Climate Politics is Broken

Discord between science and politics is nothing new. History has shown us that just because “a scientist” or even “many scientists” assert a particular fact, theory, or policy, that does not mean “the people” will believe that fact, support that theory, or endorse that policy — and occasionally for good reason. Many well educated scientists have at times believed that spikes should be driven into peoples’ skulls when they exhibit mental problems, that humans are properly categorized according to fundamentally different races, or that smoking cigarettes simply makes you look a little younger. As that last example illustrates, this is not a phenomenon that we have left behind in the distant past. Many thousands of lawyers make a living debating the accuracy of scientific findings, from the link between cellphones and cancer, to the proper limitations on flounder fishing in the mid-Atlantic. Furthermore, scientific consensus does not mean simplicity. There is overwhelming consensus that the Earth’s rotation is the reason things fall down. That does not make the relationship between the Earth’s rotation and gravity “simple” or “obvious.” As an aspiring attorney, I support skepticism: if something is true then a few questions won’t cause any pain; if 100 people are asking why at least one should be asking why not. And as a current non-scientist, I understand being confused by science.

But all that said, when it comes to climate change, something is clearly broken. As I have joined the ranks of those engaged in the heroic effort of post-hoc rationalizing this election, the utter failure of climate change politics has perhaps bothered me the most. Imagine a world in which there is an asteroid hurtling towards earth, expected to make impact in 200 years, and when it does it will be a near-extinction level event — with massive species die-offs and an absolute best case scenario of only less than a billion dead, with actual casualties likely to be much higher. First, until a credible and feasible international plan had been implemented to stop that impact or at least prepare for it, this issue would be the only thing discussed in a US Presidential election. Second, even if the Democratic party said essentially nothing about the asteroid other than to mildly suggest doing whatever it is that the previous administration was doing, as long as the Republican party denied the asteroid’s very existence, the Democrats would win the election in a landslide. As much as Republican opposition to climate may be terrible for the planet, it should be fantastic politics for the Democrats. So why isn’t it?

I’m not going to suggest I have an exhaustive list of answers to that question, but those of us who care about the future of this planet clearly need to start making one. A good start is the concept of solution aversion. Duke University researchers have found that people will tend to ignore a problem if they disagree with the assumed or explicit solution. This cognitive bias affects, for instance, thoughts about mass incarceration (if you don’t want to let even non-violent drug offenders out of prison you might just deny we have a problem at all). It may be that aversion to climate science is just a horrible historical coincidence — at the time that scientists were discovering the impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (in the late 60s and early 70s), Democrats were in the midst of pursuing the most burdensome environmental regulations in the nation’s history, and Republicans were starting to galvanize around an anti-regulatory agenda. Assuming that the only response to this new-fangled “climate change” was even more regulation of fossil fuels, a number of Republicans might have just stuck their head in the sand.

A plausible story, but it has its flaws. Most importantly is timing. “Republicans” didn’t always question the science of climate change. George H.W. Bush signed the first international climate treaty in Rio. And that was in early 90s, after Reagan had transformed the Republicans into the modern anti-regulatory party they are today. Another likely culprit, then, is partisanship. Maybe with the rise of hyperpartisanship and the politicization of, well, everything, we are left with a world where nothing is sacred. Environmental protection, as an overall issue, has moved from one of the least partisan topics to the most in the past 30 years. But that shouldn’t necessarily affect the public’s understanding of the science. When the Cuyahoga river caught on fire in 1952 no argued that maybe the water was just really hot that day. Still, there was plenty of disagreement about what to do about it. Again, imagine the asteroid. It would be perfectly normal for a Republican candidate to argue we shouldn’t sacrifice too many of our freedoms in contributing to our planetary defense, or that the best solution is to let the ingenuity of the private sector work its magic. Instead we heard nothing about our asteroid from either party.

Which makes it seem like our asteroid isn’t all that bad. In 1976, Jimmy Carter went on national TV and said that the energy crisis was the “moral equivalent of war” and that Americans had to act like it — making the sacrifices necessary to get the US energy situation under control. As his energy plan stalled in Congress and he lost public support, one advisor suggested that the “moral equivalent of war” speech (by then known as MEOW) was in part to blame. He had made the situation sound so dire, and yet hadn’t followed through with the requisite urgency and fervor that one would expect.

We shouldn’t fall into this trap. If the science is to be believed, the asteroid is really bad. Unfounded fears of Mexicans and Syrians pouring into our country were a significant reason that 61 million Americans voted a reality TV star into office. In truth, more Mexicans are leaving the country then coming here, and we resettled a mere 10,000 Syrians so far. Imagine, then, our response when 100 million Bangladeshi’s are forced to relocate because of rising seas, or when for several months each year 100 million people living on the Arab Peninsula face death if they lack air conditioning. Where would they go? And global mass-migration is only a piece of this puzzle. It will be occurring in a world of dwindling food supply, higher energy costs, more infectious diseases, fiercer storms, longer droughts, more forest fires, dying oceans, and so on.

We should consider the cognitive bias of solution aversion, and discuss this emergency in a manner that highlights its potential — to grow jobs and lower energy prices — rather than its burden. We should work against partisanship, which requires questioning our own biases and knee-jerk reactions. We should even sympathize with skeptics and those confused with the science, as it is not so unusual to question scientific consensus as we often pretend it is, and the science is not as straightforward as we pretend it is. But we should not underestimate the gravity of this problem, and certainly not because we have prematurely considered it a “political loser.” Such a stance will only embolden those who question this problem’s existence. We tried ignoring the asteroid in 2016. Let’s not make the same mistake again.