Read on Twitter
@hal_harvey’s review of @billmckibben
and @dwallacewells in @ForeignAffairs
shows precisely why we need more #polisci in #climatechange discourse: pragmatism is political. THREAD 1/n. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2020-06-09/case-climate-pragmatism
and @dwallacewells in @ForeignAffairs
shows precisely why we need more #polisci in #climatechange discourse: pragmatism is political. THREAD 1/n. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2020-06-09/case-climate-pragmatism
He dismisses Wallace-Wells' depiction of the effects of #climate as on the extreme end of projects. McKibben’s is similarly criticized for not putting forth “a politically viable strategy.” 2/n
Alas, social movements are not rational beasts, and their effects on politics are not linear. See work by @hahriehan, @jenniferhadden @timmonsroberts among many others. 3/n
For Harvey, protesting pipelines is not as important as better building codes, since the latter has an immediate effect on emissions. 4/n
In some cases, technocrats can work under the radar & produce regulation in the public interest (see @NgaireWoods). But in others, they contribute to beliefs that elites run the show w/o democratic input (see @arfung and https://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6432/1144). 5/n
So, technocrats can't just "fix" #climatechange. Technical solutions w/o politics are insufficient (looking at you @JaneAFlegal!) And speaking of politics… 6/n
His analysis completely overlooks questions of equity and justice. Yes, there may be (some) ways to get quick tons, but this overlooks the key fact that wealth inequality is what created #climatechange in the first place. See work by @GeoffPMann @PeterNewell @MattHuber78 7/n
I agree that #climatechange is a numbers game. For Harvey its about a small number of sectors, w/ a small number of decisionmakers. For many, its about the large number of people who did little to nothing to create this problem and are going to die and be displaced. 8/n
And those small number of ppl / sectors shouldn’t be underestimated. Great work by @mattomildenberger @leahstokes @naomioreskes @geoffreysupan among others shows that regulators, utilities, fossil fuel companies are concentrated, powerful interests. 9/n
And my work on #ExistentialPolitics w/ @thomasnhale and @JeffDColgan shows owners of climate forcing assets – like will fight like hell to maintain their position. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3634572 10/n
@BillMcKibben’s critique of neoliberalism isn't meant as a roadmap for incremental change. We don’t have time for that. It’s a call to mass mobilization – to rectify the gross inequalities that neoliberalism has wrought, and address #climatechange in a meaningful way. 11/n
Let’s not continue to make the mistake of confusing policy for politics. They are not the same thing. FIN
