An underlying theme amongst every conservative I know is “who pays for it?!?!”. Fundamentally they don’t trust the system, they think they’re going to foot the bill whilst China pollutes to riches. “Do you think China gives a shit about carbon emissions when there are a billion peasants that don’t have running water??” Is the answer you get when they’re drunk. Denying climate change is the answer you get in polite society.
IE, yes money is still the root of all evil.
Even if China weren’t going to hold up its end of controlling carbon emissions, how does it therefore follow that we shouldn’t? Do they think the CO2 is going to nod sagely in accordance with our legitimate grievances?
It’s something about fairness. To get under a conservative’s skin, to really get them punch-throwing mad when drunk, talk about fairness. It’s how almost all anti-progressive reactions they have are framed. Black Lives Matter isn’t fair because my life matters. Welfare isn’t fair because I don’t get it. Progressive taxes aren’t fair because I already pay plenty of taxes and all you want is for me to shutup and pay more! Ect. I think the fundamental psychology of conservatives is the fraying of the social compact - they really, really do see the world as out to get them. And… to be fair, there is a little bit of truth to that. But of course their intransigence causes as much dislike towards them as any preconceived biases, so it’s a vicious circle jerk of indignation. Conservatives seem to be much more concerned with individual fairness than Progressives, who, I think, actually frame their worldview around preconceptions of unfairnesses of group/identity social inequalities.
Because they tend to see things in terms of opportunities and outcomes - and setting aside whether what they perceive is accurate for a second - what they perceive is that climate change policy is going to a) hurt them/cost them jobs, money, opportunities and b) not actually do anything for climate change because China, India and Africa are going to do whatever they want anyway and c) someone else, in some industry (Al Gore!) is going to be making lots of money off the increased taxes i’m paying to fix a problem that isn’t going to get fixed in “green” energy.
Now, to be fair, there is some truth to all this. They probably are right that without getting everyone on Earth on board, more or less, we’re not going to be able to combat climate change. And they probably are right, more or less, that progressives just aren’t going to hold other countries to as strict standards as they hold their own, even if that means climate change policy may end up being self-defeating, because progressives perceive it’s “not fair” we got to pollute and industrialize before pollution and climate change became such a problem. But from their point of view climate change policy is just going to cost them money and get someone else rich.
Great post. And of course conservatives are mainly considered to be in the evangelical and /or “Christian” party, which just makes me laugh. So much hypocrisy.
Tragedy of the commons.
Armando will quietly and gently note that every minute climate change isn’t tackled with the full brunt of human ingenuity can probably be mathematically calculated to X thousand lives lost in the not terribly distant future and that anyone opposing that progress has that blood on their hands so why in the ever loving fuck do we keep letting these knuckle dragging imbeciles drag us into oblivion with them? I don’t give half a shit about your freedom of political expression when your politics is too render the earth uninhabitable within a couple hundred years.
Oops. I started quiet. Oh well.
Armando, we’ve told you, stop yelling in the street…
Goddamn I wish I was that skinny
Where would we be without Ann Coulter to guide us?
No climate or environmental activist anywhere think that India/China/Asia/SA et al repeating the mistakes of industrialization that the US made (and long before most knew any better) is a “good thing.” Concern trolls use that point to counter efforts to mitigate climate change.
And by the way, the answer to their whiny question is, their children pay for it, including with their lives.
Said it before, will say it again: the extent to which Coulter and Trump part ways is precisely the extent to which I like Trump more.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to fashion a worse person than Ann Coulter, but I am saying that we’ll never know, because said person’s mother would smother then in the cradle within the first week.
Fuck those people. China is actually leading the way, and we - the richest country on earth - are embarrassingly doing nothing. Because some rich assholes might become less rich.
Joe Walsh and Bill Mitchell are VERY strong contenders. They’re just less successful or well known.
The GOP party is pretty much focused entirely around the good Christian value of selfishness above all else.
Absolutely true. After all, the gospels mentioned that Judas invested the 30 silver on the market and made great returns at the time because that was before all the government meddling with capital gains taxation.
Your edition of the Book is outdated: I am pretty sure it is agreed Judas invested 30 dollars.
Probably true, I have the Poor King James Version. I’ve not updated to the Modern Cash Flow Version.
Alt-Jesus is better than Republican Jesus as a meme, I like it.
There are no problems, just unfinished solutions as far as the eye can see…