Pirate's Cove

You know, I totally agree with Warmist Joel Makower

This is exactly the time to be talking about climate change

I rarely get exasperated from reading environmental business media, but a quote last week in a Bloomberg article about sustainability and the U.S. economic crisis got me headed in that direction.

The quote came from Ted Nordhaus, co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute, a research group whose founders, self-described environmentalists, have made a career out of being gadflies — for example, arguing in favor of nuclear power and natural gas, arguing against putting a price on carbon emissions and claiming that there’s no real limit to the earth’s carrying capacity, or that energy efficiency doesn’t work because of something called the “rebound effect.” (snip)

Here’s last week’s quote, in reference to the notion of integrating climate measures into congressional appropriations as we rebuild the economy reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. Said Nordhaus:

It’s not the time to be talking about climate change or demanding climate policy. … That’s going to cause extraordinary economic pain for a lot of people, most of whom don’t have the privilege of worrying about climate change. It would be tone-deaf to talk about climate change now.

It’s a specious ploy often used by conservatives. Following a mass shooting, it’s not the right time to talk about gun control. Following a hurricane, it’s not the right time to talk about climate-exacerbated weather events. Following the police shooting of an unarmed black man, it’s not the right time to talk about race relations and inequality.

Of course, later on, when it’s presumably “the right time,” the public’s fickle attention likely has moved on to other front-burner topics.

Well, if the issue is so important, people will be receptive once emotions have cooled and adult logic is considered, right?

Just because a problem isn’t in the news doesn’t mean it somehow has been solved. All of the above challenges remain, pandemic or not. And, to varying degrees, they all need to be kept alive, even amid other pressing priorities.

So, Nordhaus is dead wrong: This is exactly the right time to be talking about climate change.

In fact, we need to be talking unapologetically about climate, the clean economy, renewable energy, resilient food systems, sustainable mobility, the circular economy and the Sustainable Development Goals with more vigor than ever.

See, we need to talk about creating a new economy similar to Soviet Russia’s and initiated Chinese style authoritarian government.

It will take everyone’s hard work and best intentions, not to mention visionary thinking, to ensure that the solutions to our economic woes align with where we want to go, not where we’ve been. We simply can’t slough off the climate crisis and other environmental and social challenges as expendable conversations during tough times. Much as we need to mobilize and remain unflinching as we fight the pandemic, we can’t put other pressing issues on hold. The climate, for one, won’t wait.

Here’s the question: what if most people are not interested? We’ve seen surveys and polls time and time again that show that ‘climate change’ action is popular in theory, but not in practice. Most people refuse to pay more than $10 of their own money a month to help out. Other polls show even less money. Will they be forced to comply?

So, yes, this is the perfect time to discuss this, things like forcing airlines to shoot for zero emissions (meaning you’ll have to be a rich person to afford to fly), implementing total control of the agricultural sector, and force transition from all fossil fuels, three things Makower mentions. Let’s discuss that the world will look like what’s going on now with Bat Soup Virus. No, it wouldn’t be as bad, but it would be bad. Let’s discuss that. What would Warmists have to say?

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