Manjoo's reaction does not make him look good, but it's just another entry in the eternal struggle between ineffective firebrands and effective incrementalists.
Everybody remembers the time that William Lloyd Garrison called Lincoln "the fuckboy of abolitionism".
Many "progressives" are really "progressive nihilists". Willing to be actively harmful to the causes they supposedly champion. The similarities between them and the MAGAs are stark, and just as we (forlornly) hope Republicans get the MAGAs in check, one can only hope left wing nihilists are discredited.
Radical ambition with some theory of delivering change is great, undermining the people and institutions delivering progress, really not good.
I've asked this before, but I wonder how much oil America would import for every barrel it didn't produce? My strong suspicion is that it would be much closer to one barrel than zero barrels. Any reduction would simply be from the increased world price of oil from America producing less. If I'm right, it would be absolutely senseless for America to limit oil production, since it would have virtually no impact on climate change while inflicting huge damage on the US economy.
Also, 'we must do what [marginalised group of people] says we should do' has necessarily always meant 'we must do what a subgroup within [marginalised group of people] that has a position that aligns with mine says we should do'. Women disagree on abortion. Black people disagree on criminal justice. Native Alaskans disagree on oil production. Activists want to pretend the world is simple.
Willow was a case of the Biden administration making the most of a bad situation. That lease was granted during the Clinton administration and Biden wasn't going to be able to simply wish it away and kill the project. Had the administration tried to do that, Conoco would have gone to court to enforce the lease and they likely would have won their case. Instead of wasting a lot of taxpayer dollars and trying to defend a hopeless position, the Biden administration held out the possibility that they would litigate the matter and negotiated a substantial reduction of the project and some additional environmental protections. Great governance, imho.
I suppose it was inevitable that the progressive take on masculinity would crash headlong into the progressive take on climate, with all of the adolescent sophistication that particular pairing implies.
And Farhad, come on, man - bad words do not constitute an “arresting analogy,” unless you mean you pause to consider how stupid it is.
Over time, I have begun to crystallize a view based on my experience - that the insane idea that there is no cost to anything - is quite mainstream among progressives. Is this a straw man? I keep getting the sense that the very discussion of costs are taboo in these circles.
It seems odd that the ideological faction that holds the importance of government in the role of righting the wrongs of the market - never discusses the importance of effective government (when “effective” is not reduced to a measure of the level of spending).
It seems to me, that policy is under-theorized by the progressive wing. What is causing this under-theorization of good policy?
The fact that a labor group supports an infrastructure project does not mean that the infrastructure project is a good idea.
Also I get the fact that saying a native Alaskan group supports the project is an effective argumentative tactic against progressives, but identitarian deference is dumb in general.
I will never understand how Democrats thought they could win majorities while kneecapping one of our most dynamic industries and biggest sources of good, blue collar jobs. Any party that prefers preserving uninhabited and rather ugly tundra to energy abundance simply is not speaking to working peoples materiel needs.
Reading this article, I can't help but think of a similar set of issues: immigration and population growth. Many US opponents of immigration cite excess population growth as a justification for restrictionism. But this has always seemed wrong to me: what really matters is the carrying capacity—the total human population—of Planet Earth. Increasing immigration inflows into the US by any imaginable, politically plausible quantity doesn't increase the long term trajectory of global population. In all likelihood it does exactly the opposite, because women (and, especially, their daughters and granddaughters) who move the US from countries with higher fertility will mostly have fewer babies than they would had they not immigrated.
America is home to only about 4% of the world's humans. We just don't move the needle all that much anymore, whether its population or energy.
(Apologies for the somewhat thread-jackish nature of this comment; that's not my intent.)
"the Biden administration itself seems somewhat disinterested in defending its own position"
OK, I have a question for all the linguistic experts out in SB Land.
Given that language is a natural product that changes constantly as speakers change the way they use words, at what point should those of us who understand the "correct" meaning or usage throw up our hands and say, fine, I'll go along with the crowd.
