We need to divorce the public policy conversation about climate change and carbon emissions from all of this inflammatory and polarizing rhetoric.
Promote policies that target the worst sources of environmental pollution without coding your speech in a manner that causes everybody who voted for trump or itemized their taxes or whatever to stop listening in the middle of what you're trying to say.
As far as I'm concerned, humanity's most fundamental responsibility is to lower its emissions, as much and as permanently as possible.
I am sick and tired of seeing the focus of this task muddied by instead focusing on who's responsible, mixing social justice with climate science, etc. I could not agree more with the spirit of this stuff, but however well-intentioned it may well be, it only serves to distract and fracture and slow us down.
Yes, 10 corporations are responsible for 75% of emissions (or whatever the meme statistic is); yes, celebrities flying short distances on private planes is egregious; yes, your own personal carbon footprint pales in comparison. And yes, it feels nice to abdicate personal responsibility and say "those corporations/rich people should be responsible." Great, now what?
To all of that I say: all of the above. We need everything from sweeping legislation to individual action, and everything in between, with as little bickering or blame-shifting as possible.
Look at Europe right now, having pursued ESG policies their economy and industry is becoming much weaker than US and China. What if US and China don't care about carbon footprint? They win, Europe loses. Same with wealthy vs middle class etc. Too much incentive not to subscribe to energy policy of "less" and "weakness".
What you’re describing essentially sounds like mutually assured destruction.
Will there be those that pursue power and self interest in opposition to long term policy of "less" and "weakness", even if we all were to agree that long term it's mutually assured destruction (I'm not saying I agree with that though..). Then what?
Putin wanted to wage the war in Ukraine and still sell energy to Europe. Europe chose not to continue the 2nd part by various sanctions. Now Putin escalates by cutting further supply in response to sanctions (i.e. not getting paid for the energy he was shipping through pipelines)
If this is really an existential threat, then it's counter-productive to use as just another political cudgel to score Twitter points on the "other" tribe. Doing so actually signals that it's business-as-usual, and that these "concerns" are worthy of the same treatment afforded any other political disagreement.
To take it one step further, to the extent that proposed fixes look like "big government" intervention, with little-to-no regard for conservative concerns or sensitivities, they will look like political power grabs and be treated accordingly.
This isn't what is happening. When you see injustice, it's a natural human impulse to get mad and start ascribing blame to particular individuals. It isn't people dishonestly using "just another political cudgel". It's people getting mad, as people have always done, and personalizing things.
That being said, yes, we don't have time for normal human psychology, though normal human psychology is what got us into and keeps us in this mess. Just as it's normal for people to get mad at other people, it's normal for the people accused to get defensive and deny or invert responsibility. "You don't really care! You're just trying to score points! Al Gore is fat and flies on planes!" Both sides are reacting normally, predictably, in counter-productive ways, like the various Palestinian liberation fronts in "The Life of Brian" killing each other in the sewers while the Romans look on in bemusement.
The rich can be led to believe that reducing consumption is an elite status symbol, and an opportunity for posturing among their rich friends.
Though rich people will always consume more energy than poor people, there have been promising shifts, such as the rich competing to own the latest efficient electric car instead of competing to own the most fuel inefficient sports car.
By whom? And, all of them? How about on the level of nation-states where the true power lies. As national policy, entire nations/empires will be "convinced" as status symbol? No one will see the power on the table that everyone else has left?
My wager is on nuclear energy + hydrogen for portable energy. There are lots of issues with this model, but it's loads better than where we are today; and most importantly, it provides a way for us to solve the actual problem rather than slinging blame.
What is a way to have a productive conversation and move towards meaningful action on this issue with "everybody who voted for trump or itemized their taxes or whatever"? What are the values to appeal to or what is the language that doesn't alienate?
One could as easily frame climate change as a problem caused by the global south industrializing and achieving higher living standards, leaving larger carbon footprints.
I'm not a republican. I'm a proponent of science, technology, and climate journalism that focuses on education instead of polarization.
It's simple political calculus. Many of the people involved may prefer terrapins or tarantulas as pets, but if the cat-lovers have ruled themselves out, then anyone else who cares about animals will be courting the large dog vote in order to get things done on other issues.
The cat-lovers then saying "See it was all about dogs all along" just further isolates them and hands more power to the non cat-lovers.
As long as the cat lovers don't start a war based on this paranoia it's almost as good an outcome for society as them accepting the truth for climate change believers, and an extra bonus for dog lovers who get their democratic desires met because they are able to collaborate with people who disagree with them on some things but want to work together on climate/energy.
If all we do is talk down to or try to control people we don’t agree with, the people we talk about will just keep doing the same to us.
Some of that will happen anyway, but you and I and everyone else reading this don’t have to be a part of it.
We would end up arguing about everything but the ostensible topic.
Perhaps the most egregious example was the liberal coding of vaccination during the pandemic, with the self-fulfilling prophecy that vaccine skepticism is for the other tribe of people who are bad.
You had people with preexisting conditions terrified of making a private medical decision because of the extreme political coding that both sides egged on to hysterical extremes.
This ideological faith clouds judgement, more realism is necessary to navigate these issues.
The belief that science, technology, and environmental policy can transcend partisan politics is necessary for western society to function.
If you step over that in your eagerness to apply postmodern analysis, you'll introduce even greater challenges than the ones we're already barely capable of addressing.
What is "liberal coding of vaccination"?
So what’s your answer?
My answer is only an appreciation for "realism" or "realpolitik" in these matters, that people should not delude themselves at the point when enemies distinguish themselves to you by pattern of action and behavior over time. But you should always work for cooperation where possible of course. "Make friends" (where you can).
I'm mostly responding the point that seems to imply political differences can always be overcome, that everyone is always willingly persuadable, and that science and tech or any institutions for that matter can exist in a vacuum outside of politics. People just don't notice or think about political conflict when they are operating amongst political allies or issues don't rise to level of existential disagreement.
And I’m asking you personally.
Doing it over peacetime class and partisan differences is deeply immoral and really stupid.
I think Trump has been a wonderful diversion for particular sectors of society. All they have to do is accuse their critics of being Trump supporters and immediately they become the good guys. No matter their self-interested behaviour or transparent attempts at deflection.