Water gurgles up from beneath calciferous bedrock across coastal Florida, threatening to turn coastal communities into mini Venices by mid-century. Governor Rick Scott idly ignores the inevitable, pledging to dismantle any adaptive initiatives eagerly proposed by climate experts and urban planners. Meanwhile, the Midwest withers as heat waves intensify, projected to render parts of Iowa, Missouri and southern Illinois infertile to farmers within decades. And yet no comprehensive climate legislation has been passed in the United States, despite potential damages amounting to over $100 billion due to coastal flooding and agricultural loss. In fact, only 3 percent of Republican congressmen have accepted human-induced global warming on record.
We have a serious problem: the very leaders who exist to uphold the integrity of both society and state are ignoring this responsibility in the face of climate challenges that threaten to dismantle us all. And yes, climate change constitutes a crisis, but one that is perniciously drawn-out and unpredictable, flying right into the face of what we humans tend to define as threatening, i.e. that which startles, discomforts or jerks the knee. In other words, our political leaders have to reconceptualize the very notion of “threat” by embracing a bit of circumspection. But as my fellow columnist Dani Bernstein points out in her latest column, recent election results suggest grim prospects for U.S. political action on climate. This begs the question: how does James Inhofe — author of “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future” — gain first bid over the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee?
Even more puzzling — what compels an allegedly competent public leader such as Inhofe (and endless others) to incompetently adhere to such a blatantly unreasonable agenda? Duke University recently released a report that makes some sense of our nation’s greatest political paradox. The study, entitled “Solution aversion: On the relation between ideology and motivated disbelief,” argues Republican politicians who appear to reject anthropogenic climate change do not actually reject the science, but rather the political solutions associated with it. In other words, the values driving many Democratic policy makers to favor a strong mitigative and adaptive response to climate threats clash with those of their Republican counterparts.
The logic behind solution aversion is quite simple. If a problem poses undesirable policy implications, opposing parties will often deny the problem even exists. This perverse psychological effect is summed up by co-author Troy Campbell of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business who states, “The cure can be more immediately threatening than the problem.” Sound familiar? The human inclination to let immediate concerns squash less palpable, but ultimately far more concerning threats again impedes political action on climate. But if this crippling inertia stems more from uncompromising ideological principle than human instinct, then perhaps it is reasonable to hold certain public representatives accountable for political negligence.
The study shows further that Republicans’ general distaste for government market regulation drives their aversion to climate mitigative solutions. For example, Republicans were far more likely to accept climate science when proposed policy solutions emphasized the free market over a carbon tax. A recent Yale study delivered a similar result when climate policy solutions involved geo-engineering or nuclear power — both compatible with the hands-off agenda. Although highly contestable, laissez-faire capitalism has its merits. The issue is that those in power to instigate necessary climate policy simply will not because their blind adherence to principles alone causes them to deny that the problem even exists in the first place.
So what lessons can be gleaned from the Duke study? As Washington Post blogger Chris Mooney warns, the study does not suggest we should recontextualize clean-tech energy as part of a free market-based approach, nor does it suggest there is anything we can do to stop politicians from promulgating apparent fabrications to promote party agendas. And finally, it offers no advice on how we might depoliticise this pressing issue. Sure, we now have a credible publication on which to base our presumptions about the questionable climate denial that cripples congressional progress on climate policy. But the political climate appears disheartening at best.
If chief political actors find it appropriate enough to reject scientific fact in blind favor of ideological principle, then they will certainly find it equally if not more acceptable to promote disbelief in order to remain in office. In doing so, they reinvigorate public denial, thereby reinforcing their incentive to appeal to an ignorant voter base…and on goes the vicious cycle. Audubon Society President David Yarnold sums up the true crux of the issue: "Most Republicans say the same thing behind closed doors: ‘Of course, I get that the climate is changing, of course I get that we need to do something — but I need to get reelected.’" That my friends, is American politics in a nutshell, and why meaningful political action on climate change will not occur until our political values change.
Will Evans is an Opinion Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at w.evans@cavalierdaily.com.
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