Managing an economy-wide transition to clean energy sources, which is what most climate change activists call for, is at least two orders of magnitude more difficult. And we had also assumed the British civil service was much more able than it proved itself to be. For the UK, we were dumbfounded by the Tories having no interest in even understanding the magnitude of the undertaking, let alone doing very little to prepare. For Greece, the government was so diminished due to years of austerity that it couldn’t even field a proper negotiating team to square off with the EU, let alone devise and implement a massive economic restructuring.

For both, we stressed that for them to succeed, it would take war level planning and mobilization.

Regular readers may also recall that we were critical of both advocates of a Greek exit from the EU and Brexit. It must also set forth an action plan that is sufficiently developed and substantiated that it will survive attack by the “negative” or status quo supporter. But that is not sufficient for the affirmative side to win a debate. In mere high school debate, the affirmative side, which advocates for change, must establish either a significant need for change or provide a significant benefit. But even if there is now more tacit acceptance, that is a hell of a long way from devising and implementing the necessary and massive reworking of how society provisions itself.

Most people now accept that planetary warming is largely if not entirely the result of industrial activity. So I hate to make an unflattering but accurate comparison: their grasp on the magnitude of change needed to prevent the worst climate outcomes is as least as poor as Pete Buttigieg’s of what is required to get the West Coast ports unjammed.

I know that Medea Benjamin and Nicholas Davies and the various climate change activists they recognize in the post below mean well.

Fallout 4 louder radio