Climate Rage

Krugman: 

Digby asks why the anti-climate-change types are so angry, then approvingly links to Amanda Marcotte, who says that it’s all about annoying liberals.

I don’t agree, although that’s clearly part of it.

The rage, by the way, is amazing. Nothing gets me as many crazed emails and comments as any reference to climate change. The anti-global-warming people are just filled with hate for anyone who suggests that maybe, just maybe, the vast majority of scientists are right.

And that in turn suggests that annoying liberals isn’t the whole story; no, they’re not enjoying themselves.

What I think is that we’re looking at two cultural issues.

First, environmentalism is the ultimate “Mommy party” issue. Real men punish evildoers; they don’t adjust their lifestyles to protect the planet. (Here’s some polling to that effect.)

Second, climate change runs up against the anti-intellectual streak in America. Remember, just a few years ago conservatives were triumphantly proclaiming that Bush was a great president because he didn’t think too much:

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He’s normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He’s not exotic. But if there’s a fire on the block, he’ll run out and help. He’ll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, “Where’s Sally?” He’s responsible. He’s not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world.

So they’re outraged, furious, at the notion that they have to listen to guys who talk in big words rather than sports metaphors.

Look, there’s a faint echo of all this on the left — people who are outraged at the idea that we’re going to make saving the planet basically a business decision, aligning private incentives with environmental goals so that doing the right thing becomes a profit opportunity rather than a moral duty. That, I think, is what’s behind the furor over cap and trade.

But it’s the anti-environmental craziness that matters. An important part of the population just doesn’t want to believe in the kind of world in which we have to limit our appetites on the say-so of fancy experts. And so they angrily deny the whole thing.

Posted via email from Jim Nichols