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Comment by GMoromisato | Hacker News Reader

This is 100% uninformed opinion (sorry, HN) but allowing climate action to become a political issue (and a losing political issue at that) was the core mistake the environmental movement made in the 90s and beyond.

If we had created a broad-based constituency for climate action, say, working with industry to build nuclear power or supporting natural gas to displace coal or even funding more conservative think tanks, then we'd be in better shape.

A microcosm of this was local and federal politicians driving Elon Musk to the Republicans. Labor issues and regulatory roadblocks took precedence over supporting Tesla, forcing Musk to seek Trump as an ally. This immediately poisoned Tesla's reputation with liberals and probably set back adoption of EVs in the West.

If climate change is really an existential issue, then we should be willing to compromise on non-existential issues to build a broader coalition. But no one is in the mood for that.

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> but allowing climate action to become a political issue

What the hell are you talking about? What?!? This entire issue was a solved problem with a simple carbon tax (which is a conservative leaning policy) and then one party decided their strategy was going to be deny, then delay, then pose it as a fait accompli.

I was pretty damn conservative on a lot of issues when I started college... as it became more and more clear to me -- from taking earth science classes -- that climate change was very obviously happening and that we've known about it since the 1960s and that no serious person trying to suggest that it's not being made worse by human activity, that's when I started to thing that the Republicans were not going to take this issue seriously, ever.

Any centrist or conservative person who takes the issues seriously has no idea what to do because on party just decided to just say "lol, who cares." How in the hell is that environmental movement's fault!?! You look at the UK and environmentalism is not a partisan issue. Here, we have idiots holding snowballs in congress trying to score cheap political points.

I think what you're saying is conservatives should have support climate action (like a carbon tax).

Obviously, they did not, however. The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support? The problem wasn't getting liberals to support action, it was getting conservatives to support it. Therefore, we needed to do something to appeal to conservatives.

>The question is what could we (people who care about climate change) have done differently to get broader political support.

Literally nothing. Environmentalists can have done literally nothing different. If an entire party is going to take it upon themselves to make "climate change is a hoax" and their constituents are going to go along with it, you just have a large section of the electorate making terrible decision that will make us all poorer.

This isn't something that's a negotiation. The leftist solutions were rejected, the liberal solutions were rejected, the conservative solutions were rejected, and even the right-wing "end our dependency on foreign powers" was rejected. This was a deliberate policy choice by the right, and it was an asinine one.

This is anger and hatred, not logic or strategy. I don’t blame you, honestly. And there are many who feel exactly the same way.

But this is why we won’t stop global warming. Because beating our enemies is more important than saving the planet.

We can be kind, and do our best, and also call a spade a spade:

https://youtu.be/KtQ9nt2ZeGM?si=XwOG5FQ8qZ1AUBi5

I don't agree that EVs are worse for the environment than ICE cars. But I don't want to digress. My point isn't about a specific policy (carbon tax sounds reasonable to me, and I agree that it is/was a conservative idea).

My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservatives can agree on.

I still believe that if the West had built proportionally as many nuclear power plants as France, we would be in much better shape. But environmental activists fought them and here we are.

I think Elon going to the Trump side was another tragedy, mostly because of what it did to EV adoption, but also because it empowered the Republicans who deny climate change and reject solutions. I don't think you can claim that Elon's turn was good for liberals or for climate action.

These are two examples of climate action advocates pushing for policies that made the climate worse.

>My point is about how to accomplish the goal. If we care about climate change, how do we get political agreement? The only way is to find a deal that persuadable liberals and persuadable conservatives can agree on.

You can't. Liberals aren't going to kowtow to the American right (I don't even want to use small "c" conservative here because fighting climate change is a conservative position). At every point along the way it's made sense -- long term -- to fight climate change, and at every point the right has veto power

Look, I've always defended Elon Musk, even after he aligned himself with the hard right. By making EV's "acceptable" to the right, he changed the political alignment on the carbon issue, and he deserves credit there.

Even in blue states, with people assert that they are concerned about climate change we have much of the left states doubling down on sprawl as housing policy. We have people doing everything they can to signal that they care about climate, without being willing to give up their gas stove when given subsidies.

We're not even winning the argument very well with our allies. Politics is hard, even when people are open to being reasonable.

100% agree. But that's why I'm trying to convince liberals (I'm in California, FWIW) that they need a new strategy to stop climate change.

Oh look what happened today: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/climate/trump-epa-greenho...

Saying this is our fault for not being "nicer" is an absurdity. This is being done intentionally.

My point isn't about blame, it's about what should we do differently. And I'm focusing on the left because the left is the side that cares most about climate change. I'm suggesting that the things the left has done to fight climate change have not only not worked but have made things worse (in the sense that the electorate is so polarized).

If blaming Elon or Trump or conservatives in general could solve climate change, then it would have been solved. That's why I'm not interested in blame--not because they don't deserve it but because it's not going to help.