I get it: "disinterested" now predominately means "uninterested." "I could care less" means "I couldn't care less." "Irregardless" means "regardless." Etc. That's language for you! But it does seem a shame to lose a perfectly good meaning in "disinterested," i.e., unbiased by personal interest or advantage; not influenced by selfish motive. Since apparently we can't use it anymore to mean that without confusing people, what's a good substitute word?
I'd like to think I really do get this argument but the reason climate change isn't like a polluted river is you can't just undo it, or that there's a chance economic growth will be a little substandard. It's a truly existential threat because the damages are more or less permanent on a human time scale, there's a lot of poorly understood tipping points, and is interlinked with basically every other environmental problem. An estimate of 7% economic underperformance will seem adorable when we manage to make bees go extinct and we all starve or some shit.
By approaching it with the same calm, even -handed approach as you would to a more mundane, of the moment problem, you're really underestimating the long tail risk. It also strikes me that there's simply something very sad and troubling about massively changing the climate, over the course of a couple of hundred years, that we and all other animals have been evolving with for millennia, that's hard to think about entirely in quantitative economic terms.
By all means don't crush the domestic oil industry just yet. But appreciate the fire we're playing with here.
2. i love a good carbon tax as much as the next guy but isnt it misleading to compare dollars raised to dollars rebated and call that the entire net effect on consumers of carbon tax? the average consumer is compensated for the taxes they pay on fossil fuels they consume, but not for the welfare loss on oil they don't consume. like if you had an effectively enforced $100,000/tn carbon tax, emissions probably drop to near zero, which interferes with peoples' lives in lots of ways and also means the rebate is also near-zero
A few more drivers behind the progressive climate hawks’s ‘keep it in the ground’ ethos:
In-group signalling. You lose your in-group cred if you don’t come out against these projects.
The relative effectiveness of single point causes in rally folks and raising money in contrast to the enormity and complexity of the climate change problem overall.
Translating the IEA statement “no new FF development for net zero” as a prescription in isolation rather than what it actually is — one aspect of the overall IEA NZ scenario that also includes an unprecedented increase in clean energy investment (that hasn’t materialized).
Genuine concern about the impacts of climate change that have been skewed by the climate impact literature that over-represents the implausible RCP8.5 scenario.
I usually go for the Econ 101 arguments, but with oil extraction, it seems plausible that all of the drillable oil in the ground will be taken out and burned over the next, I dunno, hundred years? And that the only exception will be fields protected by governments.
So over a long timeline, it seems reasonable to prioritize keeping place-based, long-term oil extraction prohibitions in place as a way to reduce long term carbon output.
I’d probably still vote yes on willow but from a pure climate perspective, this is a rare area where a dumb-seeing, “leave it in the ground” approach seems reasonable over a more sophisticated economic model one.
The thing that gets me is bombing Mexico and forcing people to freeze to death are just not equivalent to printing money with the unlimited money printer: Your definition of 'good' seems pretty narrowly focused on 'cost-effective'.
There potentially can be bad consequences of spending too much money - on cleaning rivers or initiating new green energy projects or whatever. But there are also potentially bad consequences of sending a signal, from the largest economy in the world, that new fossil fuel extraction is still a-ok, as long as there's a business case for it and local jobs.
Back when the US fubbed the global consensus to reduce emissions in the 1980s, the justification back then was also 'but the economy!'... We have a much larger task ahead of us now, and you're essentially making the same excuse. Saying Biden has done more on climate is not the same as saying he's done enough.
Of course, most people, given the binary choice of lower or higher prices today are going to support more oil drilling! However, I expect their future selves - running from bush fires, dealing with climate refugees and more pandemics, and paying vastly higher insurance premiums - might retrospectively have wanted us to consider a more nuanced values calculation.
Manjoo's reaction does not make him look good, but it's just another entry in the eternal struggle between ineffective firebrands and effective incrementalists.
