Zeldin is quoted in a New York Times article saying, āIām not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem as other people are.ā This is a newer rhetoric on the right that we need to be ready to counter. Mandy Gunasekara, who worked in EPA during Trump 1 and who will have a key position again, was quoted on NPR saying she believes climate change will be "mild and manageable." They don't deny climate change; they just dismiss its significance.
Separately, I totally agree that the climate movement needs to focus on "regular-ass" people. We need to drop phrases like "our grandchildren's future" and "save the planet." We need to talk about the health effects of burning fossil fuels, the cost of disaster relief, the need for costly resilient infrastructure, higher heating and cooling bills, much higher insurance costs (if you can get insurance at all), and the consequences of letting China dominate green technology. People can relate to those kind of things. I also believe that being anti-science is fundamentally un-American, but that's another discussion.
Definitely agree that it needs to be countered, but I'd say it's not that new. I recall during the first Trump administration there was a similar trend of Trump-appointed EPA folks just generally downplaying the severity/dismissing the significance of climate change: https://newrepublic.com/article/153359/seductive-stupidity-andrew-wheeler
Yes people should have been motivated by the IRA and they weren't either because of messaging issues(which I don't really believe was the problem) or just outright propaganda from the right.
Brett Hartl is objectively wrong and yeah I'm also going to say he should obviously know better as someone in his position. We did exactly what he wanted. A broad based climate bill including everyone in the coalition, bringing everyone along in the energy transition. But because it didn't have the obvious electoral benefit, suddenly we have to pretend none of that actually happened.
It did. The evidence is clearly obvious and not one of these people has so far backed up their claims with any evidence. Just simple google searches prove this.
"Between August 2022 and July 2023 alone, 272 new clean energy projects were announced in 44 states. These will generate more than 170,000 new jobs in small towns and big cities alike with Michigan, Georgia, South Carolina, California and Texas leading the way."
There is absolutely no way to reconcile the fact that Trump presidency, with the possibility of 4 billion more tons of emissions by repealing the IRA etc, and the idea the IRA was just some minor law that only went to solar company owners. No the threat of Trump is precisely because the IRA was a monumental law that created a clean energy manufacturing renaissance, which hires people at good wages and union opportunities
I know exactly what it is I helped accomplish on climate during Biden's presidency and it's not my fault that people like Brett can't contemplate they might be wrong on the electorate response and instead would rather disregard what I helped achieve.
We have answered the core question. What he wants is what the Biden admin already was on economic policy, prioritizing workers in a clean energy transition and elsewhere. I am just so tired of these takes that fundamentally refuse to engage with what clearly happened over the past 4 years, just to maintain some personal idealist view of the electorate.
This tweet sums up my views and I'm too tired and angry for anything else right now. Sorry.
"I live in WV and the state has been showered with funding and there are factories popping up everywhere and the state has 1b surplus and dems defended pensions and black lung funding and they voted 70% for Trump so shut the fuck up"
Thanks for this comment. I definitely could have taken a deeper dive into Brettās perspective and perhaps I will. With the WRI link you posted, Iām wondering how many of those 170,000 jobs have yet been realized? It does take a while to get a factory operational as I understand it. But I will look into it. I hear you.
I wonder how we counter the information chaos that the tech bros have mastered (as noted in the Guardian).
How the hell we gonna reach the regular ass people?
Anyone else shook up when they see the basic level of knowledge on the street like when Jimmy Kimmel interviewed people about helping find Amelia Earhart? Did you happen to catch the regular ass people answering basic questions that test the ability to recall American history lessons we all got in grade 4 &5? I donāt know what in the world we can do to fight the algorithms and the info chaos, and the duh factor.
There is little doubt that the United States is in big trouble period. By selecting some of the worst people to manage cabinet positions and help create policy, the country is not likely to survive another four years. Trump doesn't care as he know this is his last go around. He may be deliberately setting up a scorched earth scenario in order to make as much money as possible while president. He probably doesn't care about anything beyond his own creature comforts. As long as his water is clean and his abode is cool or warm, nothing else matters.
The environment will suffer massively under his watch and he will call out the soldiers if protestors disrupt the corporations and colleges. it is going to be a long four years.
