Thread by @Noahpinion

1/OK, let's talk about the Climate Left, and what their real impact on society is.

This is going to be a "swerve" thread, where the first half just makes fun of the Climate Left, and the second half says "BUT ACKSHUALLY they might be really helpful"...

noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-climate-…

2/By "the Climate Left", I mean groups like Sunrise and Extinction Rebellion that explicitly mix climate with other leftist causes, as well as leftists like Andreas Malm who have decided to focus on climate as their new reason to hate capitalism.

3/Andreas Malm has a book in which he urges people to blow up fossil fuel pipelines.

That's an insanely stupid idea, but fortunately neither he nor the rest of the Climate Left has any intention of actually doing that.

nytimes.com/2021/07/15/opi…

4/Malm's own act of eco-terrorism -- letting the air out of some SUVs' tires -- demonstrates just how farcical the threat is.

It's really just a way for the Climate Left to say "THIS IS SERIOUS! WE MEAN BUSINESS!!"

lareviewofbooks.org/article/sabota…

5/The thing is, the Climate Left does not actually mean business. Their whole focus on the Anglosphere and North Europe is farcical -- they're just yelling at the countries that tolerate their yelling.

6/When you show Climate Leftists this chart, or talk about the huge new fleet of coal plants China is building, their talk instantaneously switches away from "we must reduce emissions or the planet will die" to "B...b...but what about per capita?"

e360.yale.edu/features/despi…

6/Obviously the climate cares only about total emissions, not per capita.

And obviously the only way to deal with historical emissions is carbon removal technology, which the Climate Left vigorously OPPOSES.

https://twitter.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1416428728243077127

7/The reason Andreas Malm won't even farcically call for bombing Chinese fossil fuel infrastructure, and the reason Sunrise isn't protesting China, and the reason Climate Leftists bob and weave whenever you mention any of this, is because China won't listen to them.

8/When Greta Thunberg (who is actually serious about climate change) mentioned that maybe China should think about reducing their emissions, Chinese state media simply dogpiled her on Twitter and called her fat.

businessinsider.com/greta-thunberg…

9/So the Climate Left sticks to yelling at the relatively sweet, liberal, tolerant regimes of the Anglosphere and North Europe, where their rolling block party is not just tolerated but given intellectual respect and acclaim.

10/Of course, China is far from the only reason the Climate Left is an obvious farce.

See this @mattyglesias post for more reasons:
slowboring.com/p/climate-left

11/The Climate Left vigorously denounces any actual climate bill that makes it through Congress.

They fight against nuclear, making it much harder to reduce emissions in the short term.

And they spend much of their energy on non-climate-related issues.

It's a farce!

12/OK, so here's where this thread swerves and says "Maybe this farce has an important use after all".

The Climate Left isn't a mass movement for grassroots-driven policy or political change. BUT, they may keep elite liberals' attention focused on climate.

And that's important.

13/Actual action on climate comes from two sources, both of them driven by liberal elites:

1. Technological progress, and

2. Elite-driven policy.

Liberal scientists, businesspeople, and policymakers need to stay focused on climate!

14/Tech progress, which is driven by scientists, engineers, government grants, green entrepreneurship, and scaling by big businesses, is our only hope of actually making China want to decarbonize -- which is necessary to save the planet.

noahpinion.substack.com/p/decarbonizat…

15/And policy is needed to implement that technology; it won't happen fast enough on its own.

That will invariably be elite-driven policy, not grassroots stuff supported by the Climate Left, who denounces any actual climate policy that gets implemented or passed.

16/In order for green energy tech to progress, huge numbers of liberal elites must dedicate their lives and fortunes and political capital to focusing on climate instead of on other things!

17/And what makes liberal elites spend their lives, risk their fortunes, and sacrifice their political capital on climate as opposed to other things?

AWARENESS!

18/The Climate Left is a farce, but liberal elites don't realize it's a farce! Liberal elites pay attention to things like Sunrise and Andreas Malm.

So the Climate Left might be keeping liberal elites' eye on the ball here.

19/Thus, the Climate Left might be helping create what @yayitsrob calls the "Green Vortex" -- a self-reinforcing cycle of positive change among science, business, and policy.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

20/And besides, what else is the Climate Left going to do with their time and energy? China's not listening, and the general public just doesn't care that much, so why NOT throw a big block party and yell at liberal elites?

21/That doesn't mean the Climate Left is totally harmless.

Canceling nuclear plants really does make it harder to decarbonize. They bear some culpability for that.

latimes.com/business/story…

22/But overall, the Climate Left is mainly just keeping liberal elites obsessed with climate. And liberal elites are the ones who can actually DO something about the very real problem that is starting to cause global catastrophe.

(end)

noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-climate-…

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