I know, I know, I'm grumpy about everything, but this bugs me, this notion that science dictates what we must do about climate change, and if you just accept science, you accept the whole program. It's not so. https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1385232169468055561

Don't get me wrong: I'm super into aggressive action to address climate change, largely along the lines supported by Dems & Biden (but faster/bigger). But I don't support it because "science." I support it because I value human life & believe in the value of collective action.

When people on the left smuggle their values in under cover of "science," it (rightly!) convinces their opponents that there's some slight-of-hand at work. It's irksome, because those values are *good & worth explicitly defending*.

Biden should say, hey, it's Earth Day, and giving a shit about the welfare of society's most vulnerable, in the US & around the world, is the right thing to do. Doing less violence to ecosystems & other species is a worthy aspiration. Killing fewer people with pollution is good.

Liberal technocracy doesn't replace values, it *assumes* values. But as we've seen, the values it assumes -- every life has dignity, it's worth working collectively to improve society -- are not universally shared! They should be made explicit & celebrated.