Been reading more and more takes that climate bill failed because of shifting public opinion: e.g. the NYT "reported" this week (without empirical evidence!) that the public has soured on climate as the economy weakened. Nonsense. A short 🧵 1/

nytimes.com/2022/07/17/us/… This zombie idea gets rehearsed every couple months. The central thesis: the public has a finite pool of worry, so when the economy goes downhill, they privilege immediate "economic" security over long-term climate concerns. But is climate opinion really structured this way? 2/

New research in @NatureClimate w/ @erickUdeM, @ProfKHarrison and I. Stadelmann-Steffen. Two countries have set up carbon tax + rebates: Canada + Switzerland. Have these rebates increased public carbon pricing support, as advocates hope? Not really. 1/🧵 nature.com/articles/s4155… 2/ The politics of carbon pricing are challenging, as @leahstokes and I have written about in the @BostonReview and as I've discussed in my book Carbon Captured. Key problem: carbon taxes make salient policy costs while keeping benefits hidden.

bostonreview.net/articles/leah-…

Exciting news! @MichaelAklin and my new provocation is out in @GepJournal. We make a simple but far-reaching claim. **Empirically, climate politics is NOT primarily about collective action or free-riding**. A quick 🧵on why we've all been prisoners of the wrong dilemma 1/ For decades now, we've all assumed that free-riding is the binding constraint on global climate politics. Google "climate change" and "free-riding", and it generates 18000+ unique hits. Economists mince few words about this. Here's a Nordhaus quote for flavor: 2/

Will climate change change political behavior? In new @apsrjournal article, @chadhazlett and I find that experiencing a wildfire drives pro-environmental voting - but only in Democratic areas. Short 🧵 1/
cup.org/309PWte The politics of climate change politics is tough. Leaders need to impose short-term policy costs to deliver long-term climate benefits. Today, the impacts of climate change are impacting Americans. Will this break the climate policymaking stalemate? 2/

My new book Carbon Captured is out! In it, I explain differences across countries in the timing and substance of their climate reforms. A quick 🧵here on one of the book's key arguments - something I call the logic of "double representation" 1/

mitpress.mit.edu/books/carbon-c… Often, we talk about climate change as a left-right thing. But this doesn't line up with empirical reality of climate policy debates in most countries. We can't understand climate politics without recognizing this. 2/

I can't pull my mind away from the horrifying loss of life and land in 🇦🇺. Climate politics in Oz have been insane for decades. (The insanity gets a full chapter in my book). Will these fires change anything? Can they undermine the climate skeptics in power? A short 🧵1/ On the surface of it, it's hard to be hopeful. Current PM Morrison refuses to acknowledge that climate change is happening and wants to expand coal production. Here he is, no joke, bringing a lump of it into the Australian parliament. 2/

Polarization is huge obstacle to US climate policy. One hope: cross-party clean energy uptake. My new @NatureEnergyJnl article (w @peterdhowe + Chris Miljanich) merges satellite data w/ voter file to explore political behaviors of solar PV households 1/ 🧵 nature.com/articles/s4156… For decades, US climate beliefs have been sorting around party lines. Today, many Republican officials have turned against the energy transition - in some states they are even working to rollback state-level clean energy policies 2/ theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

SHORT THREAD: Climate change is happening. It's signature is all over our lives. Will this reshape the politics of climate change? My new open-access review with @peterdhowe, @mudfire, and Brittany Shield in ERL surveys what we know and don't 1/
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.108… Do climate experiences change shape climate opinions? Contrary to many advocates' hope, there is mixed evidence that extreme weather shapes climate beliefs. Some evidence that very local experiences have short-term effect - but little evidence for durable over-time effects 2/

Eliminate the filibuster and a Dem Senate could pass climate reforms if 2020 goes the party's way - but we also need those reforms to be durable. I write about the Republican elephant in the climate politics room for @TPM THREAD 1/
talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/climate-d… Across the world, right-wing populists have repealed climate change policy after seizing power. The IPCC makes clear we no longer have time for such fits and starts. A climate package in 2021 needs to be durable for a decade or more 2/ theguardian.com/environment/20…

Fellow Canadians (and folks who care about our climate!) We've just released new data on what Canadians in every riding think about climate change. tldr: Canadians REALLY want to see gvt climate policy, including in Andrew Scheer's riding. THREAD 1/
umontreal.ca/climat/engl/in… Our data (work is joint with @erickUdeM) shows the road to majority or minority gvt goes mostly through ridings where Canadians are worried about climate change and want gvt action. FYI: you can also explore our online tool here for yourself: umontreal.ca/climat/engl/in… 2/

