What can you do to get republicans more postive of renewable energy

You'd have thought conservation and conservatism would go hand in hand. According to this Krugman column, republicans got swept up in the 'culture wars' and abandoned conservation.

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[b]Why Republicans Turned Against the Environment[/b]
Aug. 15, 2022, By Paul Krugman, Opinion Columnist

In 1990 Congress passed an amendment to the Clean Air Act of 1970, among other things taking action against acid rain, urban smog and ozone.

The legislation was highly successful, greatly reducing pollution at far lower cost than business interest groups had predicted. I sometimes see people trying to use acid rain as an example of environmental alarmism — hey, it was a big issue in the 1980s, but now hardly anyone talks about it. But the reason we don’t talk about it is that policy largely solved the problem.

What’s really striking from today’s perspective, however, is the fact that the 1990 legislation passed Congress with overwhelming, bipartisan majorities. Among those voting Yea was a first-term senator from Kentucky named Mitch McConnell.

That was then. This is now: The Inflation Reduction Act — which, despite its name, is mainly a climate bill with a side helping of health reform — didn’t receive a single Republican vote. Now, the I.R.A. isn’t a leftist plan to insert Big Government into everyone’s lives: It doesn’t coerce Americans into going green; it relies on subsidies to promote low-emission technologies, probably creating many new jobs. So why the scorched-earth G.O.P. opposition?

The immediate answer is that the Republican Party has turned strongly anti-environmental over time. But why?

Surveys from the Pew Research Center show the widening partisan divide over environmental policy. In the 1990s self-identified Republicans and Democrats weren’t that different in their environmental views: Republicans were less likely than Democrats to say that we should do whatever it takes to protect the environment, more likely to say that environmental regulation hurts the economy, but the gaps were relatively modest.

Since then, however, these gaps have widened into chasms, and not in a symmetrical way: Democrats have become somewhat more supportive of environmental action, but Republicans have become much less supportive.

Most of the divergence is fairly recent, having taken place since around 2008. I can’t help pointing out that Republican belief that environmental protection hurts the economy soared precisely during the period when revolutionary technological progress in renewable energy was making emissions reductions cheaper than ever before.

Republican voters may be taking their cues from politicians and media figures. So why have conservative opinion leaders turned anti-environment?

It’s not about belief in free markets and opposition to government intervention. One of the most striking aspects of recent energy disputes is the extent to which Republicans have tried to use the power of the state to promote polluting energy sources even when the private sector prefers alternatives. The Trump administration tried, unsuccessfully, to force electric utilities to keep burning coal even when other power sources were cheaper. Currently, as The Times has reported, many Republican state treasurers are trying to punish banks and other companies seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

What about the cynical view that the G.O.P. is simply in the pocket of fossil fuel interests? Obviously money talks, and contributions from coal and, to a lesser extent, oil and gas do flow mainly to Republicans. But the Inflation Reduction Act — which will open up many business opportunities — was endorsed by a number of large corporations, including energy companies like BP and Shell. Republicans were unmoved.

What has happened, I’d argue, is that environmental policy has been caught up in the culture war — which is, in turn, largely driven by issues of race and ethnicity. This, I suspect, is why the partisan divide on the environment widened so much after America elected its first Black president.

One especially notable aspect of The Times’s investigative report on state treasurers’ punishing corporations seeking to limit greenhouse gas emissions is the way these officials condemn such corporations as “woke.”

Wokeness normally means talking about racial and social justice. On the right — which is increasingly defined by attempts to limit the rights of Americans who aren’t straight white Christians — it has become a term of abuse. Teaching students about the role of racism in American history is bad because it’s woke. But so, apparently, are many other things, like Cracker Barrel offering meatless sausage and being concerned about climate change.

This may not make much sense intellectually, but you can see how it works emotionally. Who tends to worry about the environment? Often, people who also worry about social justice — either that, or global elites. (Climate science is very much a global enterprise.)

Even Republicans who have to know better won’t break with the party’s anti-science position. As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney had a decent environmental record; yet he joined every other Republican member of Congress in voting against the I.R.A.

What this means is that those people hoping for bipartisan efforts on climate are probably deluding themselves. Environmental protection is now part of the culture war, and neither policy details nor rational argument matters.


Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography.

Well, a few things.

1. A recent study shows a rapid transition to green energy will save us trillions. Fossil fuels will become more and more expensive to subsidise and it will be at the detriment of the American people.

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X

2. China are outperforming everyone when it comes to the production of renewable energy, reaching their 2030 targets 5 years early. They will have enough renewable energy to power every home, and produce more solar energy than the rest of the world combined. A country like China would not be investing so heavily in green energy if it wasn’t the viable future, so if America wants to remain a world leader/super power, it needs to follow suit.

Not until more money can be made with renewable energy that with fossil fuels. But that's going to be difficult, because Big Oil is one of the greediest, uncaring, frightened industries out there. They don't believe in transition and so they're doing their level best to destroy any attempts at renewable energy.

A bill is about to be passed in Texas, of all places, that essentially renders wind energy impotent. They're trying to do the same things here in Florida with solar. We vote for the people whom the oil companies present, and then we're shocked when they act in such a way. We can turn anyone with nefarious agendas away from the door. All it takes is a vote.

When it's proven that businesses that rely on fossil fuels can make more profits by switching to renewable sources of power, Republican politicians will be on it faster than a hot knife thru butter.

Until then, don't expect them to budge.

It’s part of their culture war package and they are resistant to changes.

Tell them fossil fuels are turning the frogs gay.

More funding and research is required, it's in the name renewable so this should be common sense.

Non-Renewables are running out and won't last forever.

However the way to not go about it are the upper and upper middle class 'just stop oil' trustafarians.

I say give them a all expense trip to British Columbia Canada. 100% of British Columbia's electricity is generated by renewable energy. Cheers!

Are they? Let's see names and who owns them. Then show us how no Democrats are owned even more by those same companies

Renewable energy sources don't produce enough energy to be commercially viable.

You can't change physics

[quote]Republican polticians are in the pocket of the fossil feul industry and do its biding[/quote]

Is that right. Proof?

Also prove the dhims aren't every bit invested as your bogeyman

Replace the Dems with the Greens.