Trapped in a slamming Overton Window

Mainstream environmentalists’ enthusiasm for Waxman-Markey ensures it will get worse 13

Mainstream environmentalists who take the position that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill “could be worse” help ensure that it will be. Publicly proclaiming willingness to live with the bill in its current firm gives nobody any leverage to strengthen it.

It is the same mistake first time buyers make in car lots when they accept an offer from the nice man in the loud suit. It turns that neither the first time car buyer nor the mainstream environmentalist have actually closed a deal. They simply let the other side construct their offer, turning what they thought was a compromise into their own negotiating position which the other side can now bargain against. Proclaiming “It could be worse” makes the bill in its current form the ASKING PRICE for the environmental movement. It becomes the unrealistically leftist goal, which moderates will dilute to something more “reasonable”.

I know a lot of well-meaning environmentalists think that because version that passed out of committee already gives concessions to the coal, electricity and nuclear sectors that “moderate” Democrats will support it. This misunderstands what “moderation” in the Democratic Party is today. Democratic Party “moderates” are not moderate in the sense they look at policy and try to find sensible alternatives between extreme possibilities. Nor are they moderate only in the sense they are slightly deeper in corporate pockets than most politicians.

Democratic Party moderates are “moderate” in the sense that they find reasons to oppose their own party on most critical issues, either straight-out adapting the Republican position, or taking a position just a shade different from that of the most lunatic fringes of the Republican Party. Their “moderation” is an automatic positioning to the right of most of the Democratic Party on issues of importance, an automatic attempt to move the Overton window towards the Republicans. What part of that is genuine reactionary conviction, and what part playing to media love of Republican leaning “bipartisanship” is hard to say.

If you seriously are willing to live with the current bill, but don’t want it to get worse, your public position should be:

Hmm, I have some hard choices to make here. We need to do something, but this is so awful. I don’t know if I can live with it. Watch me agonize publicly over my moral dilemma. Isn’t my internal struggle fascinating? If only someone would improve this bill and make it better. Then I could reluctantly support it. Why oh why won’t you extremists move a little to salve my delicate conscience and win my last minute support.

If you think you are qualified to play an inside game, then please show that you know the rules. Don’t leave the Kabuki to the Ben Nelsons, Mary Landrieus, Charlie Melancons, Tim Holdens, Colin Petersons and Evan Bayhs.

And maybe even consider that this bill has a bad enough architecture not to be worth trying to save.

Gar Lipow, a long time environmental activist and journalist with a strong technical background has spent years immersed in the subject of efficiency and renewable energy. He has written extensively on the economics of solving the global warming, and why pricing externalities (though important) cannot be the main driver of such solutions.

His on-line reference book compiling information on technology available today, “No Hair Shirt Solutions to Global Warming”, is available at http://www.nohairshirts.com.

His articles on the economics and politics of solving the climate crisis have been published in Z magazine and a number of small journals.

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  1. jestbill Posted 5:32 am
    25 May 2009

    The American electorate hired a bunch of oil company executives to run the country and then re-elected them four years later.  They only tossed 'em out because the economy tanked.  If that economy comes back so will the political strength of the energy industry.
    The American majority does not act, it reacts.  It reacts to looming disaster only if it will clearly affect them personally and only if action (that's action by some heroic third party) is sold, sold, sold on prime time TV.  Were they rational participants in their own futures, WM would have been passed during the Carter administration and would have been honed to perfection by now.Those "moderates" you dismiss are actually wild radicals in their own communities.

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  2. Gar Lipow's avatar

    Gar Lipow Posted 9:32 am
    25 May 2009

    Many of these moderates run on personality and incumbant srength and vote well to the right of their districts.

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  3. David Roberts's avatar

    David Roberts Posted 3:08 pm
    25 May 2009

    You don't cite any examples, so it's hard to tell who this argument is directed toward. From what I've seen, the big green groups are split between saying "this bill is too crappy to support" and saying "this bill is a good step but it needs improvement." (EDF and NRDC the possible exceptions, but even they call for strengthening.) Just the public dithering you say you want to see. So who are you talking to/about?

