How to reach the right on climate change
One could say the environmental movement has a type. If you close your eyes, I imagine you and I will both converge on the same archetypal character. I suspect the crossover between those who identify as progressive or liberal and environmentalist is quite high.
There doesn’t seem to be much that the left can do to expand the environmental movement. That approach is already saturated. The demographic for growth in environmentalism is towards the right and center. Not only do I believe such a thing is possible, I think it is desirable too. If done correctly, I reckon many environmental issues can be the sort of banality that everyone pretty much agrees upon, like “don’t litter”.
Nori’s Reversing Climate Change podcast recently hosted Greg Rock of Carbon Washington. We discussed his efforts to pass Washington state’s revenue-neutral carbon tax in 2016, Initiative 732. This effort failed, but the upcoming Initiative 1631 is being considered. It has some substantial differences which I’ll discuss. For this article, let’s just assume a carbon tax is a very good way to deal with climate change, though even internally at Nori we don’t all see it the same way.
Revenue-neutrality for Initiative 732 meant that no additional revenue was raised by this tax. Other more harmful taxes were cut and replaced with a carbon tax. As the old economist line goes, “tax bads, not goods!” Tax pollution (a bad thing), not income or sales (a good thing), and so on. The right liked the revenue-neutrality of this bill because it didn’t raise their taxes and actually gave them opportunities to cut their tax bill by emitting less carbon dioxide. One of the right’s long suspicions of the environmental movement is that environmental policy is a Trojan Horse for a slew of other left-wing policy goals, something in their minds confirmed by a book like This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate by Naomi Klein. Revenue-neutrality defused this concern for many.
In a surprising turn, members of Washington’s left opposed Initiative 732 because they wanted to use the opportunity of a carbon tax to raise revenue for various government programs. The proposed new law, Initiative 1631, does not maintain revenue neutrality, has many programs funded by the policy, and is projected to pass as far as I’m aware. We’ll see what happens there. Greg is willing to sacrifice revenue-neutrality for climate action because he wants Washington to lead at the state level, even if Washington is not able to provide a template for redder states on enacting state-based climate policy. Revenue-neutral carbon taxes may be able to pass in red states, whereas policies like Initiative 1631 are unlikely to. Perhaps some other state will take up this leadership vacuum.
Independently of the original bill’s failure, it does prove that the right isn’t totally hopeless on climate change. As Greg explains, a good chunk of the right’s resistance may be due to solution aversion. When you don’t like the proposed solutions to a problem, dig the trenches all the way back at the source and deny it is in fact a problem. That is true defense in depth.
I have found solution aversion to be in operation anecdotally. When I’ve spoken with many of my conservative and libertarian friends suspicious of environmental policy, they are often quite supportive of Nori because it’s a voluntary market rather than a tax or subsidy, and also because there is a possibility to make money pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Most environmentalism feels punitive: travel less, spend time sorting your recycling, take the bus rather than driving, etc. But what if there was more carrot and less stick for doing something we want people to do? That has real appeal that I’ve actually seen in my discussions with folks of this ilk.
Conservatives and libertarians rightfully worry that most, if not all, of the climate policies proposed will make humanity poorer and do little to stop climate change. If climate change were inevitable, wouldn’t it be better to get as wealthy as possible beforehand? We’d be better able to cope with climate change if we were all wealthier. This is a rational position one could legitimately hold. It’s the crux of those who favor adaptation as humanity’s approach to climate change, or if I’m being cheeky: will the last one out of the Holocene climate please leave on the lights? It is my position that we don’t need the grim succor of adaptation exclusively at this point. It’s why I work at Nori building a carbon removal marketplace. I think we still have a good shot at reversing climate change in part by helping people get paid to practice carbon removal.
A scenario that would bring me much pleasure is a very conservative farmer who doesn’t believe in climate change switching to regenerative agriculture to improve his soil fertility, cut input costs, and to be able to sell his carbon removal services to coastal liberals if they’re willing to pay for it. Somehow, commerce finds a way to bring us together and get us where we need to go.¹ If the proposed solution isn’t triggering to the right, the aforementioned solution aversion may begin to disappear. Heck, that farmer may even start softening his resistance to the idea of climate change. Helping people see themselves as part of the solution with something to gain from good behavior, rather than as the problem to be punished, is persuasive in a new way.
The fact that Greg has some of these points in mind gives me hope that the ideological divide on climate change could give way to a sea change as we move from more stick to more carrot.² It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.
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- I don’t think this constructed image is the typical farmer. Most farmers that we’ve met tend to care quite a lot about their land and the natural world.
- I wanted to discuss Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion in this blog, but I’ll have to do it some other time. I think meeting people where they are and appealing to their core values rather than trying to change their values is generally a better strategy whenever possible. It is also an excellent book and well worth your time.
