The Climate Left and Deference to Moderation
Over at his Slow Boring site, Matt Yglesias has a bit of a screed against the “climate left.” He argues, basically, that the activist groups (like the Sunrise Movement) pushing for transformational action on climate change are ignoring political realities, are muddling up too many other issues along with climate, and are in fact acting as a deterrent to some of the incremental progress that the Biden administration is attempting to achieve.
I have a few thoughts. First of all, I think there are two arguments in here that are actually more separate than Yglesias allows. One is that the climate left is ignoring political reality in such a way that will actually slow progress on climate change; and the other is that the left’s messaging approach—essentially, repeating very loudly to both Republicans and Democrats that climate change represents an existential emergency and accepting half-measures is tantamount to failure—is counter-productive, given the public’s general lack of willingness to sacrifice toward truly solving the problem.
I recognize that divorcing the arguments is more or less an attempt to ignore the first, in that the messaging approach does in fact exist inside a world where political reality stands in the way of progress. But if you are willing to take a step back then it gets at a sort of unanswerable angle to this that I think of as a sort of anthropic principle (it’s not a perfect analogy at all but whatever my brain has decided to stick with it) of climate change.
“Climate groups seem to be operating in a reality where there is massive public support for much more dramatic action on climate change and the only thing standing in their way is a need to sweep aside the power of corrupt and timid moderate Democrats,” Yglesias writes. He cites some polling suggesting the public just doesn’t care enough about climate change. But the more moderate approach to the topic has dominated Democratic efforts on climate for, well, ever, and the “climate left” as a voluble entity just isn’t all that old. And yet here we are, with polling suggesting the public just doesn’t care enough about climate change. We did what we did and ended up here—how is the resulting argument to just keep doing what we did?
Yglesias thinks the protests at the White House should stop because the various bills the Biden administration is pushing do in fact contain some climate solutions stuff, from funding to public transit to upgrading the electricity grid, and the climate left should turn to being “politically helpful.” A more popular Biden, and a more popular Democratic Party, the argument goes, are what is necessary to improve the outlook for real progress on climate. (As a quick aside, as I’ve argued before, the issue of timing is different for climate than almost any issue in history, in that it is functionally irreversible, and thus while things like a more friendly federal judiciary are certainly important to protect progress in the long run it is hard to see them as core to the basic, incredibly urgent need to reduce emissions.) But Yglesias also acknowledges another truth, that there is “just no way you’re going to get a massive climate bill without an engaged grassroots movement demanding one.”
His argument is that such a movement does not presently exist, with the current climate left too scattershot and muddled, in his view, to achieve the goal. But it seems oddly defeatist and even somewhat circular to act as though no such movement will exist. Again, the climate left is relatively new, and the last few years have been confusing; maybe these are the stutter steps toward a true grassroots movement that really can make a big difference—demanding that the nascent groups suddenly defer to the moderate center-left because there is some money for rail travel in a bill seems somewhat premature. I’m no grassroots organizer of course, but neither is Yglesias, and I’m just not sure that quoting a few Gallup polls is a case-closed sort of argument on this.
And about those polls. Yes, in pre-election polling climate change was behind various other issues in terms of voter concern. But if you’re making arguments about the best way to convince the public and push politics your way, I feel like trends are important too. In 2010, fewer than 30 percent of Americans said dealing with climate change should be a top priority for the government, per Pew; last year, that number was 52 percent. Gallup’s 2001-2014 average for people worrying a great deal about global warming was 32 percent; in 2019 it was 44 percent.
I wouldn’t pretend to know exactly what this says about the climate left—maybe it means the more moderate approach was working, though perhaps too slowly, and the left is standing in the way now; or maybe it means the issue has just slowly crept further into public consciousness as the media (also slowly) picked up coverage of climate, and now is the time for that large grassroots movement to make its push. I don’t know!
Yglesias readily concedes that the incremental progress currently on the table isn’t remotely enough given the actual scope of the problem, but I think insisting the climate left jump all the way on board sort of under- and overestimates their power at the same time. If they’re a useless movement that is far too toothless to achieve their transformational goals, how are they powerful enough to submarine even the baby steps in the bills now under discussion? What evidence do we have that their protests, the occasionally muddled messaging, and so on are actually standing in the way of progress, rather than just annoying Matt for a perceived lack of coherence?
Again, movements don’t happen overnight, though in this case sooner would be better; if the incremental approach continues to offer incremental progress regardless, and if politicians are actually free to ignore them anyway without evidence of serious consequences, then I would be inclined to say that in terms of sheer potential the presence of a climate left is better than the absence of one.
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