But evidently, the New York Times does. On page 1 of today’s Times, John Broder writes:
Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country. For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth. But all are wary of the Obama administration’s plans to regulate carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas, which will require the expansion of government authority into nearly every corner of the economy.
A few days ago, both Andy Revkin and Keith Kloor commented on the need for a new narrative on climate change. As Andy put it:
I think “energy quest,” as delineated on Dot Earth, is one sellable approach to building a narrative. A key is making sure, from the get go, that this is cast as a challenge of generations, with today’s efforts focused on what’s feasible now, on rebuilding a culture of innovation in which energy matters and setting the stage for grander de-carbonization efforts down the line.
Unfortunately, it looks like Andy’s former colleagues on the news side of the New York Times just aren’t paying attention.
I guess we still do need some reporting on the global warming views of Tea Party candidates and supporters. But seriously — is anyone surprised at all by what John Broder found? This is so newsworthy that it deserves to be on page 1?
If Broder asked the Tea Partyers whether they would support a policy of energy innovation that would reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, there’s no evidence of it in the story. People from across the political spectrum might support such a policy for reasons that include enhancing national security, and reducing environmental impacts such as air and water pollution and the destruction wrought by the likes of mountaintop removal.
It sure would be nice to know whether some sort of political consensus could be built around an energy quest policy. Maybe we could even make some real progress. But so far, the tired old narrative still seems to exert an irresistible pull, even on reporters and editors who should know better.
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The “energy quest” and all the proposals like it are an attempt to dodge a bullet that can’t be dodged. What’s a corn (ethanol) state senator going to think of a proposal to move away from any form of gasoline, and so stop using ethanol at all? What’s a coal state senator going to think of a proposal to get off coal? Saying that it will happen only gradually doesn’t help much.
I read the other day that there is on the order of $13 trillion in sunk costs in the fossil fuel infrastructure. Whether that’s exactly right or not it’s certainly a big number. Who pays for it, and when, under Andy’s proposal?
Another problem is that it looks like a dodge since you can’t scale the effort without reference to decarbonization, at which point it’s simply a climate program by indirect means (although less effective IMHO since it’s all carrot and no stick).
But let’s see what happens with the RES in the lame duck session. That should be instructive.
Re the teabagger coverage, surely you recall the recentish incident where the NYT editor apologized for having not taken cues from Fox News sufficiently and promised to do better in the future. Well, see, they’re doing better, and all you can do is complain! :/
Just to add, the climate problem has been talked about seriously for 20 years tops, and push is just starting to come to shove on both the manifestations and the serious proposals to do something about it. Given the scale of the problem, why the expectation of what amounts to instant gratification. As I said on Kloor’s, the history of abolition of slavery in this country, and in particular the U.S. Senate’s role in it, is highly instructive. Our political system was designed to have a hard time producing a solution to the slavery problem, and it’s ironic in the extreme that the dead hand of the slaveholders continues to exert such an influence in the present.
You’re forgetting the advertisers. As a long-time DotEarther, I find Andy’s insistence of the false middle a little wearying. Steve Bloom says it pretty well above.
Also, the Broder article, being on page 1, got a reasonable snowdrift of properly rated comments, unlike DotEarth which is infested with dragon’s teeth deniers, whom one is not allowed to call professionals (but if they have a job elsewhere, their constant comments don’t indicate it). And the Teaparty focus on anti-science does not get enough press. No amount of reasonability is going to make a dent in the cheerleader led Ayn Rand slant of hatred and gospel-ignoring christians in tantrums. It needs to be mentioned that science is under attack, preferably on page one of the NYTimes.
Susan: It will be interesting to see the coverage after the election. (It be nice to see more now, but don’t count it.) If the Republicans gain as much as it now appears, I suspect we’ll see a return to some semblance of the Bush inquisition. That should prompt more prominent coverage! (Nothing like an inquisition to get readers’ attention, eh?)
We already are starting to see some stories about the concessions Republicans would seek to extract from Obama on energy policy. (See my latest post about that. How does nuclear power as a “renewable” energy source strike you?)
Well, I’d be happier if it were only the “Bush inquisition”. What I’m seeing is a lot of statements like Joe McCarthy had the right idea and has been traduced by the liberal media. And lately one Lubos Motl has been hitting the jackpot in DotEarth comments (I’m always suspicious when comment #1 happens more than once in a long while, never mind the “votes”). He’s a string theorist (my physicist sources say I’m not all wrong in saying they invent extra dimensions to explain things, so not realists) with ties to Russian big oil (consider Vaclav Klaus) but a real “get” for the fake skeptics. It begins to tie in with my perhaps paranoid worldview with the Russian ties to Climategate. The world is a small place and sadly corruption and plutocracy work well together.
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[...] had a running argument with Steve Bloom over this analogy, who raised it over a week ago, but his comparison was more politically oriented: the history of abolition of slavery in this country, and in [...]