Making the Climate a Blue Issue Was a Mistake – BCB #118

Also: Yes, you should vote, and here's why.

Imagine a person who cares about climate action. Now, imagine their politics. Odds are, you pictured someone who leans Blue.

In recent decades, climate action has been deeply tied to the left. (We recently wrote about the partisan deadlock over renewable energy.) But climate change can and should be a cause that people across the political spectrum are invested in. The key to making that happen may well be in how we frame conversations about the issue.

As researcher and writer Simon Glynn put it in a recent article:

[G]rounding climate action in progressive politics is self-limiting and ultimately self-defeating. Most people in the climate movement would agree that to tackle climate change we need support and action across the economy and society, continually reinforced over time, and therefore over multiple election cycles. It may be true that if we could first elect progressive pro-environment governments all across the democratic world, it would become relatively easy to do what needs to be done. But nobody can seriously expect that to happen.

This begs the question: how exactly did climate action become so deeply entrenched in Blue politics? In a 2024 report, researcher Jeffrey Heninger traces the partisan history of environmentalism:

Climate scientists and environmentalists pursued alliances with Democratic politicians in the 1980s and early 1990s, while not pursuing alliances with Republican politicians, who were still receptive at the time. This neglect, along with several flawed attempts at legislation in the 1990s, gave fossil fuel companies an opportunity to ally with Republican politicians. The resulting increase in partisanship did not increase public support for environmentalism and made it less politically effective.

Because climate action is so tied to one side of the political spectrum it’s hard to get an accurate idea of who actually supports it. Most surveys show more Blue supporters than Red ones—but support for climate action is actually quite common on the right.

(Source)

A study co-authored by Glynn shows more Republicans agree with the need for immediate government action on climate change (41%) than disagree (39%). This year, a group of young conservatives even hosted a booth about climate, conservation and energy at the Republican National Convention. There is even more support among right-leaning populations in some other countries. In France, 71% of people who support Marine Le Pen’s National Rally agree with the need for immediate government action on climate change, while only 12% disagree.

Framing climate in terms of Blue language and values is likely suppressing the base of climate action supporters that actually does exist on the political right. Glynn says we don’t see this side “because we don’t speak to it, so it stays silent and largely latent.”

Certainly, there are both benefits and risks to linking an issue with a political side. If you can convince people that an issue is something their side should care about, you immediately have a vast cohort supporting it, perhaps without even thinking critically. By grouping climate action with other political buzzwords like reproductive rights and social justice, climate scientists and environmentalists who pursued alliances with Democratic politicians in ‘80s and ‘90s may have had an easier time getting many people on board quickly.

But this strategy has a downside — it also ostracizes people. Some of those who might care about climate action are lost once it is linked to issues they may not support. Coalescing supporters into a single political block might be helpful for getting individual bills to pass, but it can be an obstacle to making large-scale, global change.

Getting Red audiences on board with climate action may come down to reframing the issue. Glynn says climate action “supporters on the right are looking for growth and prosperity, and see sustainability as the way to achieve that, not as a substitute for it.” This messaging is within reach. As Glynn writes:

It is possible to satisfy both sides. Emotionally, the left and right share a sense of loss and longing, and a motivation to protect what they love for the next generation. We can build on that shared starting point, and embrace the legitimate differences the groups have about how to act on that motivation.

Why you should vote in November

The simplest and most fundamental way to be part of this country’s political future is to vote. And yet, in any given election in the U.S., somewhere between 35% and 60% of eligible voters never cast a ballot.

We know that it’s not always easy to vote. In a recent piece, Tangle’s Isaac Saul outlines some of the barriers there are to voting: it requires paperwork, a stable home address, meeting deadlines and sometimes taking time off work. But survey data indicates that logistics isn’t usually the problem. Instead, the majority of non-voters or irregular voters are apathetic—either they don’t like the candidates or they simply don’t care.

Earlier this year, when Biden was set to run against Trump, over a quarter of Americans held unfavorable views of both candidates. Since Harris replaced Biden in the race, the number of “double-haters” has decreased.

Still, there may be some people considering abstaining from voting in this election, like Democrats who reject Harris’ stance on Israel or anti-Trump Republicans who can’t bring themselves to vote for the opposing party.

For citizens considering abstinence this election, Saul has a few words. Even if your vote for president seems like it won’t make a difference in the state you live in, he points out that state and local races—as well as ballot initiatives—will appear on the same ballot:

These are not votes for candidates you don’t have faith in — they are literally an opportunity to, overnight, change the law in your state. Ballot initiatives, on their own, should be reason enough for you to show up at the polls in most elections … They could also change elections, like the initiative in Alaska that implemented ranked-choice voting.

What’s more, Saul points out that there have been many tight races in American history, and voting can signal trends to politicians, even if the result doesn’t go your way. Above all, the right to vote is a privilege:

[O]ur democracy isn’t guaranteed. If we stop participating in it, it will die. We are currently in a raucous, dangerous place, where many voters don’t believe election outcomes and gerrymandering has become a legitimate crisis.

That’s all the more reason to participate.

Quote of the Week

Gore, Kerry, and Sanders realized that they can win over a whole group of voters by being pro-environment and that the only way to outcompete the right was to be the more alarmist and toxic version of environmentalism, that the more you promoted an idea of radicalism and extremism, the more eyeballs you captured, the more fear you ignited … And so you had all these young people who became fearful of the issue that kind of saw them as messiahs of their issues, and there was no one on the right saying that same drastic message.

– Benji Backer, author of The Conservative Environmentalist