Climate Change, Part 2: It’s all about the Process!

The weekly conversation in The New York Times Opinion pages between Bret Stephens and former deputy editorial page editor Gail Collins, chair of last year’s Pulitzer Committee and a reliable Democratic voice, could have been scripted off of the end of the last blog post. It’s a too on-the-nose example of how a legitimate argument over big or small government gets transformed through the institutional focus on “good government” into an argument over process. In this framing, climate’s already a problem that should be addressed by the national institutions, the only question is how much corporate and how much state power should we use to fight it? Stephens keeps his free-market (conservative??) bona fides as Collins scolds him for his “scary” free-marketeerism, but also praises him for “mov[ing] the debate forward.” Everybody wins, except the people on the outside.

Gail:…Now Bret, before we talk about anything else, I want to thank you for that wonderful piece on your visit to Greenland…Your change of mind on the global warming issue is so important, and while we don’t quite agree on some details — like, um, how to solve the problem — the fact that you made the effort to go there and then came around in your thinking should really move the debate forward.

[…]

Bret: …I’m sorry I didn’t persuade you on the solutions side of the argument. So, you don’t think the free market solves any and all problems?

Gail: Surprise! This is a perfect case of the need for government intervention. You’ve shown how private enterprise can do a lot for Greenland, but the idea of nuclear power and fracking without a lot of oversight is just plain scary to me.

Bret: I’m all for sensible regulations that curb pollution and ensure no corners get cut when it comes to health and safety. But we’ve so overregulated some of the industries we need for a cleaner future that we’ve driven some of them out of business and sent others abroad.

Most of the rest of the exchange talks about the need to elect “the better candidate regardless of party.” Again, the focus is on process and good government, not on the fundamentally different policies the two warring parties are actually pushing.

This maneuvering matters because it shows the arguments Democrats and some of their institutionalist allies will make. If a Republican candidate gets into office, they’ll be hearing from conservative think tanks like Heritage. But they’ll also be hearing from more moderate voices like Bret Stephens. They should keep in mind that Stephens’ point of view, however earnest it might be, is very different from most of the people who put them in office.