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  4. ids's avatar

    ids Posted 7:56 am
    26 May 2009

    Objectively speaking:>Gar: Mainstream environmentalists who take the position that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill “could be worse” help ensure that it will be.>Grist: So who are you talking to/about?A: Waxman-Markey permit allocation plan: could be worse  http://www.grist.org/article/2009-05-15-waxman-markey-permit-proposal  ". . .  this is better than I expected."On another matter, I don't think grist can brag anymore about never having deleted a comment . . .  

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  5. oracle2world Posted 8:57 am
    26 May 2009

    Nice article.  And you are correct, either address the issue with bold steps, or don't bother.  As it stands now, CO2 continues to rise and taxes go up.  Maybe something happens in 2050 ... always good to make promises long after you are dead.

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  6. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 9:20 am
    26 May 2009

    We Republicans must ardantly support this bill.   It's time to reduce CO2 pollution and move on to a Gas Economy, driven by natural gas and hydrogen.

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  7. F James Handley Posted 3:00 pm
    28 May 2009

    Gar,You've nailed it again.  The first rule of negotiation: Don't start with your bottom line. Mainstream environmental groups are so hungry for a deal that just a promise of reductions a decade or two from now has them drooling. Have we forgotten?  The whole point of this bill is GHG emissions reductions.  Instead, we're offered a giant offsets program, a vast new carbon allowance commodities market, more money and credibility for "clean coal" and all kinds of other goodies for special interests that all get their slices now.    It's not over.  Ways & Means gets the bill next.   They've held half a dozen hearings on the problems of cap/trade including volatility.  Five members have introduced carbon pricing bills in Ways & Means -- any of which would be a quantum improvement over the cap/trade provisions of Wax-Mar.  House members need to hear from voters who want real reductions soon instead of shell games of cap/trade.  Call em, folks: 202-225-2131.See http://www.carbontax.org, and http://www.pricecarbon.org. 

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    1. jestbill Posted 8:50 am
      29 May 2009

      Republicans have managed to shoot themselves in the feet in regard to changing laws (marriage, abortion) by demanding what they want when they want it and nothing else.They have been successful in preventing changes (OSHA,CAFE) they didn't like.Maybe it's better to have a poor law you can maintain than a perfect law you can't pass in the first place.How is single-payer health care coming?

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  8. Gar Lipow's avatar

    Gar Lipow Posted 1:33 pm
    29 May 2009

    >Maybe it's better to have a poor law you can maintain than a perfect law you can't pass in the first place.


    How about a poor law that makes things worse? Huge spectrum between "perfect" and "less than zero".

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    1. jestbill Posted 7:47 pm
      29 May 2009

      Yeah, so's your old man.These one-liners comparing hypotheticals are a waste of brain power.  If I didn't trust this web site, I'd jump to the conclusion that you're perfectly happy with this "do nothing/global warming's a fad/do nothing/fat and happy" world.Again: how is single-payer coming along?

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  9. Gar Lipow's avatar

    Gar Lipow Posted 4:35 pm
    30 May 2009

    Why would I respond to your one-line grumps with anyhing but one-line replies? We've bee doing incremental healthcare reform for decades How is that working out? Higher healthcare prices and more uninsured and underinsured every year the result you were hoping for?

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  10. ryan-s Posted 12:17 am
    10 Sep 2009

    Solving climate change is our generation’s greatest challenge. A
    revenue-neutral carbon tax is the cheapest, simplest, most effective
    and most progressive way to do it.A tax redistribution bill collects taxes in high carbon-low employment
    service areas (Appliachia) and moves tax revenue to people living in
    the coasts where the carbon levels are much lower. How can that be fair?
    Ryan, Consultant for Dating site

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  11. malone123 Posted 3:49 pm
    05 Jan 2010

    Solving this issue is going to be the biggest combined effort this planet has ever seen. Maybe for once , we'll see peace throughout the world.

    Malone
    Used Cars Los Angeles

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