Stop blaming ‘both sides’ for America’s climate failures | Dana Nuccitelli

The fault lies entirely with the GOP. Focus on fixing it, not laying blame where it doesn’t belongSteven Pinker is a cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author of Bill Gates’ two favorite books. However, his latest – Enlightenment Now – has some serious shortcomings centering on Pinker’s misperceptions about climate change polarization. Pinker falls into the trap of ‘Both Siderism,’ acknowledging the Republican Party’s science denial, but also wrongly blaming liberals for the policy stalemate, telling Ezra Klein:there is implacable opposition to nuclear energy in much of the environmental movement ... There are organizations like Greenpeace and NRDC who are just dead set opposed to nuclear. There are also people on the left like Naomi Klein who are dead set against carbon pricing because it doesn’t punish the polluters enough ... the people that you identify who believe in a) carbon pricing and b) expansion of nuclear power, I suspect they’re a tiny minority of the people concerned with climate … What we need are polling data on how many people really would support carbon pricing and an expansion of nuclear and other low carbon energy sources.I tracked down this study. It wasn’t easy since Kristof’s column doesn’t link to it. Or provide the title. Or name any of the authors. Or say when it was published. The study can be found here, and its main results are in the screencap below. https://t.co/NcEYCFK04c pic.twitter.com/NJTbWLB4nZHere's how it works--the "liberal" New York Times has 3 right-wing columnists who each write 2 columns a week; the right wing Wall Street Journal has no liberal columnists. "Liberal" PBS just created a new show for conservatives, no liberals ever appear on right-wing Fox. Continue reading...