U.C. Berkeley Scholar Declares Climate Change As A Policy Issue Dead

It’s not unheard of to see someone from a Left-leaning source (media, university, etc.) coming to grips with reality (to an extent) and realizing the error of the Left.
 
On Monday, in an op-ed written for the Wall Street Journal, Steven F. Hayward, a senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at U.C. Berkeley declared that Climate Change, as a prime political movement, is dead. And no, it’s not because of Trump, though he does say that the POTUS has a hand in it.
 
Hayward explains that the culprits to blame for the movement dying is the activists pushing the movement itself. Activists who have “let their social justice and ‘green utopian vision’ sabotage viable solutions,” according to the Daily Wire.
 
Hayward writes: “All that remains is boilerplate rhetoric from the political class, frivolous nuisance lawsuits, and bureaucratic mandates on behalf of special-interest renewable-energy rent seekers.” And explains that most national governments are “backing away from forced-marched decarbonization.”
 
Regarding Trump’s hand in this, Hayward explains that, while the issue has run its course over Trump’s presidency thus far, the POTUS’ decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement “merely ratified a trend long becoming evident.”
 
Hayward then explains: “The descent of climate change into the abyss of social-justice identity politics represents the last gasp of a cause that has lost its vitality. Climate alarm is like a car alarm – a blaring noise people are tuning out.” He also explains that this is not a surprise to some – that it was rather predictable.
 
Hayward cites an article by political scientist Anthony Downs in 1972 titled “Up and Down With Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention Cycle’”. Hayward lays out the five stages of a political movement, and the climate change movement fits the mold perfectly.
 
Here are the five stages:
 

• Stage 1: Experts and activists call attention to a public problem.

 

• Stage 2: The “alarmed media and political class discover the issue” and often stir up “euphoric enthusiasm… as activists conceive the issue in terms of global peril and salvation.”

 

• Stage 3: The “hinge”, characterized by “a gradually spreading realization that the cost of ‘solving’ the problem is very high indeed.”

 

• Stage 4: The “gradual decline in the industry of public interest in the problem.”

 

• Stage 5: A “prolonged limbo – a twilight realm of lesser attention or spasmodic recurrences of interest,” which often involves “painful trade-offs” that activists simply aren’t willing to make.

 
 
He explains that climate change is in its last stage, where activists block viable solutions because of their ideology of social justice and a “utopian” environmental vision.
 
“A case in point is climate campaigners’ push for clean energy, whereas they write off nuclear power because it doesn’t fit their green utopian vision. A new study of climate-related philanthropy by Matthew Nisbet found that of the $556.7 million green-leaning foundations spent from 2011-15, ‘not a single grant supported work on promoting or reducing the cost of nuclear energy.’ The major emphasis of green giving was ‘devoted to mobilizing public opinion and to opposing the fossil fuel industry.’”
 
Hayward concludes by saying: “Treating climate change as a planet-scale problem that could be solved only by an international regulatory scheme transformed the issue into a political creed for committed believers. Causes that live by politics, die by politics.”
 
All fascinating and very good points that Hayward makes.
 
It’s very logical and highlights today’s world, or at least today’s America. Despite the constant bombardment of propaganda by the MSM regarding the urgency of climate change, it doesn’t seem as though very many people are putting that at the forefront of their minds and worries.
 
If there is anything to take away from the 2016 election is that people wanted to prioritize other things apart from climate change. They wanted jobs to return, ISIS to be destroyed, illegal immigrants to be deported, a secure border and a return to God. The American people have had enough of the ridiculous climate change stories and propaganda and policy.
 
And it seems that Hayward has made note of this. Of course, I do have one problem with all of this. This is going by the assumption that climate change is either caused by humans or can be affected by humans. Neither of which is the case.
 
Ultimately, the search for “green energy” will not affect the planet’s climate even a little. The “green energy” that the Left seeks is not really environmentally-friendly at all. Electric power still requires coal or oil power plants to power up. That’s why I laugh at the concept of electric cars being “environmentally-friendly”. Sure, they may not individually emit exhaust like gas-powered cars, but they force coal or oil power plants to crank out more power, using more coal and oil than before.
 
Wind power farms are very costly and a hazard to birds, not to mention they only work in certain areas where there is a lot of wind. Solar power isn’t used an awful lot because it is insanely expensive. In fact, it is “five to eleven times more expensive to produce electricity from the sun than it is from coal, hydro or nuclear sources,” according to a website called “SolarPowerIsTheFuture.com”. And cost is not the only problem with solar power, as storing the energy produced by the sun is also a problem.
 
And with hydroelectric power, according to the website called “Environment-Ecology.com”, “… Hydropower facilities can have large environmental impacts by changing the environment and affecting land use, homes, and natural habitats in the dam area… [hydro power plants] may obstruct fish migration and affect their populations. [They] may also change the water temperature and the river’s flow. These changes may harm native plants and animals in the river and on land.”
 
So pretty much all of the solutions presented by environmentalist wackos have some sort of negative impact on the environment or are simply not cost-effective enough for anyone to use.
 
To believe that humans as a species have the power to affect the climate even a little is to believe humans are God-like beings. We are far from that. We do not have the power to negatively or positively affect the climate. We CAN affect the environment – that much is evident. But we can’t affect the planet’s global climate and temperature.
 
We can’t accurately predict the weather for next week, but we can somehow predict the climate of the Earth 50 to 100 years from now? And not only predict it, but affect it and change it in any way?
 
Like with many other Leftist ideologies and beliefs, it takes more faith to believe in man-made climate change than it does to believe in Creation, the virgin birth and the resurrection of Christ. At least there is far more evidence for these things than man being responsible for climate change.
 
Regardless, I shall put that aside to recognize the perception of Steven F. Hayward in recognizing the slow death of a political movement. Don’t misunderstand, I don’t expect this to simply die out entirely and for people to stop believing in man-made climate change. But it seems clear that the movement will remain in a limbo state for the foreseeable future. Which, interestingly enough, is another mark of the Democrats’ almost certain future defeat in the midterms.
 
The movement’s state of limbo might be indicative as to why the Democrats aren’t making Climate Change their key issue. Sure, they might make it a key issue in the coming months as the midterm elections near. But as of the writing of this article, I don’t really see the Democrats sounding the alarms on it. You would think that this is something they would own and try to make a major political issue, but I haven’t seen much of that.
 
1 Corinthians 15:57
“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”