Speaking of climate concerns clashing with real, hard economics (#1356623), here's this beauty from The Wall Street Journal:

The Climate Crisis Clashed With Affordability, and Affordability Won

Tl;dr = when money is cheap and abundant, growth is acceptable and there's basically no major societal problem and very low unemployment (read: Trump season 1/the late-2010s), there's no harm in shoving millions into long shots or some charity type phenomenon. Yes yes, we all spoke ESG and were gravely concerned with the existential threat that is(n't) climate change.

Then reality hit: real effects, inflation, "standard of living crisis," and rates back to some sort of actual thing (4-5%).

At that point nobody cares about green delusions anymoreAt that point nobody cares about green delusions anymore

Even the hotshots (former BoE gov and now Canadian PM Mark Carney, billionaire Tom Steyer, propagandist Bill Gates) have given up:

Why have climate alarmists suddenly gone quiet? The science and the economics haven’t really changed: Carbon emissions are still rising, and the climate is still getting warmer. What’s changed is the politics. Climate warriors persuaded the public to take climate change seriously, but not to pay for it, especially after the cost of living shot up in the wake of the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The share of respondents calling climate and the environment their most important issue has dropped from 14% in early 2020 to 6% now, according to YouGov. By contrast, 25% describe inflation that way.

No, not quite politics (though the wokeys' insistence that orange man -- or Putin man -- is the most dangerous thing since [insert whatever] sort of limits the climate-change-is-going-to-kill-us idea), but economics. It's the money, stupid.

"In short, the climate crisis clashed with the affordability crisis, and affordability won.""In short, the climate crisis clashed with the affordability crisis, and affordability won."

the retreat of climate catastrophism has made room for a less strident but more sustainable climate realism, focused on innovation and the commercialization of low-carbon technologies. The scientists and economists who study climate change have long agreed that carbon-dioxide emissions from human activity are leading to rising temperatures that, in time, would hurt the economy via sea-level rise and increased frequency of some forms of extreme weather such as drought.

But climate advocates routinely went further than these carefully researched findings could support. They cast global warming as a doomsday machine that required an immediate, whole-of-society response.

In 2021-22, as the economy reopened from Covid lockdowns, and then Russia invaded Ukraine, inflation shot up, led by energy. Inflation and energy security became the public’s and politicians’ priorities.
Corporate America had already sensed the shift in the political winds when Trump was re-elected last fall. In a letter to investors in March, BlackRock’s Fink wrote: “Prosperity is once again defined by our ability—and our willingness—to produce and consume more energy.” He did not mention climate.

It also doesn't matter who's in charge

Roger Pielke, a longtime climate scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, notes U.S. emissions have been remarkably impervious to presidential terms: relative to economic output, they have declined steadily for decades. The reason is that policy shifts often take years to bear fruit, and they are often overwhelmed by other factors. Natural gas from shale hastened the demise of coal, and China’s solar manufacturing build-out slashed the cost of panels.

"It would not be progress if, having parted ways with one ideological extreme on climate policy, we end up hostage to another.""It would not be progress if, having parted ways with one ideological extreme on climate policy, we end up hostage to another."

archive: https://archive.md/CZGf5