The non-college electorate (and even many "college educated" people) don't read, have no understanding of biology, statistics, civics or really anything else except who's hot on social media. The only way to make headway is to back up to storytelling mode, which was the operative way of transmitting information in pre-literate eras. A story to illustrate the impact of climate on a neighbor who can't get insurance for their property. A story to talk about how many acres or livestock were lost in the last weather extreme. Policy and science will get us nowhere.
So the first thing the new Administrator for the Environmental PROTECTION Agency says is not something about protecting the environment, but about "dominance". Not a good start, but not surprising either.
I don't see any of these strategies working personally. I know some of these things are going to sound overly negative, but these types of strategies should be considered dead, just like the tiniest possibility of meeting 1.5C. I live in a red county in Michigan, I watch how politicians play games here which then people applaud and end up repeating over and over.
Being a little "audacious"? You mean like throwing more soup on paintings? Like that was effective - you think right-wingers care about if you destroy some million-dollar piece of precious art? It's a joke to them and does the climate movement no favors.
Knocking on doors? Seriously? Not only inefficient, but nobody is going to answer their door just to have a little chat on climate change at some random time of the day. Best case you spend hours and hours walking - worse case, get threatened. Talking to regular folks? Regular folks talk about their day-to-day bills - so we better figure out a way to start showing with some degree of confidence how much climate affected the cost of x, y, and z.
And (R) politicians here boast about infrastructure projects and fixing things from ARPA/IRA/Infrastructure acts constantly, show up at ribbon cuttings, pose for pictures - but you know what they don't do --- give credit to those that passed them. Shady as fuck - but people eat it up - telling local politicians they should run for governor.
If they mention the source of funding at all, it is maybe the acronym - but people have NO CLUE who voted for it or passed it. They just see someone getting things done and taking credit for it. Maybe it's time to start having the basic mentality of the little Joe Biden stickers seen on gas pumps of "I did this!" -- no matter how far the reality or truth is. You know what they care about the most - that it didn't raise their local property taxes or utility bills.
People are not connecting the dots. EVERY single infrastructure / climate project should be required to have a big sign posted saying "This road was fixed by this bill, passed by these people." I have to PAY EXTRA to my energy utility to have some of my electric bill go to clean energy sources. And the utility companies are coming in asking for rate increases because of more storms and more maintenance and downtime. That is the exact opposite of what people want. If there's an increase due to storms, it should appear on your utility bill saying "because of inaction on mitigating risks from climate." Hit people over the friggin head with it.
Maybe the messaging is "clean air and water" because bottom line, that's what all most people have the time or capability to understand - no matter how much climate change threatened them both.
I'm an old guy so I remember in the 80's or 90's when there were big signs next to many rural American highways saying "US EPA funding this small town sewage treatment plant $$$,$$$,$$$" Even folks who didn't like taxes much, but like fishing or swimming in the creek a lot, kinda got it. I think. Lots of hard hats coming in and out past that sign every day. Pretty decent messaging, pre-interweb.
Current "climate" messaging generally sucks, whether "activist" or "establishment." Center for Biological Diversity is NOT a climate solutions advocate. IMHO, they are enemies of climate ACTION, one of thew successful actions being large scale wind and solar actually replacing and displacing fossil fuel electric generation. They've been good at turning activists AGAINST support for this real action.
"Climate activists" lost INFLUENCE over the last ten years. Too focused on ACTIVISM instead. Most folks see our protests and think "Citicorp, Huh?" Or "Stop Fossil Fuels," and think "How do I get to work w/o gas in my car?" More once I compose myself.
The āStop Fossil Fuelsā aspect needs to be reworked for sure. There needs to be some priorities set because fossil fuels are in everything from my toothpaste tube to the seatbelt components of my PHEV. You go to the hospital and see syringes, IV bags, computers, signage, beds, etc etc etc. Itās in all the servers supporting this substack!
Itās a sign of just how integrated they are in pretty much everything we use, and a sign of we have a major problem on our hands. Start with the highest emissions products and start working down. It is just too damn big, and I think Big Oil knows it - chuckling all the way to the bank.
Thanks...I needed this...I will never understand the people around where I live who do the small things like littering to the big things like driving giant trucks and Jeeps. Most seem to not care at all or live in a vacuum of lies. I'm working on doing better to let people know how bad it can get.
