support an unacceptable status quo.
And that’s what this is really all about, going after Manchin and Sinema, who have, so far, refused to bow to the climate cult. Two who realize how bad the climate provisions of the $3.5 trillion bill are for America and the citizens.
The time to take a moderate approach to climate has passed, argued Dana Johnson, who leads federal policy office of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a climate advocacy group. “If we would have done this 20, 40, 60 years ago, perhaps we could take a moderate approach,†Johnson said. “The moment right now called for us to go big, and to be bold, if we’re going to achieve any kind of meaningful change.â€
These people are as hardcore in their beliefs as Islamists and jihadis. They’re already taking “direct action”, committing mild violent acts. How soon till we see jihad style violence from them?