More honesty about the costs and difficulty would have helped.
“Billionaires are silent. Democrats in Congress have been silent. Climate activists. There has been no pushback on this,” Morano said…Robert Brulle, a professor of environment and society at Brown University…“And nothing happened. There wasn’t even a whimper. I never thought I’d ever say this: Marc Morano is correct.”…
Instead of pushing back on this blitz, many Democratic party representatives have retreated from talking directly about the climate crisis across social media, podcasts, speeches, and in Congress…
For Brulle, the environmental sociologist, addressing the growing hush around climate must go beyond talking. “I think the climate movement in the United States has failed. It has flat failed, and that means we need to rebuild this movement in a completely different manner,” he said.
I have long felt that the best path towards a healthier environment is when you can align economic and environmental incentives and interests.
This hit home for me during the Global Financial Crisis. I was the volunteer chairman of health and safety for the Cincinnati Red Cross at the time. The chapter’s headquarters was woefully inadequate for the charity’s mission and was suffering from decades of deferred maintenance. So they decided to raise money for a new building.
I ended up leading the Green Facilities Committee for the building project, focusing on making it environmentally friendly. The direction I got from the chapter’s leadership was “remember that we’re in the disaster response business, and we rely on donations to operate. So you need to make sure we’re good stewards of our donors’ money as well as the environment.”
So the strategy we came up with was “every green initiative for the building would either pay for itself over its expected lifetime or be covered by an earmarked green donation or grant.” That way, we could make the case to donors that we were being good stewards of their money while we were making better choices for the environment.
The strategy worked, and the charity raised enough money to build a far larger, more modern, and better suited building for its operations, without having to take out a mortgage on it. From an environmental perspective, the building earned LEED Gold certification, thanks to those efforts.
And importantly from an economic perspective, the new building costs substantially less to operate than the old one did. (It’s amazing what things like modern insulation, windows, air conditioning and lighting can do…) As a result, the charity could point to those lower costs and tell donors that thanks to those green efforts, more of every dollar they donated can go towards the mission, with less going towards overhead.
Agreed. Several times over the years I have quoted the ‘iron law of climate policy’ –
When policies on emissions reductions collide with policies focused on economic growth, economic growth will win out.
Just a quick example. We installed solar panels on our house. Utility rebates and tax credits were in effect. Did our panels break-even after 1 quarter? Nope. One year? Nope. It was 6 years and change to break even. It’s been so long I don’t remember the exact date, but for probably the last 8 to 10 years, they have just been printing money for us.
There is almost always an initial investment that won’t pay for itself in such a short time frame. As the OP said, you have to look at whether it will pay for itself in the long term. It’s also helpful to consider secondary and tertiary costs (like greater health issue among the population that cost money to treat as a result of whatever one is doing to the environment).
Less talk about climate change being a hoax would have helped as well.
From the linked article -
“Instead of pushing back on this blitz, many Democratic party representatives have retreated from talking directly about the climate crisis across social media, podcasts, speeches, and in Congress. The party is now embroiled in a debate about whether affordability is a better message than climate action, despite polling suggesting that 63% of the American public believes the president and Congress should prioritize clean energy.”
Politicians are choosing their messaging based on polling. It kinda feels like they’re running scared, when they should be more confident about authentic messaging that appeals to the majority of the public.
A policy platform that would allow for tax credits up to 100% of the cost of residential solar could speak to affordability minded voters, climate change minded voters, and those voters who want to build out more energy production. Incentivize battery back-up systems and booyah!
Heck, you could frame it as an equal tax advantage for individuals as compared to what was given to corporations for their capex expenditures.
New York State passed a climate law back in 2019 but never issued regulations to force the change. The state was eventually sued by some environmental groups, and a judge ruled that regulations must be developed or the law changed.
The case is being appealed but the governor, Kathy Hochul, has realized she has another big problem – increased costs.
Likely 2028 presidential contenders — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — have also slowed or abandoned some climate-friendly proposals. Hochul’s shift could become a blueprint for Democrats across the country as they desperately try to convince voters they’re aggressively tackling cost-of-living concerns — including energy bills — ahead of the midterm elections…
Hochul has a history of stutter-stepping on controversial policies tied to higher costs. She also delayed implementation of a fee on traffic into congested areas of Manhattan ahead of the 2024 elections before ultimately moving it forward at a lower rate. She briefly pushed a ban on gas furnace replacements before abandoning it amid backlash. Hochul also pushed a mandate for all-electric new buildings and then delayed its implementation last year.
Those pesky enforcement regulations would be postposed from 2024 to 2030. This would essentially nullify any legal requirement for the state to reach its 2030 emission reduction milestones.
Near-term targets are shifted from 2030 to 2040 which puts them over the political horizon.
And in a nice technical adjustment, she wants the impact of methane emissions to be calculated over 100 years rather than 25 years. This increases the progress the state has made.
As of March 2026, the Trump administration faces hundreds of lawsuits, with over 700 tracked in total, many focused on reversing environmental deregulation. A major 2026 lawsuit includes 24 states and several cities suing the EPA over the repeal of the “endangerment finding” that allows greenhouse gas regulation.
[image]The New York Times +4
Key details regarding the climate-related legal challenges include:
Massive Litigation Volume:The New York Times reports more than 700 lawsuits against the administration’s policy changes, including extensive challenges to environmental rules.
[image]The New York Times +1
Climate-Specific Suits: During the first term, over 250 lawsuits specifically targeted climate deregulation.
[image]Center for Biological Diversity +1
Major 2026 Actions: In March 2026, a coalition of 24 states and cities sued the EPA in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for revoking the legal basis to fight climate change.
[image]The New York Times
Key Issues: Lawsuits target the repeal of greenhouse gas tailpipe emission rules for vehicles, the rollback of the Clean Power Plan, and the promotion of fossil fuel projects.
[image]Conservation Law Foundation +1
High Success Rate: Environmental groups like the NRDC have seen success in nearly 90% of their resolved cases against the administration.
[image]NRDC
Other major actions include the Center for Biological Diversity filing 266 lawsuits against the administration’s actions on climate change and public lands.
Realistically, that was more symbolic than anything. I thought it stupid to remove them, but it was just one building. And I don’t think it would have changed many peoples’ minds (like Dr Bob). They will still do what they want regardless of the solar panels on the WH. Some people just love their 8mpg super-duty trucks, and their 6000SUX sedans, no matter what. The ONLY thing that might change minds is gasoline/petrol going above $5/gal (which it is in some places now, and will likely be everywhere soon enough). Even then…some people will cut off their nose to spite their face, and get a new super-duty F350 8mpg truck.
People are weird. And foolish. Which is why we are on the path to running the experiment where all the glaciers melt, and some regions become uninhabitable (like the UAE).
I wish I could figure out which industries will prosper most, and start identifying companies to put some cash into.
“The undeniable fact is we cannot meet the Climate Act’s 2030 targets without imposing new and additional crushing costs on New York businesses and residents,” Hochul wrote in an opinion piece outlining her proposal in the Empire Report.