Their ilk has created a narrative that efficiency and rooftop solar can create enough clean electricity with zero impacts on the land. Oh, and cheaply. Ain't so. Nothing is perfect and there will be impacts. But that horrible renewable industry (EEK! Capitalists, EEK! Investors, EEK!) has reduced the enviro impacts of the big projects which are actually significantly reducing use of FFs in electric generation. Climate activists need to know about bird and bat and aircraft lighting sensors on wind turbines and minimized grading and pollinator planting and tortoise conservation at solar farms, etc.
I've heard that, "do it for your grandkids," actually polls well. A focus on "toxics" really doesn't work for 95% of the energy and consumers and voters who aren't too exposed or don't care. It dilutes any "climate" message, and it can be turned around easily with "Look xyz clean tech isn't really clean." Even efficiency can get that treatment, e.g. LED bulbs are messing with our optic nerves or something. Probably the most "toxic" exposure for most folks to FF emissions is to diesel exhaust or gas stoves. Then all of a sudden we're really talking about the truck used for work by Jake or Juan or Jackson. Or the gas stove that tia Juanita cooks tortillas on. (Local gas co placard on the commuter bus. Effective influencing there.) And while the FF biz has been BS'ing everyone for years and should be flogged, to actually reduce GHGs requires dealing with a billion appliances burning fossil gas in just the USA, along with our 300 million tailpipes. None of which are owned by the FF companies.
In any case if students are going to walk out, IMHO they need a message of transition to clean/low/zero emissions society, and yes, it will probably still be a "consumer society." Not just Stop Fossil Fuels or Defund or Disinvest.
So far, Canada is not going to put a faucet on our water resources for the US to abuse. That said, if the Conservatives get elected next year, move farther north.
Zeldin is quoted in a New York Times article saying, āIām not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem as other people are.ā This is a newer rhetoric on the right that we need to be ready to counter. Mandy Gunasekara, who worked in EPA during Trump 1 and who will have a key position again, was quoted on NPR saying she believes climate change will be "mild and manageable." They don't deny climate change; they just dismiss its significance.
Separately, I totally agree that the climate movement needs to focus on "regular-ass" people. We need to drop phrases like "our grandchildren's future" and "save the planet." We need to talk about the health effects of burning fossil fuels, the cost of disaster relief, the need for costly resilient infrastructure, higher heating and cooling bills, much higher insurance costs (if you can get insurance at all), and the consequences of letting China dominate green technology. People can relate to those kind of things. I also believe that being anti-science is fundamentally un-American, but that's another discussion.
Definitely agree that it needs to be countered, but I'd say it's not that new. I recall during the first Trump administration there was a similar trend of Trump-appointed EPA folks just generally downplaying the severity/dismissing the significance of climate change: https://newrepublic.com/article/153359/seductive-stupidity-andrew-wheeler
Yes people should have been motivated by the IRA and they weren't either because of messaging issues(which I don't really believe was the problem) or just outright propaganda from the right.
Brett Hartl is objectively wrong and yeah I'm also going to say he should obviously know better as someone in his position. We did exactly what he wanted. A broad based climate bill including everyone in the coalition, bringing everyone along in the energy transition. But because it didn't have the obvious electoral benefit, suddenly we have to pretend none of that actually happened.
It did. The evidence is clearly obvious and not one of these people has so far backed up their claims with any evidence. Just simple google searches prove this.
"Between August 2022 and July 2023 alone, 272 new clean energy projects were announced in 44 states. These will generate more than 170,000 new jobs in small towns and big cities alike with Michigan, Georgia, South Carolina, California and Texas leading the way."
https://www.wri.org/insights/inflation-reduction-act-anniversary-manufacturing-resurgence
There is absolutely no way to reconcile the fact that Trump presidency, with the possibility of 4 billion more tons of emissions by repealing the IRA etc, and the idea the IRA was just some minor law that only went to solar company owners. No the threat of Trump is precisely because the IRA was a monumental law that created a clean energy manufacturing renaissance, which hires people at good wages and union opportunities
I know exactly what it is I helped accomplish on climate during Biden's presidency and it's not my fault that people like Brett can't contemplate they might be wrong on the electorate response and instead would rather disregard what I helped achieve.
We have answered the core question. What he wants is what the Biden admin already was on economic policy, prioritizing workers in a clean energy transition and elsewhere. I am just so tired of these takes that fundamentally refuse to engage with what clearly happened over the past 4 years, just to maintain some personal idealist view of the electorate.
