The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Republicans vs. the planet

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Dave Roberts is an energy and climate writer at Vox and a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He started as his career covering climate science and clean energy technology, but -- for reasons we discuss here -- he now writes just as much about political psychology, media ecosystems, political institutions, and how they intersect with climate change. We cover a lot in this conversation, including:

  • “Tribal epistemology,” and why it’s crucial to climate paralysis 
  • How the GOP went from the party of cap-and-trade to the party of climate denial 
  • Why the right and left-wing media ecosystem’s diverged so dramatically
  • What today’s climate activists get right about our politics that their predecessors got wrong
  • The carbon tax dead-end
  • How nuclear energy became so divisive
  • The conflicting moral and social visions at the heart of the climate movement 
  • Why it is impossible to separate technological innovation from the policy ecosystem that shapes it 
  • Whether climate change really is an “existential” threat 
  • What climate change will mean for the world’s poor


    • References:

    Dave Roberts on America's "epistemic crisis."

    Book recommendations:

    Caught Stealing by Charlie Huston

    "State of the Species" by Charles C. Mann


    My book is available for pre-order! You can find it at www.EzraKlein.com.

    Submit questions for our upcoming "Ask Me Anything" at [email protected]

    You can subscribe to Ezra's new podcast Impeachment, explained on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Overcast, Pocket Casts, or your favorite podcast app.

    Credits:

    Producer and Editor - Jeff Geld

    Researcher - Roge Karma

    Engineers - Cynthia Gil

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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