When Promoting Clean Energy, Patriotism Beats Moralizing

“The debate over whether to go green is not a debate over whether to incur costs. It is a debate over which set of costs to incur, and people’s willingness to bear tangible burdens to achieve goals supported by affluent, educated progressives is limited.”

Earth Day has an almost religious feel to it. With reverence for the planet and concern for its inhabitants, it serves as a sublime experience for many people who do not find the sublime in religion. Concern for Earth’s health has as much a moral rationale as a practical one, even when it aligns with the scientific consensus on climate change.

Scientific facts, however, do not dictate political choices. Equally reasonable, compassionate, public-spirited people can absorb the same facts and reach different conclusions about what to do with them. For environmentalists, moralizing is something to avoid as a practical matter.

The fact that Earth is warming due to humans burning fossil fuels does not automatically mean humanity must shift rapidly to non-fossil energy. There are many excellent reasons for societies to reduce drastically their use of fossil fuels and to embrace solar panels, wind turbines, advanced nuclear reactors, electric cars, public transit, and high-speed rail. But that is not the only option they have.

Societies could choose instead to adapt to a warmer planet. This would entail costs. The political, economic, social, and public health costs of living on an Earth warmer than modern humans are used to would be vast. But a shift to clean energy has costs, too. The loss of jobs in coal mining and oil drilling; the social effects on communities dependent on those jobs; the geopolitical shift of power away from petrostates; higher prices for electricity and transportation during the transition period—none of these are cheap. It is not inherently immoral or irrational to accept the facts about climate change and conclude that green policies are still too expensive.