This tweet sums up my views and I'm too tired and angry for anything else right now. Sorry.
"I live in WV and the state has been showered with funding and there are factories popping up everywhere and the state has 1b surplus and dems defended pensions and black lung funding and they voted 70% for Trump so shut the fuck up"
https://x.com/Johngcole/status/1854294540162568494
Thanks for this comment. I definitely could have taken a deeper dive into Brettās perspective and perhaps I will. With the WRI link you posted, Iām wondering how many of those 170,000 jobs have yet been realized? It does take a while to get a factory operational as I understand it. But I will look into it. I hear you.
I wonder how we counter the information chaos that the tech bros have mastered (as noted in the Guardian).
How the hell we gonna reach the regular ass people?
Anyone else shook up when they see the basic level of knowledge on the street like when Jimmy Kimmel interviewed people about helping find Amelia Earhart? Did you happen to catch the regular ass people answering basic questions that test the ability to recall American history lessons we all got in grade 4 &5? I donāt know what in the world we can do to fight the algorithms and the info chaos, and the duh factor.
There is little doubt that the United States is in big trouble period. By selecting some of the worst people to manage cabinet positions and help create policy, the country is not likely to survive another four years. Trump doesn't care as he know this is his last go around. He may be deliberately setting up a scorched earth scenario in order to make as much money as possible while president. He probably doesn't care about anything beyond his own creature comforts. As long as his water is clean and his abode is cool or warm, nothing else matters.
The environment will suffer massively under his watch and he will call out the soldiers if protestors disrupt the corporations and colleges. it is going to be a long four years.
The non-college electorate (and even many "college educated" people) don't read, have no understanding of biology, statistics, civics or really anything else except who's hot on social media. The only way to make headway is to back up to storytelling mode, which was the operative way of transmitting information in pre-literate eras. A story to illustrate the impact of climate on a neighbor who can't get insurance for their property. A story to talk about how many acres or livestock were lost in the last weather extreme. Policy and science will get us nowhere.
So the first thing the new Administrator for the Environmental PROTECTION Agency says is not something about protecting the environment, but about "dominance". Not a good start, but not surprising either.
I don't see any of these strategies working personally. I know some of these things are going to sound overly negative, but these types of strategies should be considered dead, just like the tiniest possibility of meeting 1.5C. I live in a red county in Michigan, I watch how politicians play games here which then people applaud and end up repeating over and over.
Being a little "audacious"? You mean like throwing more soup on paintings? Like that was effective - you think right-wingers care about if you destroy some million-dollar piece of precious art? It's a joke to them and does the climate movement no favors.
Knocking on doors? Seriously? Not only inefficient, but nobody is going to answer their door just to have a little chat on climate change at some random time of the day. Best case you spend hours and hours walking - worse case, get threatened. Talking to regular folks? Regular folks talk about their day-to-day bills - so we better figure out a way to start showing with some degree of confidence how much climate affected the cost of x, y, and z.
And (R) politicians here boast about infrastructure projects and fixing things from ARPA/IRA/Infrastructure acts constantly, show up at ribbon cuttings, pose for pictures - but you know what they don't do --- give credit to those that passed them. Shady as fuck - but people eat it up - telling local politicians they should run for governor.
If they mention the source of funding at all, it is maybe the acronym - but people have NO CLUE who voted for it or passed it. They just see someone getting things done and taking credit for it. Maybe it's time to start having the basic mentality of the little Joe Biden stickers seen on gas pumps of "I did this!" -- no matter how far the reality or truth is. You know what they care about the most - that it didn't raise their local property taxes or utility bills.
People are not connecting the dots. EVERY single infrastructure / climate project should be required to have a big sign posted saying "This road was fixed by this bill, passed by these people." I have to PAY EXTRA to my energy utility to have some of my electric bill go to clean energy sources. And the utility companies are coming in asking for rate increases because of more storms and more maintenance and downtime. That is the exact opposite of what people want. If there's an increase due to storms, it should appear on your utility bill saying "because of inaction on mitigating risks from climate." Hit people over the friggin head with it.
Maybe the messaging is "clean air and water" because bottom line, that's what all most people have the time or capability to understand - no matter how much climate change threatened them both.
