Fighting To Protect Planet Earth
Here’s an article in which legendary environmentalist Bill McKibben likens the war on climate change to a world war in the military sense, and discusses the parallels between fighting Hitler and preventing climate catastrophe. The imperative to win WW2 was so compelling that we as a civilization had no qualms about making huge sacrifices to make it happen, and McKibben claims the same urgency exists here.
Note that the progressives in the U.S. Congress are starting to hear about things like the Green New Deal, in which the federal government plays a role in creating an enormous workforce, dedicated to the task.
There are a few issues here, however:
• Due to the tax cuts for billionaires and mega-corporations, the national debt is now so large that expanding it further is not really a tenable idea.
• When FDR, Churchill, et al., created the full-court press to win the war in Europe they were not attacked by the enormous power of the fossil fuel industry, that can and will spend as much as necessary to remain the dominant energy source.
• A plan like the Carbon Fee and Dividend will make all this happen using the pressure of free market economics alone.
In any case, we do not have the option to sit around and watch the planet slowly bake to the point that it no longer supports organized human life, and McKibben makes some extremely important points via his colorful writing style.
Craig,
You seem to have a very strange interpretation of history.
FDR and Churchill did not decide to “save the world” or fight Hitler !
The British government lead by Prime Minister Chamberlain on September 3, 1939 declared war on Germany. Not until 11 December, 1941 did the United States enter the War after Germany declared war on the USA, over two years late and even then only after being attacked by the Empire of Japan. !
Bill McKibbon is another fanatic who loves to spend other peoples money. The problem with fools like McKibbon, is sooner or later they run out of other peoples money.
As experience has shown “carbon taxes” don’t work. Not only do are they economically disruptive and destructive, but wildly unpopular.
Bill Mckibbon has no idea (or doesn’t care)of the harsh deprivations created by a war time style economy, or the loss of civil liberties such conditions create. Such conditions are unendurable even when there is a clear and present danger in the face of a remorseless enemy.
Climate change presents a totally different challenge. There is no clear path, no easily defined “enemy” , no easily understood solutions, and even the science is debatable.
The general public is understandably increasingly wary of being duped by leftists posing as greens to impose failed socialist ideology in the name of some sort of distortion of “climate science”.
Agitation against the old scapegoat, the Fossil Fuel industry has begun to lose credibility, especially as the world, and especially American, peace and prosperity is the result of the almost miraculous resurgence in the abundance of these natural resources.
The “green revolution” in Europe is dying, not because people don’t want to enjoy a better environment, but because they’ve lost faith in the highly exaggerated claims by green advocates and expectations of renewable energy promoters.
The answer is not McKibbon’s economically impractical and socially disruptive “revolution”, but a logical, carefully planned “evolution” incorporating all clean(er) technology and driven by realistic goals not ideological fanaticism.