On the issue of climate change, not only do most of the Right have nothing constructive to say, but some have gone nuts. This unnamed writer, responding to Andrew Sullivan at The Dish, is worth quoting since he covers the Anglosphere, including us Canucks:
I totally agree with you that it’s scandalous how the GOP has gone insane on climate change, but unfortunately they’re not the only conservative party that has done so. Especially in the so-called Anglosphere, other ruling conservative parties have more or less gone the same way. The current Tory-led coalition in the UK has appointed “climate skeptic” Owen Paterson as Environment Minister, and he’s slashed climate change spending by 41% in 2014 as compared to 2013.
In Canada, the conservative Harper government is increasingly addicted to revenues from tar sand oil exploitation, professes to believe in climate change but in reality has done absolutely nothing to limit carbon dioxide emissions. See Grist from late 2013 here.
And in Australia, in less than a year since being elected to the majority in September 2013, conservative Tony Abbott has made aggressive moves to dismantle Australia’s carbon tax and slash spending on climate change programs enacted by the government he defeated.
It is worth noting that all these conservatives don’t go in for the complete climate denial engaged in by Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, et al, but they are just as committed to dismantling even tentative efforts to address the issue.
When they aren’t dishing out red meat to the base, accusing scientists of conspiracies and fraud, some conservatives tend to moderate their rhetoric a bit, as Sullivan observes:
(Some Republicans typically begin with a) “I’m not a scientist” schtick when trying to square objective reality with the denialism or fantasy of their own coalition.
I’m not a scientist either. I have no expertise in measuring carbon levels back thousands of years; I have no clue how to balance measurable heat in the oceans as opposed to the deserts; I cannot say what would likely shift in weather patterns if we keep boiling our planet like the proverbial frog; and on and on. But I can read temperature charts and I can read the IPCC report and I can glean something relevant from the crushingly overwhelming majority view of the relevant climate scientists.
And that simple act of amateur reasoning is all we ask of ourselves as citizens, and it is all we can ever ask of our elected representatives. We elect them to make decisions about the future of Afghanistan, the sectarian conflict in Syria, the intricacies of Internet regulation, and any number of complex questions usually grasped only by experts. Sometimes, they can become kinda experts themselves. But what’s vital is that they simply use reason – a core democratic practice – to figure stuff out.
On this important issue, one entire party in our system has simply decided to opt out of these basic demands of democratic life.
And that’s a problem. Not just because when conservatives opt out of debate, there is less discussion and awareness – and we all lose by not have contrasting ideas and policy options.
And not just because, when in government, conservatives try to take climate change off the agenda, or worse, defund or censor the science we need.
The problem is that it’s not clear what it will take to bring the issue forward in order for society to respond with sufficient measures and resources – except an awful lot of very unpleasant and persistent outcomes, increasingly severe and costly and irreversible. The longer conservatives dig in with obliviousness, the longer it will take to dig out. And even then …
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It’s easier when the Right disengages from the centre for the extremes to dominate the public discourse – making the average person inclined to disengage as well. While that may be seen to be a good short-term strategy to keep the issue out of debate, it’s very bad politics in the not-too-distant-future if, indeed, there is unrelenting volatility in the environment.
If you have nothing to say, if you’ve been preaching denial, if you’re bereft of policy, then the power shifts to those prepared to wield it in response to emergency. And that’s not necessarily a desirable outcome either.
In lieu of partisan attacks, I enjoy discussions of scientific information, which often shows the Left to be as devoid of factual basis and reason if not more so than this post accuses the Right of being. For example: http://joannenova.com.au/ (Scroll down for story on Antarctic volcanoes).
While we all enjoy ragging on the crazy right-wingers, what exactly did the Liberals do for the environment when they were in power? Sure we signed Kyoto, then promptly increased our emissions. The oil sands development got started way before Harper. The only carbon tax in North America here in BC didn’t come from the left. The NDP even campaigned against it.
Really, the way to do something about climate change is to get people on board with the notion that changing the way we live will make things better for all of us, not slagging off against political opponents for partisan gain. Remember, at least 40% of the electorate (that votes) supports the Conservatives. Alienating 40% of the people you need to institute change is not a winning strategy. But then maybe the strategy is just to feel superior, not actually do anything about the problem.
Really the true insanity is confined to the Republican Party in the US. Other conservative parties have done nothing, but it is not because they are crazy. They are just putting short term economic gain from resource extraction ahead of everything else. And the Gordon Campbell liberals in BC had a decent record of environmental protection, ahead of many other jurisdictions.
It’s really too bad that the right has opted out of the debate, because they might have been able to engender some support for less economically costly ways of dealing with the problem.
The left loves to regulate to solve problems, but if the right would have really seized on the carbon-pricing idea (using market mechanisms to deal with a problem) we might be a lot better off now.
When the left’s bleeding hearts join forces with the right’s hard-fiscal-noses, democracy solves problems. Otherwise, not so much.