I think it’s quite useful to analyze why environmental issues—including climate but not exclusively—became progressively more partisan over the last 30 years. This narrative is a helpful start, but doesn’t tell the story in enough detail and misses important elements. I was an environmental lobbyist for much of this period (roughly 1990 to 2001) and closely observed the trends. One of the reasons I chose to work on environmental issues was that they had not yet fallen into a partisan divide (I also cared about the issues). There were strong Republican and Democratic camps on both sides of most environmental issues. I worked to successfully build bipartisan coalitions in Congress and cross-ideological alliances among advocates. And we won some battles. I worked closely with Heritage foundation, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Instutie, National Taxpayers Union, etc etc.
But by the time I left this work—in 2001 - the collaborations and coalitions were eroding. Among many stakeholders the risks of collaboration for brand, fundraising, and access were becoming too much. Geoge W Bush immediately abandoned his commitment to regulate carbon on winning the Presidency (he previously supported the “4 pollutants” strategy). And people like Grover Norquist were running coercive campaigns to enforce partisan and ideological conformity like the “K Street Project”.
Anyway, if the author or anyone else is interested in exploring and developing this topic more, I’d be interested to work together.
I think it’s quite useful to analyze why environmental issues—including climate but not exclusively—became progressively more partisan over the last 30 years. This narrative is a helpful start, but doesn’t tell the story in enough detail and misses important elements. I was an environmental lobbyist for much of this period (roughly 1990 to 2001) and closely observed the trends. One of the reasons I chose to work on environmental issues was that they had not yet fallen into a partisan divide (I also cared about the issues). There were strong Republican and Democratic camps on both sides of most environmental issues. I worked to successfully build bipartisan coalitions in Congress and cross-ideological alliances among advocates. And we won some battles. I worked closely with Heritage foundation, Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Instutie, National Taxpayers Union, etc etc.
But by the time I left this work—in 2001 - the collaborations and coalitions were eroding. Among many stakeholders the risks of collaboration for brand, fundraising, and access were becoming too much. Geoge W Bush immediately abandoned his commitment to regulate carbon on winning the Presidency (he previously supported the “4 pollutants” strategy). And people like Grover Norquist were running coercive campaigns to enforce partisan and ideological conformity like the “K Street Project”.
Anyway, if the author or anyone else is interested in exploring and developing this topic more, I’d be interested to work together.