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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (22950)	7/5/2006 5:57:24 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 541338

For the life of me, I cannot see how anyone could take any other position than the one that says you have to mobilize the political before you can get anything done. I'm running out of different ways to say this and I'm going to give up soon. No matter how I say it it comes back at me the same way. It's not the mobilization of the political that is problematic. It's the particular mobilization approach, the method, the message. I think it's counterproductive. (I thought that JFK's approach to mobilization for the moon effort, mentioned upstream, was excellent.)

To: JohnM who wrote (22950)	7/6/2006 2:32:51 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541338

One of the things that makes this conversation so odd is that both of us think we are arguing for common sense. The problem is that both of you are too intelligent for your own good. Neither of you can mobilize significant support for anything. But, I am with you. Every little bit helps. Life goes on. As it must.

To: JohnM who wrote (22950)	7/7/2006 3:51:37 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541338

I think the best way to get political support that is wide and durable is to make your arguments and solid, even somewhat balanced reason, rather than trying to alarm people. You might be able to scare 51% and ram the idea through with a minority but it can get delayed or reversed. As Samuelson put it - "No government will adopt the draconian restrictions on economic growth and personal freedom (limits on electricity usage, driving and travel) that might curb global warming." If you tell people that is the only way to deal with the issue than they won't deal with the issue. Your unlikely to scare enough people to accept such restrictions until and unless you already have clear and convincing evidence of current and looming near future disasters caused by global warming, combined with some evidence that the restrictions will greatly reduce the problem. Absent such evidence a scare campaign probably won't be enough to get anywhere. OTOH with or without a scare campaign you can get research on less costly methods to reduce CO2 emissions, to understand global warming, to gather more data, to make increasingly more sophisticated models of climate change, and to figure out how to deal with long term changes in climate.