Everybody remembers the time that William Lloyd Garrison called Lincoln "the fuckboy of abolitionism".
Many "progressives" are really "progressive nihilists". Willing to be actively harmful to the causes they supposedly champion. The similarities between them and the MAGAs are stark, and just as we (forlornly) hope Republicans get the MAGAs in check, one can only hope left wing nihilists are discredited.
Radical ambition with some theory of delivering change is great, undermining the people and institutions delivering progress, really not good.
I've asked this before, but I wonder how much oil America would import for every barrel it didn't produce? My strong suspicion is that it would be much closer to one barrel than zero barrels. Any reduction would simply be from the increased world price of oil from America producing less. If I'm right, it would be absolutely senseless for America to limit oil production, since it would have virtually no impact on climate change while inflicting huge damage on the US economy.
Also, 'we must do what [marginalised group of people] says we should do' has necessarily always meant 'we must do what a subgroup within [marginalised group of people] that has a position that aligns with mine says we should do'. Women disagree on abortion. Black people disagree on criminal justice. Native Alaskans disagree on oil production. Activists want to pretend the world is simple.
Willow was a case of the Biden administration making the most of a bad situation. That lease was granted during the Clinton administration and Biden wasn't going to be able to simply wish it away and kill the project. Had the administration tried to do that, Conoco would have gone to court to enforce the lease and they likely would have won their case. Instead of wasting a lot of taxpayer dollars and trying to defend a hopeless position, the Biden administration held out the possibility that they would litigate the matter and negotiated a substantial reduction of the project and some additional environmental protections. Great governance, imho.
I suppose it was inevitable that the progressive take on masculinity would crash headlong into the progressive take on climate, with all of the adolescent sophistication that particular pairing implies.
And Farhad, come on, man - bad words do not constitute an “arresting analogy,” unless you mean you pause to consider how stupid it is.
Over time, I have begun to crystallize a view based on my experience - that the insane idea that there is no cost to anything - is quite mainstream among progressives. Is this a straw man? I keep getting the sense that the very discussion of costs are taboo in these circles.
It seems odd that the ideological faction that holds the importance of government in the role of righting the wrongs of the market - never discusses the importance of effective government (when “effective” is not reduced to a measure of the level of spending).
It seems to me, that policy is under-theorized by the progressive wing. What is causing this under-theorization of good policy?
The fact that a labor group supports an infrastructure project does not mean that the infrastructure project is a good idea.
Also I get the fact that saying a native Alaskan group supports the project is an effective argumentative tactic against progressives, but identitarian deference is dumb in general.
I will never understand how Democrats thought they could win majorities while kneecapping one of our most dynamic industries and biggest sources of good, blue collar jobs. Any party that prefers preserving uninhabited and rather ugly tundra to energy abundance simply is not speaking to working peoples materiel needs.
Reading this article, I can't help but think of a similar set of issues: immigration and population growth. Many US opponents of immigration cite excess population growth as a justification for restrictionism. But this has always seemed wrong to me: what really matters is the carrying capacity—the total human population—of Planet Earth. Increasing immigration inflows into the US by any imaginable, politically plausible quantity doesn't increase the long term trajectory of global population. In all likelihood it does exactly the opposite, because women (and, especially, their daughters and granddaughters) who move the US from countries with higher fertility will mostly have fewer babies than they would had they not immigrated.
America is home to only about 4% of the world's humans. We just don't move the needle all that much anymore, whether its population or energy.
(Apologies for the somewhat thread-jackish nature of this comment; that's not my intent.)
"the Biden administration itself seems somewhat disinterested in defending its own position"
OK, I have a question for all the linguistic experts out in SB Land.
Given that language is a natural product that changes constantly as speakers change the way they use words, at what point should those of us who understand the "correct" meaning or usage throw up our hands and say, fine, I'll go along with the crowd.