I'm an old guy so I remember in the 80's or 90's when there were big signs next to many rural American highways saying "US EPA funding this small town sewage treatment plant $$$,$$$,$$$" Even folks who didn't like taxes much, but like fishing or swimming in the creek a lot, kinda got it. I think. Lots of hard hats coming in and out past that sign every day. Pretty decent messaging, pre-interweb.
Current "climate" messaging generally sucks, whether "activist" or "establishment." Center for Biological Diversity is NOT a climate solutions advocate. IMHO, they are enemies of climate ACTION, one of thew successful actions being large scale wind and solar actually replacing and displacing fossil fuel electric generation. They've been good at turning activists AGAINST support for this real action.
"Climate activists" lost INFLUENCE over the last ten years. Too focused on ACTIVISM instead. Most folks see our protests and think "Citicorp, Huh?" Or "Stop Fossil Fuels," and think "How do I get to work w/o gas in my car?" More once I compose myself.
The āStop Fossil Fuelsā aspect needs to be reworked for sure. There needs to be some priorities set because fossil fuels are in everything from my toothpaste tube to the seatbelt components of my PHEV. You go to the hospital and see syringes, IV bags, computers, signage, beds, etc etc etc. Itās in all the servers supporting this substack!
Itās a sign of just how integrated they are in pretty much everything we use, and a sign of we have a major problem on our hands. Start with the highest emissions products and start working down. It is just too damn big, and I think Big Oil knows it - chuckling all the way to the bank.
Thanks...I needed this...I will never understand the people around where I live who do the small things like littering to the big things like driving giant trucks and Jeeps. Most seem to not care at all or live in a vacuum of lies. I'm working on doing better to let people know how bad it can get.
I don't mind school walkouts and strikes if it makes for more climate activism. It's pretty much an "all hands on deck moment" at this point.
I don't know if walk outs from school would actually be effective. I mean... Trump would be happy if higher education closed.
Conservatives have actually proposed model legislation to outlaw school walkouts so I assume they don't like it too much! https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/k-12-student-walkouts-a-legislative-remedy/
I seem to disagree with both the folks you talked to at both Sunrise and Center for Biological Diversity. But more with CBD, they've exaggerated the biodiversity crisis as it relates to most wind and solar projects. They excel at "wildlife shaming." (https://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2020/09/10/here-we-go-again-the-planet-is-practically-dead/ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49070-x)
Their ilk has created a narrative that efficiency and rooftop solar can create enough clean electricity with zero impacts on the land. Oh, and cheaply. Ain't so. Nothing is perfect and there will be impacts. But that horrible renewable industry (EEK! Capitalists, EEK! Investors, EEK!) has reduced the enviro impacts of the big projects which are actually significantly reducing use of FFs in electric generation. Climate activists need to know about bird and bat and aircraft lighting sensors on wind turbines and minimized grading and pollinator planting and tortoise conservation at solar farms, etc.
I've heard that, "do it for your grandkids," actually polls well. A focus on "toxics" really doesn't work for 95% of the energy and consumers and voters who aren't too exposed or don't care. It dilutes any "climate" message, and it can be turned around easily with "Look xyz clean tech isn't really clean." Even efficiency can get that treatment, e.g. LED bulbs are messing with our optic nerves or something. Probably the most "toxic" exposure for most folks to FF emissions is to diesel exhaust or gas stoves. Then all of a sudden we're really talking about the truck used for work by Jake or Juan or Jackson. Or the gas stove that tia Juanita cooks tortillas on. (Local gas co placard on the commuter bus. Effective influencing there.) And while the FF biz has been BS'ing everyone for years and should be flogged, to actually reduce GHGs requires dealing with a billion appliances burning fossil gas in just the USA, along with our 300 million tailpipes. None of which are owned by the FF companies.
Here's one approach to increasing consumer/voter support for industrial renewables. https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/11/08/octopus-energys-offshore-wind-tariff-saves-grimsby-residents-on-energy-bills/ Octopus energy will also install heat pumps and EV chargers cheaply when the customer agrees to give them some control so power use is maximized when renewables are in surplus.
In any case if students are going to walk out, IMHO they need a message of transition to clean/low/zero emissions society, and yes, it will probably still be a "consumer society." Not just Stop Fossil Fuels or Defund or Disinvest.
So far, Canada is not going to put a faucet on our water resources for the US to abuse. That said, if the Conservatives get elected next year, move farther north.