What killed the climate alarmism that was once common currency on the Democratic left? Instrumental political utility, and the diminishing returns that Democratic politicians were generating by preaching apocalypticism to the converted. [some emphasis, links added]
At least, that is the lament of Syracuse University professor Matthew Huber in his widely read, mid-May New York Times op-ed.
“For the past several months, Democratic elites have been debating how much to talk about climate change, if at all,” he wrote, “in part because these new candidates have narrowed their focus to energy affordability to win back the working class.”
The tacit admission in that acknowledgment is that the activists’ go-to remedies for the ills of climate change are policies that limit the public’s access to goods and services by making them costlier.
At a time when “affordability” is the problem, climate alarmism is just one of many expendable luxuries.
The shift in Democratic messaging, Huber added, feels like “the end of an era.”
For nearly 20 years, progressive activists and their representatives advocated a “New Deal–like investment program” designed to eliminate America’s contributions to atmospheric heat-trapping emissions.
Only recently, though, have those activists and politicians noticed the extent of the voters’ apathy toward the allegedly existential imperative to cool the planet.
“Instead of building a broad coalition necessary to enact something like a Green New Deal, climate change has become yet another issue fueling polarization,” he concluded.
Ah, the Green New Deal. Remember that? It’s easy to forget how central that suite of policy proposals was to the progressive project. Indeed, its one-time promoters probably hope you have forgotten.
As Semafor’s David Weigel reported in March, climate-focused activist networks such as the Sunrise Movement have abandoned the cause that was once their raison d’être.
But because the progressive soul craves a salvific mission, that organization has evolved. It now caters to the progressive fringes who have replaced anxiety over climate with anxiety over Israel and the pernicious influence of Americans who support the Jewish state and its defensive military priorities.
Read rest at National Review
