Last week when speaking to a local Democratic club on climate, a former Republican asked me: what of Republicans who want to do something on climate? Farmers timing their fruit trees' blossoming, insurance agents adjusting storm claims, and duck hunters scouring dried ponds need a voice. Alas, a common theme runs through all the Republicans thinking about climate: none of them are in office.
At Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard asks: Could Chris Christie bring around the GOP on climate? before concluding: No. Christie talks a good game, and Republicans who acknowledge the reality of climate change are desperately looking for an elected official deserving of support, but he doesn't walk the walk.
Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner think they know How to Save the Republican Party for their cover story in the conservative Commentary magazine. Among other items, my emphasis:
Fifth, where appropriate, Republicans need to harness their policy views to the findings of science. This has been effectively done on the pro-life issue, ... [hogwash deleted]
The issue of climate disruption is far more complex, but can play a similar, discrediting role. There is a difference between a healthy skepticism toward fashionable liberal shibboleths and dogmatic resistance to accumulated evidence. Gregg Easterbrook, an environmental commentator who has a long record of opposing alarmism, put it this way: “All of the world’s major science academies have said they are convinced climate change is happening and that human action plays a role.”
To acknowledge climate disruption need hardly lead one to embrace Al Gore’s policy agenda. It is perfectly reasonable to doubt the merits of pushing for a global deal to cut carbon emissions—a deal that is almost surely beyond reach—and to argue instead for a focus on adaptation and investments in new and emerging technologies. Republicans could back an entrepreneurial approach to technical and scientific investment as opposed to the top-down approach of unwieldy government bureaucracies offering huge subsidies to favored companies such as Solyndra. (See above, under “corporate welfare.”)
Shorter Republicans: climate change is here, it's too late, so we might as well build big expensive projects. And we like basic research.
First principle: Big expensive projects are better than retreat.
New Jersey prepares to rebuild its boardwalks without much in the way of a plan to avoid future damage, because conservatives never surrender. Conservative columnist Paul Mulshine asks, in a tone blending equal parts scorn and machismo:
Are we going to fortify our coastline to prevent future flooding? Or are we going to yield to the tree-huggers — or should I say hurricane-huggers — who want to see a retreat from the coast?
And Louisiana, frantically spending billions on its Great Wall, begins to realize that some of its expensive coastal restoration projects
may become obsolete before they're finished; new research gives Louisiana the dubious distinction of
the world's fastest rate of sea level rise. But those facts won't stop the projects. Because it's better to build than
acknowledge reality surrender.
Second principle: Basic research, like jam tomorrow, is better than deployment of technology today.
What's basic research? Um, a political symbol meaning anything you want it to, but in the clean energy arena it tends to mean Jam Tomorrow.
"You couldn't have it if you DID want it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but never jam to-day."
"It MUST come sometimes to 'jam to-day'," Alice objected.
"No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every OTHER day: to-day isn't any OTHER day, you know."
Funding of basic research and innovation shouldn't be controversial, but it becomes controversial when used as a reason to explain why we can't deploy renewable technology today. Seemingly noncontroversial innovation funding
isn't enough to solve climate change. It's sufficiently political that people who want to deploy today's mature solar and wind technologies and eat today are bothered by the hollow promise of jam tomorrow.
Which brings up the third principle of Republican acknowledgment of climate science: leaving office. The surest hallmark of a Republican's belief in climate science occurs after the Republican has left an office where some good might have actually been accomplished. Witness Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe, and Bush-era luminaries dim bulbs signing on to a Bold Letter Urging Bold Action. None of them actually considered voting for a climate bill when they were in office.
And so I answered the former Republican: the best way to deal with Republicans who want to acknowledge climate science is to vote them out of office.