Mind the gap! The chasm on climate change
The split between red and blue is getting bigger.
The Venn diagram of people who are anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, and 15-minute city conspiracists is definitely a circle. But while 15-minute cities will likely get renamed and fall off the radar, the question of climate change will not. Unfortunately, it appears that climate is becoming more politicized than ever, especially in the United States. A recent study from the Pew Research Center looked at what the public’s top priorities are, and unsurprisingly the economy came first.
But mind the gaps!
It seems like Republicans and Democrats live in two different countries. Unsurprisingly the division over dealing with Covid is huge, but nothing on the chart compares with the split over dealing with global climate change, where Republicans could not care less at 11%, the lowest on the chart, while Democrats rate it higher than the economy and just behind Covid and health care. There’s a 54-point spread, wider than on any other issue.
This may not last; young people care much more about climate change than older people, and more Republicans are dying of Covid than Democrats. But unfortunately, we don’t have time for this. We must stop digging and drilling and transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Yet the red/blue divide just gets bigger.
In Canada, Primer Minister Trudeau has proposed a “just transition” where the government invests billions to create opportunities and retrain workers in the fossil fuel industries. The reaction from the Conservative leader of the opposition is as expected:
Poilievre says of Trudeau: "He has said he wants to phase out our oilsands. He says southern Ontario should move away from manufacturing. He has attacked our mining sector. Every time Justin Trudeau attacks our energy sector, a big smile appears on the face of Vladimir Putin.”
The oil sands are going away anyway, whether Alberta or Poilievre want it or not. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) notes that “Road transport represents the largest share of demand for crude oil, at 44% with the pace of transport electrification the most significant factor in determining future demand for oil.” They note that electric vehicles are going to cause demand destruction for Alberta’s expensive oil more quickly than anyone is thinking. A transition is coming, whether it is just or unjust. The study concludes that “the inescapable starting point for Canadian energy policy is clear: global demand for oil will soon unravel in an unprecedented fashion and will not recover.”
But it seems that many people in western countries will not accept this, will not accept that cities should be designed so that you don’t have to drive, let alone take a private jet wherever they want. They don’t accept that there should be any limitations on their freedom to burn fossil fuels.
As the various signs at a 15-minute city rally show, it is just one of many ridiculous issues that protesters complain about. Yet politicians are pandering to them and are winning elections. I want to laugh at these silly people protesting in Oxford, which has been a 15-minute city for a millennium, but I can’t, any more than I could laugh at the anti-vaxxers protesting outside hospitals in Toronto or the Convoy in Ottawa. There seem to be more of them every day, and the politicians are listening to them. And that Pew chart that started this all chills me- how do we ever cross such a divide? How can we solve the climate crisis when half the population doesn’t believe there is one?