The Pentagon’s War Against Carbon

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There is a good conversation going on over in another corner of the web about the key hurdles that the White House faces in getting climate change legislation through the Senate. One of the issues I raised in that context is that outside of the Northeast and West Coast, climate change is still a “granola” issue and that supporters will need to grab on to some other arguments (i.e., national security, peak oil and the economy, etc.) if they are going to get a win. That change in tone began in earnest with Sunday’s NYT front-pager, but just because it is smart politics does not make it good policy.

The short-term political upside is that a good old American scarefest may deliver a few more votes in the industrial and agricultural Midwest and coal-dependent Southeast, and may rally some support from the military-industrial support structure. But, the fact that the White House has had to make the shift only drives home the fact that climate change still doesn’t play on its own. The reality is that even as technology has made the conversion to domestic, renewable power more likely in the intervening years, our policy discourse and public opinion have not moved all that much since Jimmy Carter first promised to get us off of foreign oil, and used the national security cudgel to do it.

On the political downside, the transition to a doomsday national security case gives a sliver of credence to the arguments that have been coming from way out on the Right, arguing something like: “Obama is out to change our American way of life, and he’ll use any means to do it…” Perhaps including his role as commander-in-chief? Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Amanda Dory followed up the Sunday story with a morning appearance on NPR’s On Point, sounding very much like someone not only told to go out and “make the case,” but even worse, like someone told what that case should sound like.

There are credible military voices out there taking up the climate change mantle, including Retired General Anthony Zinni and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey. They would carry this water much more persuasively than the internal DOD sources cited in the NYT and the current staffers that the White House is beginning to deploy. Unfortunately, neither of those are candidates for the job as they are both reputed to be on bad terms with Team Obama (Zinni took his grievances public just after the inauguration).

As health care steals more and more of the spotlight, climate change legislation looks less and less likely to pass the Senate. On the House side, Obama had to surrender the 100% auction method that he preferred, and Chairman Waxman also had to negotiate a whole bunch of other giveaways for coal staters and agribusiness interests. On the Senate side, there are already signs of more compromise and more pork.

Add in this groping for a selling point that will actually sell, and the whole climate change picture is bleak and a little desperate. Every day that we inch closer to Copenhagen, it looks less likely that Obama will ride into Denmark on the high horse he had hoped for back in the spring.