I get it: "disinterested" now predominately means "uninterested." "I could care less" means "I couldn't care less." "Irregardless" means "regardless." Etc. That's language for you! But it does seem a shame to lose a perfectly good meaning in "disinterested," i.e., unbiased by personal interest or advantage; not influenced by selfish motive. Since apparently we can't use it anymore to mean that without confusing people, what's a good substitute word?
I'd like to think I really do get this argument but the reason climate change isn't like a polluted river is you can't just undo it, or that there's a chance economic growth will be a little substandard. It's a truly existential threat because the damages are more or less permanent on a human time scale, there's a lot of poorly understood tipping points, and is interlinked with basically every other environmental problem. An estimate of 7% economic underperformance will seem adorable when we manage to make bees go extinct and we all starve or some shit.
By approaching it with the same calm, even -handed approach as you would to a more mundane, of the moment problem, you're really underestimating the long tail risk. It also strikes me that there's simply something very sad and troubling about massively changing the climate, over the course of a couple of hundred years, that we and all other animals have been evolving with for millennia, that's hard to think about entirely in quantitative economic terms.
By all means don't crush the domestic oil industry just yet. But appreciate the fire we're playing with here.
1. thrilled to see alberta get mentioned!!!
2. i love a good carbon tax as much as the next guy but isnt it misleading to compare dollars raised to dollars rebated and call that the entire net effect on consumers of carbon tax? the average consumer is compensated for the taxes they pay on fossil fuels they consume, but not for the welfare loss on oil they don't consume. like if you had an effectively enforced $100,000/tn carbon tax, emissions probably drop to near zero, which interferes with peoples' lives in lots of ways and also means the rebate is also near-zero
=="other producers of oil who simply reap the windfall of higher prices."
Like Russia and Saudi Arabia.
A few more drivers behind the progressive climate hawks’s ‘keep it in the ground’ ethos:
In-group signalling. You lose your in-group cred if you don’t come out against these projects.
The relative effectiveness of single point causes in rally folks and raising money in contrast to the enormity and complexity of the climate change problem overall.
Translating the IEA statement “no new FF development for net zero” as a prescription in isolation rather than what it actually is — one aspect of the overall IEA NZ scenario that also includes an unprecedented increase in clean energy investment (that hasn’t materialized).
Genuine concern about the impacts of climate change that have been skewed by the climate impact literature that over-represents the implausible RCP8.5 scenario.
Others?
I usually go for the Econ 101 arguments, but with oil extraction, it seems plausible that all of the drillable oil in the ground will be taken out and burned over the next, I dunno, hundred years? And that the only exception will be fields protected by governments.
So over a long timeline, it seems reasonable to prioritize keeping place-based, long-term oil extraction prohibitions in place as a way to reduce long term carbon output.
I’d probably still vote yes on willow but from a pure climate perspective, this is a rare area where a dumb-seeing, “leave it in the ground” approach seems reasonable over a more sophisticated economic model one.
The thing that gets me is bombing Mexico and forcing people to freeze to death are just not equivalent to printing money with the unlimited money printer: Your definition of 'good' seems pretty narrowly focused on 'cost-effective'.
There potentially can be bad consequences of spending too much money - on cleaning rivers or initiating new green energy projects or whatever. But there are also potentially bad consequences of sending a signal, from the largest economy in the world, that new fossil fuel extraction is still a-ok, as long as there's a business case for it and local jobs.
Back when the US fubbed the global consensus to reduce emissions in the 1980s, the justification back then was also 'but the economy!'... We have a much larger task ahead of us now, and you're essentially making the same excuse. Saying Biden has done more on climate is not the same as saying he's done enough.
Of course, most people, given the binary choice of lower or higher prices today are going to support more oil drilling! However, I expect their future selves - running from bush fires, dealing with climate refugees and more pandemics, and paying vastly higher insurance premiums - might retrospectively have wanted us to consider a more nuanced values calculation.