I agree with you in the general but both-siding at the present time when one side is engaging in egregious behavior and lies constantly to make the other side as crazy as they are themselves sounds like an attempt at avoiding accountability.

It's not the few green militant's fault if one side is denying and attacking science, the same way it's not a few crazy leftists' fault if one side is trying to undermine the rule of law and the constitutional order in order to cling to power.

See what I am doing ? I admitting that there are a few nutcases on my side. You ? You are just issuing a blanket defense of everyone on your side (in another comment) including the most egregious (Musk) while pretending to be in the center.

I am tired of all those fake centrists. "Sure he led a conspiracy to overturn the result of an election but on the other hand remember when Hillary called us deplorables ?"

Can't wait for accountability to make a come back

I'm honestly less interested in accountability than in doing something about climate change. If I could solve global warming by giving Elon an extra trillion dollars, I would. If I could solve global warming by giving Trump 4 more unconstitutional years, I probably maybe would (but it would kill me).

My argument is simple:

1. Not enough people support climate action.

2. We've tried demonizing people who don't support climate action and that hasn't worked--it only made them support it less.

3. Therefore, try the opposite: give people an incentive for supporting climate action. That means allying with political opponents, such as Elon or supporters of natural gas, or rich corporations. The broader the base of support for climate action, the easier it is to pass climate action legislation.

what labor issues and regulatory roadblocks? the man is halfway to becoming a trillionaire. if anything there wasn't enough labor legislation and more regulation to spread the wealth a bit

If you care more about preventing Elon from getting richer than getting more EV adoption, then that's exactly what I'm talking about.

If climate change is a major problem, then we should fight it, even if it means Elon gets richer. If you don't think it's a major problem, then mission accomplished.

elon could just as easily be producing EV cars as a single digit billionaire

I'm more than happy to criticize Elon, but seeing as he's only getting richer, I don't think he needs my advice.

But in this post, I'm criticizing people who demonize Tesla to stick it to Elon. That's going to hurt efforts to combat climate change. If you think billionaires getting richer is a bigger problem than climate change, I understand. But that's why global warming is getting worse--because even climate activists would rather fight different battles.

elon/tesla is not the only EV manufacturer, so idk why you are insisting on framing elon/tesla as some kind of climate messiah... in fact elon helped elect the most climate change denialist president in recent history so one might argue elon is actively hurting the global warming fight...

But that’s my argument. Having Elon support Trump was bad for the environment! We should have done more to keep him on our side!

No what's crazy is that something as apolitical as "many scientists specialized in climate have come to the conclusion" was successfully turned into something political thanks to a now well proven denialist playbook. We really need to stop both-siding that kind of thing. One side just said "We should do something about it to save us all" and the other side tried to come up with anything that could make them look evil but in the end what worked was bypassing reason entirely with this new thing called identity politics.

Elon Musk is a half-closeted white supremacist, he was always going to side with Trump. I don't mean that as an insult, this is just what I could gather from his tweets, preoccupations and "roman" salutes.

> If we had created a broad-based constituency for climate action, say, working with industry to build nuclear power or supporting natural gas to displace coal or even funding more conservative think tanks, then we'd be in better shape.

Or those conservatives could have come up with their own version of tackling the issue: nuclear and gas displacing coal. Some of them did I believe, it's just not the version who won in the end. It seems strange to blame the other side for their own "aesthetic" preferences (i.e renewables)

I really don't mean to start a flamewar but your comment gives me the vibe of "I became a nazi because my daughter wanted me to sort my trash" meme or something of the genre where there is no accountability and you are always just reacting to the wrongs of the other side.

I think people who care about climate change should stop doing things that don't work (or even make the problem worse). Demonizing Elon, demonizing nuclear power, demonizing natural gas, forcing people to cut back, supporting de-growth: none of these things have worked to stop climate change. Maybe we should try something different.

Unless, of course, the goal isn't to solve climate change but to demonize Elon. In that case, well done!

I would love to take the bait to talk about how Elon is very good at demonizing himself and does not need anyone to do it for him but I don't care that much about Elon as I care about climate change.

I would like to agree with you but saying "the people who care about that issue are irrational and should be doing X instead of Y" should not be used in defense of "I will deny the issue even exists and attack anyone who tries to alert about the issue"

That was my whole point and you missed it apparently. You just reformulated yours.

I think your argument is that allying with people who deny climate change is not going to fix the climate.

But this reminds me of the Israeli leader who was asked, "How can you sign a treaty with [the PLO, I think], they are your enemy!" And he replied, "You don't sign treaties with friends. You only need them with enemies."

If the political constituency for climate action were large enough, then we would have done something already. So we have to start pulling other people into the coalition.

People who oppose climate action are on a continuum. Some are climate change deniers and cannot be persuaded. But many would absolutely support climate action if the costs to them were low enough. Many more would stop opposing climate action if they got something that they wanted in exchange.

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