Anyone else notice the disconcerting parallels between the current climate change conversation and our Covid response? When gatekeepers deem dissent as socially irresponsible, we bludgeon our way through policy changes that deserve surgical precision. A 🧵 on the similarities:
Biden has considered declaring a Climate Emergency, presumably opening the door for the administration to use unilateral, bureaucratic power to force policy changes they can’t accomplish otherwise. (Emergency declarations opened the door for significant power grabs during Covid.)
He’s stopped short of declaring it, but it could still happen. nytimes.com/2022/07/20/us/… nytimes.com/2022/07/20/us/…
Forced energy policy changes will cost low- and middle-income Americans the most, as they will likely exacerbate current energy shortages and drive costs even higher. (Pandemic policies and closures cost the same group of Americans the most over the last few years.)
Arguing that it might be irresponsible to take such drastic measures gets you labeled a “climate change denier” these days. (With Covid we were “grandma killers.”) NVM that it's nonsensical and unserious to reduce incredibly complicated issues into such simplistic binaries.
It’s arguably just as overly simplistic, not to mention completely dishonest, for progressive politicians to act as if renewables will magically fill the void left by curtailed fossil fuel production/use. We lack renewable infrastructure/technology to meet demand. Period.
Behind these dogmatic “follow the science” claims is a belief held with religious-like fervor that the science is settled and anyone who disagrees with the party line is an imbecile, uneducated and dangerous… and probably republican, which is a new synonym for all the above.
We can already see science was, in fact, not settled in regards to Covid, and one can make a data-based case for why that's the case with the energy debate as well. E.g. ‘Green’ energy isn’t always that green. And building the green energy plane mid-flight could increase our CO2
More on that here in a piece I recently wrote: reason.com/2022/07/11/if-…
Politicians dig their heels in on totem-like identity markers rather than dealing in actual science/data or problem-solving. (Too many Covid parallels to list.) For all the talk about the need for clean energy, where are the progressive politicians calling for nuclear plants?
Has anyone suggested we start rationing gas/elec? Why did Biden ask the Saudis to produce more oil rather than expand domestic production where the extraction process is already cleaner; isn’t exported pollution still pollution? bloomberg.com/news/newslette…
When we can’t have meaningful, good-faith conversations about thorny subjects because gatekeepers deem dissent as socially irresponsible, we end up bludgeoning our way through policy changes that deserve surgical precision, harming the most vulnerable members of our society.
In an energy crisis, that’s the lower and middle classes faced with stagnating wages and high inflation. (Children/elderly in Covid.) Small biz owners in both. See @ShellenbergerMD excellent and heartbreaking story about Sri Lanka michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