I wrote a book on climate politics (comes out Jan). It goes DEEP into the weeds. But sometimes weeds hide important stuff we've forgotten about climate politics, perfect for occasional threads! Today: when carbon pricing nearly happened in first 100 days of George W Bush admin 1/ On March 13th, 2001, Bush infamously wrote to the Senate to clarify his opposition to 1) the Kyoto Protocol, and 2) limits on US carbon pollution. Most accounts of climate policymaking under President Bush start here. Then tackle Kyoto withdrawal, climate denialism, etc. 2/

Something I don't understand about the Sanders climate plan. What happens to existing generating assets? Do they simply disappear quietly into the night through 2030? 1/ As far as I can tell, the plan only offers one cryptic aside on this when it refers to an "EPA federal renewable energy standard" as a mechanism to accomplish this. Serious question. Through what statute would this be possible? 2/

Today's reason to be angry. Elections Canada is now warning environmental groups that discussion science may be classified as a partisan intervention in the forthcoming election. The reasons are infuriating 1/ cbc.ca/news/politics/… Sadly, this is not a surprise to me. I've been hearing similar rumblings for the last few months. Environmental groups are uncertain whether they can have conversations with the Canadian public during the election about climate change under new campaign finance laws. 2/

Nativist hate crimes. Trump. Gun violence. Ugh. But newspapers are beginning to run stories about racist, eco-fascist links so I suppose its a depressing + timely moment to re-up my essay on nativists, violence and Trump. 1/ short thread

blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-tra… It's important we remember that links between nativism and environmentalism are part of a decades-long racist project that helped set the stage for Trump, and involve many of the same far-right figures like John Tanton. 2/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tant…

This article is perhaps the most important I've read this year. h/t to @drvox. The take home: oil extraction is so profitable that even a carbon price of $200 per tonne would reduce emissions by only 4%. $600 (!) would only deliver 60%. 1/ papers.nber.org/tmp/57241-w260… It is sobering to confront how inelastic fossil fuel extraction is to market pressures. And unfortunately these results match up perfectly with a case in my forthcoming book on carbon pricing: Norway 2/

My essay on carbon pricing in New Brunswick published today in @IRPP, part of a week-long series on Canadian carbon pricing policies. NB is a really interesting case - because it's about as difficult a case as possible 1/

https://twitter.com/IRPP/status/1148541067299627018

New Brunswick is small, its carbon emissions are dominated by a single company (Irving Oil), median income is the lowest in Canada, and total emissions are lower than many individual US point sources 2/

As I have been saying for a while, there isn't a bigger story in environmental politics right now than the Prince Edward Island Green Party. In the midst of an election right now and stand a very good chance of forming government in two weeks time...1/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Prin… And this is in a first past the post system. A green government would be the first for any electoral system and likely signals even more Green Party gains in Canada over the coming months. Why?... 2/

Green New Deal debates have generated controversy over the right strategy to build political coalition for climate reforms. Critics worry that radical + incomplete nature of the GND will undermine efforts and feed the fire of conservative climate scepticism. I disagree. 1/ Quick preface: these debates have surfaced important considerations. Left-leaning climate advocates will need to address them head-on if they are going to succeed. I’d recommend that everyone read the important + thoughtful essay by @jerry_jtaylor and response by @leahstokes. 2/

New commentary by Monica Prasad in Politico about the benefits of a carbon tax over the Green New Deal. I really love some of Prasad's tax scholarship. But I think this argument is totally wrong. 1/ politico.com/agenda/story/2… Her central thesis is that progressive are wrong to criticize carbon taxation. She argues that views on the policy instrument are distorted by economists inability to accurately model tax (environmental) benefits, instead focussing on tax (economic) costs 2/

Something I've been meaning to say about The Tragedy of the Commons. Bear with me for a small thread on why our embrace of Hardin is a stain on environmentalism. tldr: we’ve let a flawed metaphor by a racist ecologist define environmental thinking for a half century. 1/ Hardin’s article, published in Science, turned 50 this past December. Since then, tens of millions of students have been taught its core message. Every individual seeks to exploit the commons. In doing so they unsustainably overuse our shared resources to the ruin of all. 2/

Excited that our new data on the partisan distribution of climate and energy beliefs has been released: climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations…. Work with @YaleClimateComm @mudfire @ecotone2 @peterdhowe. Lots of interesting new results + new questions, all downscaled to the state + CD scales 1/ For instance, fascinating visual evidence of motivated reasoning among partisans in perceptions of having personally experienced global warming: