Lyndon Johnson was told from Clark Clifford about what will happen if he supported the war in Vietnam, "You will be loved by those who hate you and hated by those that love you."  

Not to far off the mark for what is going on between S&N and other environmentalists.    Pres. Bush and company will love S&N you but they don't really buy your environmental stance.   You will be hated by environmentalists because you will be under cutting their arguments for what they want to do.

Sure sometimes spending government money is easier than increasing taxes.

Just look at National Defense.    A little less than 500 billion for regular defense and 190 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.     Some Democrats tried to introduce a tax increase to help pay for the wars, but that was quickly shot down.   My opinion is if you are for the wars, but against paying for them, you are nothing but a `phony patriot,' but we don't want that discussion here.   My point is it's easier to spend tens of billions than a new tax even a little.

Maybe S&N have a point, but they should be talking about Government spending and taxing and politics and not against environmentalists.  

Well, how much harder is it to get non-carbon energy subsidized compared to getting carbon taxed?

Figure out a way to get people to think they are entitled to free or low cost, fully subsidized renewable electricity from non-carbon sources.    For war, like World War II, it was accepted that going farther into dept was okay because the benefits would last for generations and could be paid for by future generations.   Right now the US puts up about 5 billion a year in Wind Turbines as I've read.   If we could just convince enough people that we could put up 200 billion a year in wind turbines, nuclear and CSP and let future generations pay for it.    Because what better reason for deficit spending could there be than preventing future Global Warming.  

Would investing in non-carbon research be enough to lower the cost below carbon sources?   I would guess not.   Will we convince people to spend wildly on non-carbon energy sources without a reason to spend on non-carbon energy sources?      I don't think so either.    

The real reason to be afraid of S&N

Isn't because of their "solutions", but because of their perception of the problem at hand.

In that same way Lomborg figures that we shouldn't be that concerned with dealing with global warming except only in the long term.

And thats what puts Lomborg and S&N in the same category.  They want to delay action.  Which is frankly exactly what the GOP/Exxon strategy has been all along.

_

First the denial was
"It's not happening."

Then the denial was
"It is happening, but it's not us."

We are now moving into the next brick of the stonewall
"It is happening, it is us, but it's not gonna be that bad! So we don't need to get too hasty about doing anything.  Infact it might actually be a good thing!"

And how exactly do you plan to create a "Well Tested GMO"?

Especially one which is supposed to grow like a cancer.

And you don't expect it to have ANY negative effects on other marine life as it's sucking up all these nutrients?

And if it really does work, then how do we tell it to stop, before we head towards an ice age?

In fact, the ostensible reason for writing their essay "the death of environmentalism" was that the environmental community wasn't moving fast enough or effectively enough.  so you might think that their solutions will delay, but they certainly don't want a delay, quite the opposite.  I'm very critical of them for their solutions (e.g., using the military) but that's not one of them.

S&N's article, "The Death of Environmentalism," was dead-on.  They called out many of the problems with the environmental movement, and called for radical change. Now they are repeating the same arguments in book form.  It certainly has gotten them tons of press, and probably business for their firm as well.

Problem is, 2007 is not 2004. In that short time, the movement HAS changed.  Maybe we listened to their article, or maybe we just recognized on our own that climate change requires a different kind of politics.  The climate movement today is the movement S&N claimed they wanted in "The Death of Environmentalism."  

S&N, like so many critics, want to continue to be edgy and controversial. And, of course, they want to be famous and make money.  They don't want to wake up and find themselves in the new mainstream. That would require building something, as opposed to just tearing things down.  So instead of welcoming the changes that have occurred  (and pushing further), they are continuing to insist everything is wrong. And in so doing, they play into the hands of people like Lomborg.